Coil spilt - I don't think I did it right! :(

[BramcoteLorne]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if you could help me out:

I have just installed a old seymour duncan pickup into the bridge of my strat - looking at the pictures on the site I'm pretty sure that it is a 'hotstack'

I wired the green and the shielding to ground
the black to the switch
and the red and the white to two poles on a push/pull volume pot (red in the centre white on the outside)

my problem is that while the pickup sounds great running both coils when I split it with the pot the volume drops right down - and I mean right down so it's hardly audible.

however if I select the middle pickup with the split bridge it's back to normal volume :S

Have I wired it wrong or is it just not advisable to try to split this kind of pickup?

Any help would be great. :dance:


thanks,


dave.

 

[Artie]

Re: Coil spilt - I don't think I did it right!

Red and white should go together. The "outside" lug that you refer to should go to either hot or ground depending on which coil you want to split.

Look at this thread: Installing new pickups for a pic that might help.

Artie

Edit: BTW - Welcome to the forum.

 

[tone4days]

Re: Coil spilt - I don't think I did it right!

yup. artie nailed it .. the red/white wires need to be soldered together ... then the switch action can connect the pair of them to ground (or hot) thus splitting the pickup

 

[BramcoteLorne]

Re: Coil spilt - I don't think I did it right!

wow thanks guys for the quick response!

I had a look at the other thread and that did help too.

Just one more question before I open my guitar up again:

what would the differance in sound be from using either the black or the green?


thanks again for all your help.



dave.

 

[tone4days]

Re: Coil spilt - I don't think I did it right!

by itself, not much

the difference would come when you put it in combination with another pickup ... ou would get phase and polarity issues to deal with ... sometimes you HAVE to switch the green/black wires in order to preserve the phase / polarity relationship

i had to on my 540s .. works great

cheers
t4d

 

[Kent S.]

Re: Coil spilt - I don't think I did it right!

wow thanks guys for the quick response!

I had a look at the other thread and that did help too.

Just one more question before I open my guitar up again:

what would the differance in sound be from using either the black or the green?


thanks again for all your help.



dave.

Route ground to the red & white when split, the reason is that that will leave the coil close to the strings on ... not the one underneath it ... i.e. ... more volume.

 

[Fusion1]

Re: Coil spilt - I don't think I did it right!

Kent how would you wire that same pickup and be able to switch between the split coils? Would a normal DP/DT switch be all thats required on-on-on (front slug split - full humbucking - adjustable screw split). I have done this once before but didn't save a schematic as to how I did it.

Would you need 2 DP/DT switches: 1 to split the coil and the other to select between the two?

 

[Kent S.]

Re: Coil spilt - I don't think I did it right!

Kent how would you wire that same pickup and be able to switch between the split coils? Would a normal DP/DT switch be all thats required on-on-on (front slug split - full humbucking - adjustable screw split). I have done this once before but didn't save a schematic as to how I did it.

Would you need 2 DP/DT switches: 1 to split the coil and the other to select between the two?

I thought we were talking about a vertical stacked humbucking single coil ...hotstack ? You wouldn't want the bottom coil on, although I guess you could ...same wiring as a HB, ground tap leaves the black and white coil on (top coil hotstack, or slug on full size HB) hot tap leaves the screw coil on
(bottom coil on hotstack) ... it's on the SD site.

 

[Fusion1]

Re: Coil spilt - I don't think I did it right!

Kent sorry I did misread that I thought he was referring to a normal humbucker. In any event the Duncan site that shows that, shows either or, not the ability to switch between them, thats what my poorly worded question was asking.

 

[tone4days]

Re: Coil spilt - I don't think I did it right!

Kent how would you wire that same pickup and be able to switch between the split coils? Would a normal DP/DT switch be all thats required on-on-on (front slug split - full humbucking - adjustable screw split). I have done this once before but didn't save a schematic as to how I did it.

Would you need 2 DP/DT switches: 1 to split the coil and the other to select between the two?

i did exactly this with an on-off-on DPDT ... red/white to the center lug of the switch - green to one side lug, black to the other ... with the switch up, i get the "slug coil only" - mid position is normal (internal series) humbucker ... down is "screw coil only" ... i wired the neck pup to one side of the DPDT and the bridge pup to the other side, but inverted the green and black ... this allowed me to get 'inner' and 'outer' combinations when i had the main pup switch in the middle (both humbuckers combined in parallel) ... i had to do a mag flip to keep the hum cancelling ... works like a champ

hope this helps
cheers
t4d

 

[Fusion1]

Re: Coil spilt - I don't think I did it right!

ok so it sounds like you described the following diagram:

 

[Fusion1]

Re: Coil spilt - I don't think I did it right!

actually after re-reading it sounds like you mean the black wire is on the top lug (in the diagram) and the green on the bottom. That doesnt actually make sense then as the Black/green should be doing the exact opposite of the red/white since it is the opposing coil in every way. Also the black would need to be connected with a jumper to make a new hot wire to the volume or output jack as needed correct?

 

[Fusion1]

Re: Coil spilt - I don't think I did it right!

Tone 4 Days, can you possibly draw out a schematic as explaining it takes on a whole new meaning to the word confusion. I especially like the idea of your using neck and bridge picjkups with the split but comprehending it in words was not 100% for me i have to see it to make it perfectly clear. Thanks.

 

[tone4days]

Re: Coil spilt - I don't think I did it right!

i'll see what i can do later tonight about a pic .. wont be easy for me with limited s/w drawing tools here ... in a nutshell, it's this (i think):

. gren (neck) - [] [] - blk (bridge)
.
. r&w (neck) > [] [] < r&w (bridge)
.
. blak (neck) - [] [] - grn (bridge)


when the switch is 'up' the neck red/white is shorted to the neck green and the bridge red/white is shorted to the bridge black ... vice versa when it is 'down' ... and in the middle, they're both regular humbuckers .. remember this is an on-off-on 3-way mini toggle DPDT

hope this helps

cheers
t4d

EDIT: damn, i cant get this crude 'drawing' to line up ... i'll try a proper schematic after work

 

[Fusion1]

Re: Coil spilt - I don't think I did it right!

That helps so much tone4days. Makes it so much clearer visualizing it. I still don't know the intricacies of WHY it works (with the black and green wires being separate and not together like the red and white), but at least I can wire it up thanks to your creative diagram. :-D

 

[Fusion1]

Re: Coil spilt - I don't think I did it right!

Tone 4 days, one last question. Does this wiring you provided negate the typical 3 way switch between humbuckers? And if the 3-way switch worked as normal, the up position of the DP/DT would only effect one or the other pickup if the 3-way switch wasn't in the middle position correct?

Lastly how would you wire this up to the 3-way switch? I am guessing the center lug for the bridge side would go to one side of the 3-way and the center lug of the neck side of the DP/DT would go to the other side of the 3-way, correct? T H A N K S!!!!

 

[tone4days]

Re: Coil spilt - I don't think I did it right!

i am not quite sure how to answer the 'why' part , but i'll give it a try ... i think of it this way (which is probably technically incorrect, but close enough in practicality) ...

think of the circuit as starting on the black wire of one of the coils ... the circuit winds around and around the bobbin and comes out on the white wire ... then it connects to the red wire and continues on winding around and around the other coil and finally comes out on the green wire .... so the continuous flow is black-> white -> red -> green ...

now, if you short out the red/white junction point to the black ... you only have the red /green coil operating .... vice versa if you short out the red/white junction to the green - only the white/black coil is operating ... this is for an double coil pickup wired in series (internally)

you are correct, if you are in the up or down position of the 3-way pickup switch, the mini toggle only effects the pickup selected - it lets you split either coil or have them both on 'normally' ... if you are in the middleposition of the 3 way, the mini toggle is effecting them both at the same time - you can get inner coils / both humbuckers combined in parallel / outer coils - 9 total different sounds

as for the 3-way wiring, unfortunately i cant help because i've never done one .. i've only done this on my ibanez with a 5 way and on a p type megaswitch 5 way

hope this helps - i also hope that artie or chip or kent or robert or lew or 20th century or someone comes along sometime soon to help you out 'the last mile' on the 3 way

good luck
cheers
t4d

 

[Artie]

Re: Coil spilt - I don't think I did it right!

hope this helps - i also hope that artie or chip or kent or robert or lew or 20th century or someone comes along sometime soon to help you out 'the last mile' on the 3 way

good luck
cheers
t4d

You covered it pretty good - but I speak with pictures, so it'll have to wait 'til I get home. :laugh2:

 

[Fusion1]

Re: Coil spilt - I don't think I did it right!

Tone4days, thanks alot and yeah the LAST MILE is the hardest mile, I've come along so far, but a few connections short of success!

Thanks for the explanation, it sounds more clear now that I know the black and red wires are opposite ends. For some reason I mistakenly made the assumption that the black coil was the opposite end of the green wire and the white and red were opposites since they are routinely wired together. Now I know the difference thanks.

****Paging KentS or Artie TOO****

 

[Artie]

Re: Coil spilt - I don't think I did it right!

Hey Fusion; I'm not sure if this addresses your last question or not, but at least it shows one how coils are split, as far as the colors and switch positions go.

This shows all three positions, of one side of an on-off-on DPDT switch:

The light blue, shows the electrical path through all three variations, stud coil, adjustable coil, and humbucker operation. (With HB in the middle.)

Hope this helps, and I can elaborate, if necessary.

Artie