Wiring Help Rotary Switch (3 Pole 4 Way)

[JohnDoeJersey]

I recently bought a SD Hot Rodded Humbucker Set and I would like to wire both humbuckers to a 3 Pole 4 Way rotary switch in order to switch between Series / Split Inner Coils / Split Outer Coil and either Kill Switch

Ideally (and if at all possible)

Position 1 - Series
Position 2 - Inner Coil Split
Position 3 - Outer Coil Split
Position 4 - Kill Switch or Series Again or whatever could be useful I don't mind =)

With a single volume control (No Tone) and a 3-Way toggle Selector



This is the switch I use.

Position 1: continuity between 1A & A 1B & B and 1C & C
Position 2: continuity between 2A & A 2B & B and 2C & C
Position 3: continuity between 3A & A 3B & B and 3C & C
Position 4: continuity between 4A & A 4B & B and 4C & C

So if someone could tell me how to wire my pickups with SD color code I would be thankful.

Something like H1 Black to B - H2 Black to C - H1 Red to 2A and 3B etc...

Thanks in advance.

[ArtieToo]

Re: Wiring Help Rotary Switch (3 Pole 4 Way)

Welcome to the forum. We need a bit more info. When you say "series", do you mean both pickups in series? Or each pup in it's normal HB'er mode? Do you have a separate switch that will be doing the neck & bridge selection?

[beaubrummels]

Wiring Help Rotary Switch (3 Pole 4 Way)

I think you’d bring the red+white of the pickups to lug A and lug B, 1A and 1B connect to nothing. 2A and 2B connect to hot of their respective pickups and 3A and 3B connect to ground of their respective pickups (I forget which is inner vs outer), then you’d have to use another normal switch for pickup selection.

[JohnDoeJersey]

Re: Wiring Help Rotary Switch (3 Pole 4 Way)

What I meant Artie is I want to use the Rotary Switch in combination of a 3-Way Toggle Switch for pickup selection. So I just need the Rotary to act like a Mini-toggle and let me choose how the humbucker coil are activated. So it means that series is normal humbucking.

Welcome to the forum. We need a bit more info. When you say "series", do you mean both pickups in series? Or each pup in it's normal HB'er mode? Do you have a separate switch that will be doing the neck & bridge selection?

[JohnDoeJersey]

Re: Wiring Help Rotary Switch (3 Pole 4 Way)

I think you’d bring the red+white of the pickups to lug A and lug B, 1A and 1B connect to nothing. 2A and 2B connect to hot of their respective pickups and 3A and 3B connect to ground of their respective pickups (I forget which is inner vs outer), then you’d have to use another normal switch for pickup selection.

First of all, thank you BeauBrummels, second of all when you say connect 3A and 3B to their respective grounds you mean either the Green or Black wire depending on their orientation ?
Which lugs go to pickup selector 4A and 4B ?
Also would the 4th position do something or nothing at all ?

[beaubrummels]

Wiring Help Rotary Switch (3 Pole 4 Way)

First of all, thank you BeauBrummels, second of all when you say connect 3A and 3B to their respective grounds you mean either the Green or Black wire depending on their orientation ?
Which lugs go to pickup selector 4A and 4B ?
Also would the 4th position do something or nothing at all ?

I would expect the red+white needs to move between the hot and ground of its own pickup, meaning the black or the bare of the pickup the red+white came from.

It might work other ways. It’s difficult to check without drawing it out and/or testing a few options with the actual parts in hand. So take what I said with a grain of salt.

I don’t know what else you would do with position 4. There aren’t enough lugs to do anything more tricky.

[JohnDoeJersey]

Re: Wiring Help Rotary Switch (3 Pole 4 Way)

Thanks again for trying Beau but so far I still have a hard time figuring out what to try.

So let's recap from what I understood.

(H for Humbucker)

H1 Red & White to A
H2 Red & White to B

H1 Black to 2A
H2 Black to 2B

H1 Green to 3A then to ground
H2 Green to 3B then to ground

Now do I connect for instance H1 Black to 2B and then connect it to the pickup Toggle Switch or do I connect another lug from the the Rotary Switch to the Pickup Toggle Switch ?

(Sorry but I have no idea how wiring actually works so I might ask dumb questions)

I would expect the red+white needs to move between the hot and ground of its own pickup, meaning the black or the bare of the pickup the red+white came from.

It might work other ways. It’s difficult to check without drawing it out and/or testing a few options with the actual parts in hand. So take what I said with a grain of salt.

I don’t know what else you would do with position 4. There aren’t enough lugs to do anything more tricky.

[beaubrummels]

Wiring Help Rotary Switch (3 Pole 4 Way)

2A would continue on to one side of the toggle switch, 2B would go to the other side of the toggle switch. Don’t bridge the black wires together or you’ll always have both pickups on.

[ArtieToo]

Re: Wiring Help Rotary Switch (3 Pole 4 Way)

First, prep your switch with some jumpers.

Jump:

A1 to B1

A3 to A4 to B3

A2 to B2 to B4

Connect black to A4
Connect green to B4
Connect red to B
Connect white to A
Connect ground to A2
Connect hot output to B3

Note also, that because the jumpers are "shorts, then:

Black and "out" can attach to either A3, A4 or B3.
Green and ground can attach to either B2, B4 or A2.

It's just whatever's most convenient.



Edit: I, personally, would find it more useful to make the 4th position parallel, rather than "kill". I can modify this if you want that.

[ArtieToo]

Re: Wiring Help Rotary Switch (3 Pole 4 Way)

Here's for parallel on the 4th position:

[JohnDoeJersey]

Re: Wiring Help Rotary Switch (3 Pole 4 Way)

Thanks alot BeauBrummels, everything worked as intended.

2A would continue on to one side of the toggle switch, 2B would go to the other side of the toggle switch. Don’t bridge the black wires together or you’ll always have both pickups on.

[JohnDoeJersey]

Re: Wiring Help Rotary Switch (3 Pole 4 Way)

Thanks alot Artie I'll give that a try with my next guitar next week probably. And indeed 4th position Parallel is way better.

Just to clarify I connect both humbuckers Whites to A and Reds to B ?

Here's for parallel on the 4th position:

[ArtieToo]

Re: Wiring Help Rotary Switch (3 Pole 4 Way)

Thanks alot Artie I'll give that a try with my next guitar next week probably. And indeed 4th position Parallel is way better.

Just to clarify I connect both humbuckers Whites to A and Reds to B ?

No, no! That switch will only do one pickup. At least, for those combo's. Now, you could use the unused "C" section to split the other pup. You would solder red and white together and connect them to the "C" terminal. Then take any of the C 1-4 terminals to ground at whatever switch position that you wanted the split to the stud coil to occur. Also, you could take any of the three left over to go to that's pup black wire to split to the screw coil in that position.

[Supernautilus]

Old thread bump!!!!

Well, I was researching this very topic and found this thread. So I decided to resurrect it so I could ask a couple questions.

I bought a few of these exact 3 pole 4 way rotary switches. I want to try one of these on my Jazz bass. But I’d like to hook it up like a Tele 4 way switch, which is what I’m used to. So the positions would be:

1) bridge
2) parallel
3) series
4) neck

Can anyone point me to a wiring diagram for this using this rotary switch? Thanks!