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If you don't like long reads, this won't be for you, but I have been doing a lot of 5 way Super Switch wiring lately and finding reliable, accurate and fully functioning diagrams has proven to be fruitless. So I figured I would help try and make it a little bit easier. For those of you who are looking into a Super Switch, it is pretty basic. It is simply a 4 pole 5 position switch. All that means is that each time you move the switch a position, it moves all four poles one position as well. This allows you to have 4 connections change per switch movement. The reason you would use this switch is if you want to be able to wire a Humbucking pickup to go from Series to Parallel or to have multiple pickup options occur for each position. Not a very practical switch to use with single coils that you desire to have wired in a conventional way. The hardest part about wiring a Super Switch is that you have to wrap your head around all the different ways you can route wiring on the switch to make a particular change. As with just about everything, keeping it simple and efficient is the best way.
I most recently wired a Telecaster with two humbuckers and a 5 way Super Switch so that it would be series, parallel, both pickups together wired normally ( in series ), and then parallel, series from position 1 ( at the bridge ) to position 5 ( the neck ). I looked for a bit and only found 1 wiring diagram from Guitar Electronics that would work for my needs. The problem was that the diagram was not a very well designed one. It required about 20 connection out of the 24 lugs on the switch and even worse was that it kept both pickups north coils in circuit at all times which means in position 1 you could still hear the necks north coil and in position 5 you could hear the bridges north coil. Now the unused coil was not a completed circuit, but it was still an antenna which means that when you played you could hear it and if you touched it with a metal object, you could hear it Also keep in mind that the south coils ground connection is also always technically in circuit. This means that there is potential for the pickups north and south coils to have crosstalk even though they don't have a physical connection. This is less than ideal as you can imagine. The best way to wire pickups is so that the hot leads are out of circuit when not in use. I will show the diagram and then you can compare it to mine.
I came up with a way that requires significantly fewer connections and makes it so each pickup is completely out of the circuit ( with exception to the ground connections ) when not selected. It cleans up the wiring significantly and even more so it is just simpler and more efficient.
Here are those diagrams for reference:
This is the Guitar Electronics diagram and as you can see there is a fair amount going on connection wise. Almost every single one of the 24 lugs is being utilized.
My drawing isn't as nice or detailed, sorry, I don't have any cad software, just paint shop! Anyway. You can see how my way of doing pretty much the same thing requires almost no crazy jumpers or connections:
This is just this one configuration and I hope you find some use from it. Please post your others in here so we can compile Super Switch wirings for easy reference.
I most recently wired a Telecaster with two humbuckers and a 5 way Super Switch so that it would be series, parallel, both pickups together wired normally ( in series ), and then parallel, series from position 1 ( at the bridge ) to position 5 ( the neck ). I looked for a bit and only found 1 wiring diagram from Guitar Electronics that would work for my needs. The problem was that the diagram was not a very well designed one. It required about 20 connection out of the 24 lugs on the switch and even worse was that it kept both pickups north coils in circuit at all times which means in position 1 you could still hear the necks north coil and in position 5 you could hear the bridges north coil. Now the unused coil was not a completed circuit, but it was still an antenna which means that when you played you could hear it and if you touched it with a metal object, you could hear it Also keep in mind that the south coils ground connection is also always technically in circuit. This means that there is potential for the pickups north and south coils to have crosstalk even though they don't have a physical connection. This is less than ideal as you can imagine. The best way to wire pickups is so that the hot leads are out of circuit when not in use. I will show the diagram and then you can compare it to mine.
I came up with a way that requires significantly fewer connections and makes it so each pickup is completely out of the circuit ( with exception to the ground connections ) when not selected. It cleans up the wiring significantly and even more so it is just simpler and more efficient.
Here are those diagrams for reference:
This is the Guitar Electronics diagram and as you can see there is a fair amount going on connection wise. Almost every single one of the 24 lugs is being utilized.
My drawing isn't as nice or detailed, sorry, I don't have any cad software, just paint shop! Anyway. You can see how my way of doing pretty much the same thing requires almost no crazy jumpers or connections:
This is just this one configuration and I hope you find some use from it. Please post your others in here so we can compile Super Switch wirings for easy reference.
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