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H S S w/coil tap, RWRP pickup position, wiring

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  • H S S w/coil tap, RWRP pickup position, wiring

    I have a guitar in which I am putting (don't laugh) two Strat Lipstick Tube pickups and a Pearly Gates humbucker in the bridge position; I'm using a standard 5-position blade switch and have a push-pull pot I'm going to use to coil tap the humbucker. I would like the combination of the coil-tapped humbucker and the middle-position single coil to be appropriately hum-cancelling. I have played with magnets and a multimeter and perused threads here and wiring diagrams all over until my eyes bleed, and I think I know what needs to be done, but I would still very much appreciate someone with more experience just telling me I'm doing this correctly before I start swearing at the soldering iron and burning my fingers.

    Here's what I think I should do:

    The humbucker's green wire goes to ground, the red and white wires get connected together (and to the switch that grounds them for coil-tapping), and the black wire goes to the pickup selector switch. This will cause the SLUG coil to be active when tapped. (The screw coil gets shunted to ground.)

    The RW/RP Lipstick Tube pickup goes in the NECK position, because its magnets are oriented in the same direction as those of the humbucker's slug coil.

    The regular Lipstick Tube goes in the MIDDLE position, because its magnets are opposite those of the humbucker's slug coil.

    Both the single-coils have their BLACK leads grounded (the opposite of the humbucker) and their WHITE leads go to the pickup selector. This will cause the slug coil in the humbucker and the regular-polarity, middle-position, Lipstick Tube pickup to be wound oppositely. (And, of course, the two Lipstick Tubes will be counter-wound, counter-polarity with each other, too.)

    I'm 85% sure this is correct, but like I said, I'd really appreciate someone who is more confident than I am saying, "Yep, do it."

    Thanks so much.

  • #2
    Re: H S S w/coil tap, RWRP pickup position, wiring

    Since nobody answered, I went ahead and pulled the trigger on this, and it turned out to be exactly what I needed to do.

    I think the right approach is to use a magnet to make sure the magnets in the north coil of the bridge humbucker and the middle-position single-coil are facing opposite directions, then use a multimeter to determine which leads should be "hot" and which should be "ground".

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    • #3
      Re: H S S w/coil tap, RWRP pickup position, wiring

      First of all...you can't "tap" the PG unless you had it custom wound with an added tap wire. I'm sure you meant to say "split".

      Second...you can't change the wind direction of the lipsticks if both have their black wires grounded unless they are already RW to each other. If, as you say, this is already the case, then yes you would use the lipstick that is wound opposite to the bucker as the middle position pup.

      Third...the humbucker doesn't have a slug coil magnet. There's only one magnet which is used equally by the slug and the screw coils, whether you are split to the slug or screw coil or in full bucker mode (either series or parallel).

      Forth...a multimeter won't tell you the direction of the wind or which lead should be "hot" or "ground". You can tell by looking at the actual pup coil to see which wire is the "start" and which is the "finish" wire. Knowing which is start and finish well tell you which wire should be hot.
      Originally Posted by IanBallard
      Rule of thumb... the more pot you have, the better your tone.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: H S S w/coil tap, RWRP pickup position, wiring

        Originally posted by GuitarDoc View Post
        First of all...you can't "tap" the PG unless you had it custom wound with an added tap wire. I'm sure you meant to say "split".
        Yes, sorry, thank you. I meant "split", not "tap".

        Third...the humbucker doesn't have a slug coil magnet. There's only one magnet which is used equally by the slug and the screw coils, whether you are split to the slug or screw coil or in full bucker mode (either series or parallel).
        Sure, but the slugs and screws, by virtue of being right up against that magnet, get sympathetically magnetized, and in opposite directions. If you take something magnetic (like another pickup) and hold it over the slugs and then hold it over the screws in the same orientation, it'll get attracted by one and repelled by the other. However that magnet reacts when you're holding it over the slug coil (if that's the one you want active during the coil split), it should react the opposite way when held over the pole pieces of the middle-position single-coil (if you're going after RW/RP-style hum cancelling in that configuration).

        Second...you can't change the wind direction of the lipsticks if both have their black wires grounded unless they are already RW to each other. If, as you say, this is already the case, then yes you would use the lipstick that is wound opposite to the bucker as the middle position pup.
        You can effectively change the wind direction by swapping which wire goes to ground and which wire goes to the pickup selector (or volume control or output or whatever). (I realize that some single-coils have internal shielding or chassis grounding, which may affect which type of hookup is preferable.)

        Forth...a multimeter won't tell you the direction of the wind or which lead should be "hot" or "ground". You can tell by looking at the actual pup coil to see which wire is the "start" and which is the "finish" wire. Knowing which is start and finish well tell you which wire should be hot.
        Start by clipping the red probe on the meter to the "hot" lead of your pickup, and the black probe on the meter to the "ground" lead on your pickup (or the other way around--it doesn't matter as long as you do it the same way with each pickup). Set the meter to a sensitive setting (I use the 200 mV setting in mine), then bring a large chunk of metal (like a wrench or a beefy pair of pliers) rapidly toward and rapidly away from the pole pieces. The meter should register a negative spike when you move the pliers in one direction and a positive spike in the other. This won't tell you the actual wind direction, but, in conjunction with the relative polarities (that you determined with a magnet), will tell you the relative wind directions between the pickups. Ideally, you want all three pickups to behave the same way--either all positive spikes when the pliers approach and negative spikes when you pull them away, or all negative spikes when the pliers approach and positive spikes when you pull them away. Pickups with reverse magnet polarity that behave the same way will be wound (or at least "effectively wound") in opposite directions.

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