Anyone Using The Stewmac 'Free-Way' 6 Position Pickup Switch ?

[crusty philtrum]

Does anyone have any experience with these switches ? (LP style toggle switch with 6 positions, 2 rows of 3). Some of the reviews at Stewmac claim they are flimsy and unreliable, others claim they are sturdy and work well.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electro...witches_and_knobs/Free-Way_Pickup_Switch.html

I know they require some modification to fit the standard position on a Les Paul, but for my application, there is plenty of space. I'm just looking at it as a way to get the 'other' sounds from a pair of humbuckers in addition to the regular 3 sounds, without adding more switches or using push-pull pots.

Anyone ?

 

[uOpt]

Re: Anyone Using The Stewmac 'Free-Way' 6 Position Pickup Switch ?

Well, it ships with useless documentation. Once you track down useful documentation you'll see that it is PCB-hardwired to do certain things and hard to adapt to do a random thing that you want. It is not a bunch of free poles.

I didn't get to use mine at all yet. Pretty sad.

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: Anyone Using The Stewmac 'Free-Way' 6 Position Pickup Switch ?

I don't plan to do anything out-of-the-ordinaty with it, just normal 3-way for regular humbucker operation, and parallel wiring for one or both pickups. I don't need to switch them individually to parallel, switching both together would be fine.

I have downloaded the pdf diagrams for it, but haven't had time to study them yet.

But i'm interested in their durability and accuracy/ reliability of operation as much as the functions.

 

[uOpt]

Re: Anyone Using The Stewmac 'Free-Way' 6 Position Pickup Switch ?

I don't plan to do anything out-of-the-ordinaty with it, just normal 3-way for regular humbucker operation, and parallel wiring for one or both pickups.

Well...

Be sure to post the diagram if you can make it do it

 

[eviltobz]

Re: Anyone Using The Stewmac 'Free-Way' 6 Position Pickup Switch ?

I'd also be interested to hear if anyone has experience with em. They may not be flexible enough to do everything that uOpt wants, but I only wanted to add the standard coil splitting ability that is in the documentation anyways rather than having to chuck in a push pull pot and then have some _really_ messy wiring due to the locations of control cavities in my peavey wolfgang.

 

[DoronEsh]

Re: Anyone Using The Stewmac 'Free-Way' 6 Position Pickup Switch ?

I've got one in my SG3 and it works just fine. Fits in the SG cavity without any mods or drills. I had some problems with some of the positions in the beginning, and then I opened the cavity up and found out that my tech, who installed the switch, didn't insulate the "legs" like he should have. A few wraps of insulation tape solved these problems and that's that. Works fine ever since.

I might be able to help you with the wiring scheme if you post it, since it took me and my tech two weeks of joint effotrs to figure out just how the darn thing works.

DoDo

 

[eviltobz]

Re: Anyone Using The Stewmac 'Free-Way' 6 Position Pickup Switch ?

nice to hear some good reports of it