Can I wire a coil tap like a coil split?

Owedin

New member
hello,

I just ordered a set of Stra-Bro 90s' from the custom shop a few weeks ago and will be dropping them into a silver sky SE. I've been doing some research and have found very little and/or conflicting info about wiring a coil tap from other people, so I'm here to the forms to find somebody who can maybe help me. I've labeled the photos best I can as to not confuse anybody here.

My original idea was to use three CTS pots for three different switches, like in Photo #1 but to do that and fit the pickguard on the guitar without routing, I need to point the pots in some weird way that I'm not exactly comfortable with.

I then thought that maybe I can wire the coil tapping like a Coil Split and just have one switch in the volume and have it work like Photo #2

So can it be wired like a coil split and still work correctly?

I've got 3 250K CTS DPDT push pull pots and two 250K "A" CTS single volume pots and a CRL switch. I am also going to add a tone bleed and for tone caps I haven't decided if I am going to put a .022uF OR .047uF yet. I have both but I think the .022uF will sound the best in my circuit.

TL;DR Can I wire a Stra-bro 90 Coil Tap like a Coil Split?


Photo #1 Seymour Duncan Coil Tapping Diagram with mini switches

Screenshot 2026-04-13 215400.webp



Photo #2 Seymour Duncan diagram for coil Splitting with one push pull


Screenshot 2026-04-12 230813.webp
 
Hello... You could theoretically do something like diagram #2 but you wouldn't be using the tapped pickup as its designed. Diagram #2 is achieving the splits by grounding the series join of each pickup. The Stra-Bro-90 is tapped at exactly the halfway point of the wind. When tapped you're hearing the inner 50% of winds and the outer 50% are out of the circuit. If you grounded the tap wire, you'd hear the outer 50% of windings. I seem to recall there would be some loss of output as the winds get further from the core / polepieces, but its over my head to explain better.

You could certainly adapt this approach to use one push pull for each pickup to switch between full and tapped instead of mini-switches. Possibly all 3 can be done via one PP as this diagram is. I'd have to draw it out to confirm.
 
i have a trio of strabro90s. i have it wired normal strat 5 way, master volume, master tone (push/pull) and a dpdt switch where the neck tone would typically be. the dpdt switch is for neck and bridge pups to access the tap, both pups full or tapped output. the p/p tone is for accessing the middle pup full or tapped output. it works well for me. i like being able to have a full output neck or bridge and a lower output middle easily accessible. or having a bright neck and bridge and a fat middle at the flick of a switch.
 
Back
Top