EGEN 18 Wiring --> Ibanez s540 (Wish me luck!)

[Top-L]

Prepping this guitar to be rewired, I was reminded how much of a PITA this job can be. The fundamental problem with the Ibanez Sabre control cavity is that you are forced to use a low profile switch. The only 5-way switches I have found to fit are Ibanez switches. Unfortunately, the only quality 5-way switch that Ibanez makes is the VLX91 super switch The other Ibanez switches have plastic housing and eventually fail.

This guitar is fitted with a Steve Vai Evolution set. I was going to use the Steve Vai "green meanie" wiring, but I already have a push/pull pot and want coil splits in neck and bridge. So Egen 18 it is!

This is the last time I am going to wire this guitar. Period.

 

[Top-L]

So I chickened out and wired this with standard Jem wiring. But there is a problem!

The neck and bridge pickups are reversed! So why not just spin the switch around!?

Because there isn't room in the s540 cavity! Fun stuff.

Is there a clever way to reverse the direction of a super switch (besides physically flipping around) that would reverse the function of the switch? As I write this, I'm pretty sure the only way is to rewire the pickups to the switch.

 

[beaubrummels]

You could clip the wires back from the switch a bit and then resolder neck and bridge reversed; just need to cover the new join. I'd just use heat shrink over the wires. (Be sure to slip it on before you solder, so you can just slide it into place and heat it after.)

 

[Chistopher]

Probably easiest to just redo the whole thing backwards tbh

 

[Top-L]

Looking closely at the diagram, there was no chance it was ever going to work. (The reversed positions was just one of the problems.)

The first clue something is wrong is that the humbuckers are only connected to the 1 and 5 terminals. Also when tracing the switch, the coil splits are reversed.

I wonder if this was a prank diagram that outlived the correct one? This error caused me to learn how the super switch actually works.