H/S/H 1 Vol 1 Tone 5-way switch wiring

guitarguy22

New member
Ok, so I have a sort-of weird set-up that I need some help with. I have a 90's Tele Deluxe, with 3-pickups. Came with 3 single coils, 1 volume, 1 tone and a 5-way switch. I had the original pickups changed and now I have a hotrails in the neck, a gold lace sensor in the middle and a hotrails in the bridge. I decided to change the pots, switch and input jack and re-wire everything :smack: and now i'm running into a problem. The switch looks different than the original and the capacitors that came with the new pots are a little different as well. Can anyone help me wire this thing up correctly? I have two Fender solid shaft 250K pots, with 1k ohm capacitors (1 volume and 1 tone) a Fender 5-way switch, new input jack and the pickups mentioned earlier. I found a schematic for something similar on GuitarElectronics.com, but it's for a coil-tap, which i don't think I want or need. Ideally it would be set-up so that i can play the neck, neck-middle, middle, middle-bridge, bridge. Right? Can anybody help me? Thanks!!
 
Re: H/S/H 1 Vol 1 Tone 5-way switch wiring

guitarguy22 said:
Ok, so I have a sort-of weird set-up that I need some help with. I have a 90's Tele Deluxe, with 3-pickups. Came with 3 single coils, 1 volume, 1 tone and a 5-way switch. I had the original pickups changed and now I have a hotrails in the neck, a gold lace sensor in the middle and a hotrails in the bridge. I decided to change the pots, switch and input jack and re-wire everything :smack: and now i'm running into a problem. The switch looks different than the original and the capacitors that came with the new pots are a little different as well. Can anyone help me wire this thing up correctly? I have two Fender solid shaft 250K pots, with 1k ohm capacitors (1 volume and 1 tone) a Fender 5-way switch, new input jack and the pickups mentioned earlier. I found a schematic for something similar on GuitarElectronics.com, but it's for a coil-tap, which i don't think I want or need. Ideally it would be set-up so that i can play the neck, neck-middle, middle, middle-bridge, bridge. Right? Can anybody help me? Thanks!!

umm - you have the capacitor completley mislabled to the point of it being unintelligable .. capacitors are rated in farads, not ohms ...

this should get you started - cant help you with the lace gold, sorry

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/schematics/3lh_1v_1t_5w.html
 
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Re: H/S/H 1 Vol 1 Tone 5-way switch wiring

On the diagram that you linked to, that's a H/H/H set-up. So for my application, with a single coil in the middle, would I just disregard the red/white wires and just ground the green one and solder the black one to the switch? As far as the unit of measure for the cap, i guess i did write that wrong :) The guitarelectronics.com diagram i was looking at is http://www.guitarelectronics.com/product/WDUHSH5L1101 It looks a little bit different from what you have, but is it essentially the same type of wiring? The main difference I can tell is that the end poles on the switch are connected then linked to the volume pot in your diagram, where mine doesn't have that. What is that for? Sorry if this seems really basic, i'm a noob at wiring guitars! Thanks again!
 
Re: H/S/H 1 Vol 1 Tone 5-way switch wiring

I have one other question. On the coil-tap in position 2 and 4, do I need a push/pull pot for this? I figure when you have it in the 2 or 4 position is is wiring the 2nd half of the humbucker to the middle single coil, so there is no need for a push/pull pot. Is this correct? Also, if I change the capacitor's from the old one's to the one's that came with the new pots, am i going to notice any real difference? I thought that it would be better to use the new ones because they came with them. Thanks!
 
Re: H/S/H 1 Vol 1 Tone 5-way switch wiring

can you link to the diagtram at guitarelectronics?

I've done a few of these with great success. If I know which one you're thinking of and I know what switch you're using, I can work something out for you.

Artie probably can too. With prettier pictures too :)
 
Re: H/S/H 1 Vol 1 Tone 5-way switch wiring

pinto79 said:
Artie probably can too. With prettier pictures too :)

I absolutely cannot come up with prettier pictures than Scott M is producing these days. Those things are beautiful.

Take the time to look over the link that T4D posted and study all the Duncan schematics. Its all right there. ;)
 
Re: H/S/H 1 Vol 1 Tone 5-way switch wiring

Ok, so I wired the guitar up with the "3 lil humbucker 1 vol 1 tone 5-way" diagram from seymour duncan's website, with the exception of the middle pickup which is a single coil. Now I just saw the last post from gordon and looked at that diagram. It says on there that if the middle pickup is a fender, then you need to reverse the green and black on the seymour duncans. I have a fender gold lace sensor in the middle. All of the pickups are working and the switch is working, but when I turn the volume down it gets quieter, but doesn't turn off. There is also a really loud humming sound. I think it may be a bad ground. Shoud I switch the green and black wires, and reground everything? Also, one thing i wasn't sure about on the diagram is on the volume pot. on the right lug, it looks like it's bent backwards or something. Should I ground this lug to the pot? Also, i have my red/white wires from the humbuckers soldered together, that's how there were before. So if I use the attached diagram and just leave my red/white wires attached, it should be fine? Thanks for all of the help so far!
 
Re: H/S/H 1 Vol 1 Tone 5-way switch wiring

Ok, so I finally fixed the guitar last night, woo hoo! It turns out that the volume pot that I was asking about, it does need a ground from the end lug. So I fixed that, and the volume was working just fine, but I still had a terrible humming sound, so I decided to check my input jack, because every time I touched it it stopped buzzing. So I take it out, and sure enough, I had switched the wires around and had the two wires attached to the wrong place. Voila! Quiet as a mouse, all is well in the Telecaster world! Woo hoo! Thanks a lot for the diagrams that you all provided, first guitar re-wire complete!
 
Re: H/S/H 1 Vol 1 Tone 5-way switch wiring

Good Job on the rewire... I did not notice the new post regarding your concerns, or I would have lent a hand..... I'm glad to see you figured it out, though.... Now you are equipped with experience you understand!!
 
Re: H/S/H 1 Vol 1 Tone 5-way switch wiring

No problem. I think one of my problems at first was that I was trying to wire the guitar the same way it was before, and I don't think the guy who wired it did a very good job (he was my old guitar teacher and installed the pick-ups for free). So when I saw the new diagrams for the proper way to wire it, it didn't look the same. Anyways, the guitar sounds quite a bit different now than it did before. Before, the hot rails sounded nice, but definately not as "hot" as they should have. Now is screams, way more heavy-metal sounding than before. Even on the clean channel it sounds a little distorted! Now i've got the bug and want to go re-wire all of my other guitars, or maybe go buy another guitar with the pure intention of modding it! I kind of want a guitar with only single-coil pick-ups now, maybe a less heavy metal tone.
Other guitars/amps:
- Ibanez RG320 SP1 w/EMG 81's
- Fender Strat Iron Maiden Edition
- Fender Tele w/hot rails in bridge and neck, gold lace sensor in middle
- Dean (from the 80's, not sure what model, bel aire maybe?)
- Marshall TSL100 w/1960A Cab
- Fender Champion 30 practice amp
- Crate gx330-C
 
Re: H/S/H 1 Vol 1 Tone 5-way switch wiring

Ok, so I wired the guitar up with the "3 lil humbucker 1 vol 1 tone 5-way" diagram from seymour duncan's website, with the exception of the middle pickup which is a single coil. Now I just saw the last post from gordon and looked at that diagram. It says on there that if the middle pickup is a fender, then you need to reverse the green and black on the seymour duncans. I have a fender gold lace sensor in the middle. All of the pickups are working and the switch is working, but when I turn the volume down it gets quieter, but doesn't turn off. There is also a really loud humming sound. I think it may be a bad ground. Shoud I switch the green and black wires, and reground everything? Also, one thing i wasn't sure about on the diagram is on the volume pot. on the right lug, it looks like it's bent backwards or something. Should I ground this lug to the pot? Also, i have my red/white wires from the humbuckers soldered together, that's how there were before. So if I use the attached diagram and just leave my red/white wires attached, it should be fine? Thanks for all of the help so far!

I have the exact same question about the green/black wiring. My SD wiring diagram says to reverse them if using a "fender" pup. Did you reverse the wiring?
 
Re: H/S/H 1 Vol 1 Tone 5-way switch wiring

yea
the reversing of the green and black is because the fender middle pickup has reversed polarity so that it is humbucking in the "in between" positions

you would want to reverse the the polarity if your new SD humbuckers so that when they split you still be humbucking with the middle pickup

are you throughly confused yet?

if you are not using a Fender middle RWRP (reverse wound reverse polarity) pickup then dont worry about it just hook it up normally
 
Re: H/S/H 1 Vol 1 Tone 5-way switch wiring

I have just hooked but my STHR neck and bridge with a stock Tele neck in the middle position. I just reversed the white and black for the middle pickup and everything worked out fine. Great sounds from all 5 positions.

See my thread of more info
https://forum.seymourduncan.com/showthread.php?t=184860

Just disregard the coil splits. Consider red&white soldered together and you will be all set.
 
Re: H/S/H 1 Vol 1 Tone 5-way switch wiring

Yes, it also can work but, to take the signal from the center of a single pickup is a worst solution, since is more prone to noise.

I am sorry Hermetico
but I dont understand where you get "center of the pickup" from

he's not using a tapped pickup

just reversing the direction current travels thru
 
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