Help needed w/ wiring scheme

[Neo Fender]

I have a guitar with two Kent Armstrong Motherbuckers. Two of them are installed on my guitar, along with another humbucker.

My understanding is that the Motherbucker is two, single coil sized humbuckers mounted together. With that being the case, each Motherbucker has a pair of four conductor leads so essentially, this guitar has five humbuckers (10 coils, 4/2/4) and two leads per coil or a total of five, humbucking pickups but grouped 2/1/2).

The DC resistance on this pickups is specified to be27.5K ohms. All other factors being equal, these pickups should scream but in my guitar, they do not. They are about as loud as regular Strat single coils.

This particular guitar has a five-way switch and one volume and one tone control (one of which has a push/pull coil split function). My (very wild) guess is that each pair of coils are wired in parallel when in fact, to make this pickup the beast that it is alleged to be, each coil pair should be wired in series but this is just my assumption. Unless I add more switches for a serial or parallel scheme, with my current setup, I'm thinking that each coil pair should be connected in series. In fact, would it be safe to assume that all four coils on the Motherbuckers should be wired in series? I can’t get my brain around how to wire this thing. I was hoping someone here may have some insight.

I even tried to contact Kent Armstrong but haven't received a response.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Help needed w/ wiring scheme

The KA Motherbucker pickup is, in effect, two Hot Rails style pickups mounted together. Numerous coil combinations are possible. Some will be juicy Rock high gain sounds. Some will be so hot that they become muddy through even the very best amplification. Some will be quiet and/or thin.

The important question is what schematic wiring diagram(s) did you follow when installing the KA MB pickup? Armstrong uses the same four colours as most other manufacturers but not necessarily in the same order.

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=color_codes

Any other assistance will require photographs of your wiring, please.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Help needed w/ wiring scheme

Separate the 2 stacks' leads and wire each one up for standard series (hum cancelling). Since I don't know the color-coding of that pickup, for Duncan's colors it would be red+white together and taped off (to prevent contact), black to the switch, green+bare to ground.
In this case, you want to wire the (whatever color aligns to Duncan's black) of each stack to the same point on the switch to run them in series with each other.

Or run them to either side of a push-pull, then that to the switch, then dump one of the sides to ground when the switch is push/pulled to kill the side you don't want.

What you have sounds like only one coil of the 4 are working, which means check your connections and make sure there's no bare wire exposed anywhere. If there is, it's being mushed into a ground, or grounding out another exposed contact when you close it all up.