HSS Strat Mod for Series/Parallel & Full/Split

[dickkeane]

I think I've done my homework for a proposed mod for HSS strat (schematic attached). It's got 500K pots optimized for humbucker (in any combo) and effective 250K pots for single coil (via 500K parallel resistor). The approach is that the lower tone knob is dedicated to humbucker in any combo, and middle tone knob is dedicated to single coil when humbucker not used. I think this will be easy to remember. I've got standard values for capacitors but plan on experimenting with different values of Orange Drop 225P's before finalizing. Lower tone knob has push/pull for series/parallel humbucker, and middle tone knob has push/pull for full/split humbucker. What's bugging me is the hum cancelling is not optimized for neck/bridge combo. I don't know how bad the hum will be, but I'm thinking I'll just try it. I know I could swap neck & middle pickups to optimize neck/bridge combo but then other combo's will suffer. Any feedback on this? I don't know which combo will be my favorite yet, so it's tough to optimize one over the other. Another thing I'm toying with is a linear taper volume pot. I'll start off with audio (log) but I wonder if there's any feedback on whether linear could make sense here. I expect the 500K parallel resistor may effect the taper when used in neck or neck/middle positions. The only thing holding me up right now is waiting on a new pickguard from Musiclily. Freakin' overseas shipment is taking forever.

 

[dickkeane]

I've decided to change it. Middle position is now middle pickup until new upper push/pull is pulled out, where it adds neck & bridge into circuit with middle. I also changed tones such that lower tone is bridge only position. Is that considered pos1 or pos5? I've also started reading up on treble bleed circuit. Not sure if that is a necessity or not. I'll add it later if needed.

 

[dickkeane]

I made some boo-boo's in that last drawing. Here's drawing with corrections.

 

[dickkeane]

Looks like picture got lost on last post. It's okay, I've got another picture with slight improvement. The upper push/pull now allows forcing bridge on in any position of 5-way switch. Now I can combine bridge with neck, bridge with neck & middle, and of course other combo's which 5-way already enabled. I might run into surprises with hum or mismatched volume when I also pull middle push/pull for split mode, but I'll test and see. Here's latest picture.