Re: Ibanez S wiring challenge
Two Seymour Duncan Humbuckers Wiring
Hi there!!!
Please, allow me to be brief. My name is George and I would like to share with you my small adventure to change Seymour Duncan active magnets to a SD passive pair. The guitar is an S-470 which hosts 2 humbuckers and a middle single-coil pickup, but I will cancel the middle pickup because my pick always stumbles to the “slug” cylinders or the plastic surface of the pickup, since I try to adopt a standard (you know, I unsuccessfully watch videos of Petrucci, Vai, Aswani or Gambale) picking technique. Anyway, I searched for wiring scheme for the set “2 Humbucks, 5-way Import switch, 1 volume pot, 1 tone pot” but I think that the existing configurations do not actually support the 5-way Import switch, at least the way I would like to try. Furthermore, some INF wirings would use both pickups in full output power, and I thought that there might be guitarists that would want to have a pattern as follows:
Switch Position - Events
1 - Both Bridge coils are active. Neck is inactive (not short-circuited)
2 - North pole of Bridge is active. South pole is short-circuited. Neck is inactive (not short-circuited)
3 - North pole of Bridge and Neck are active. Both South poles are short-circuited.
4 - North pole of Neck is active. South pole is short-circuited. Bridge is inactive (not short-circuited)
5 - Both Neck coils are active. Bridge is inactive (not short-circuited)
Let us have a brief look at the procedure. The very first we need to do is dismantle the switch, open it and, by gently using a paper razor, symmetrically isolate some conductive surface of the middle area so that when the switch is found at positions two and four, it (= the middle area) should not be connected to the adjacent areas (surfaces of pins 1 and 3 (Many times pin 3 is noted as pin 5)). Unfortunately, while doing this job, I had no any magnifier, but by using a Resistometer I verified that things went well! See foto below.
So far so good, but do not expect any real wiring, with soldering gun ect. I am still waiting for the magnets. So, the wiring was done on a piece of paper, as seen below.
I am still waiting for the S. Duncan pickups as said, so I hope that the draft is going to work. Of course, trying different schemas by yourselves, you may obtain other wiring and different sounds. If, for instance, you want switch middle position to activate only the South Poles of both humbuckers, you need to inverse wiring.Frankly speaking, from the various existing schemas on the internet and from the perspecive of output (mVolt) and whether the two humbuckers work in paraller or in series toghether, I could not figure out what was going on. On the other hand, I had no will to dive into Fender switchers or into more complicated staff actually. I also have no idea if it is "better" to have both North Poles active rather than the South ones.
To me it sounds peculiar if both humbuckers work in series. Too much output I guess (around 500mV or even more)! But it sounds no less strange the fact that the two humbuckers might be set to work in parallel. If they do so, then I think that we must study the circuitry more meticulously, from the perspective of Electronics. I mean, no qualitative approach. When you have two batteries connected in parralel, let us say 1.5V and 1.5V, the voltometer is going to show just 1.5V. If one is of 1.5V and the other of 9V then the voltometer is going to show just 9V. This is my initial approach, and I am not sure if I am right or wrong because here we have to deal with AC voltage of similar mV output(s). There will be (short) moments where one signal will be on top and vice-versa. But this is grocer's calculations, no value at all! Needs study it !! Anyway, I had no interest to do so for the moment.
I just think that I will be rather satisfied with the wiring I just presented you. But I also want your opinion. First of all, please check the wiring to trace potential errors. Next, what do you think the sound is going to be like? Do you think that it is going to be ok?
Merry Christmas!
Thanx!!!
