Question on Seymour Duncan wiring for my strat.

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spacemonkey77

New member
Hey all, I am new to the forum. I just recently pulled my old guitar out and started playing again after 10 years of inactivity. I should have never stopped.

Anyways I have a question. Currently i have a mexican strat that has an invader humbucker in the bridge position and a hot rail in the neck with the standard single coil in the middle. In my quest to make my guitar sound better i am going to be replacing the middle pickup with a vintage rail and possibly changing the hot rail to a cool rail. It sounds so muddy right now. My big question with all this is what pot should i use with them. Im not positive what is in the guitar now. Im thinking its a250k, but not sure. Should i use a 250 or 500k with the setup i have going? The wiring diagrams show a 500 for the invader but a 250 for the cool and vintage. Since i only have one volume pot for all the pickups..should i make it the 250 or 500?

Thanks in advance for your help.
 
Re: Question on Seymour Duncan wiring for my strat.

Welcome to the forum.

If your Mexican-made Stratocaster is reasonably recent, it should come with a CRL-type selector switch and CTS A250k pots. I suggest working with these to begin with.
 
Re: Question on Seymour Duncan wiring for my strat.

Thank you,

the strat was made in probably around 1993 ish. Its a 40th anniversary strat. Would these still be the 250?

Also, would you guys suggest leaving the hot rail in the neck position with a vintage in middle..or should i replace that hotrail with a cool rail. My music style varies from hard rock/metal to blues, and vintage rock.
 
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Re: Question on Seymour Duncan wiring for my strat.

Two quick questions:
1) What does the mini switch do?
2) Have you ever tried the Hot Rails pickup with its coils connected in parallel?
 
Re: Question on Seymour Duncan wiring for my strat.

Well you will have to forgive my ignorance on all this as I am no expert on it by any means. I'm more of a figure it out kind of guy and learn as I go. I'm really not sure the difference in series and parallel wiring. I will research that and try to learn. I'm really not sure how its wired now as I prob did it around 10 years ago. How would you suggest I wire it. I have a vintage rail on order right now. I probably wired it the way the original single coil was wired

The switch allows me to turn off one of the coils on the invader humbucker to make it single coil
 
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Re: Question on Seymour Duncan wiring for my strat.

Ok, so i pulled the guitar apart again to study my wiring and this is what I have found.

On that hot rail, i have the red and white wires soldered together and taped off. The black and bare wire goes to the volume pot. The Green Wire goes to the 5 way switch.

Is this wiring scheme actually a coil split? Am I only actually using one side of the pickup wired this way?

This is the wiring diagram on the SD website that I am comparing it to. My wiring scheme looks like the diagram on the first page. I did reverse the green and black wires to fix the phasing issue with the middle fender single coil.

http://www.seymourduncan.com/images/products/electric/stratocaster/501015-100.pdf
 
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Re: Question on Seymour Duncan wiring for my strat.

your hot rails is wired in series. i would start with wiring your hot rails in parallel and see if you like that tone. you already own the pup and its a quick and easy job
 
Re: Question on Seymour Duncan wiring for my strat.

I would put 500k quality pots with push/pulls for more versatility.
Out with the mud!
 
Re: Question on Seymour Duncan wiring for my strat.

Oh interesting I didn't realize that was series. I will have to figure out how to change it to parallel. Any suggestions?
So the 500s have a brighter sound?
 
Re: Question on Seymour Duncan wiring for my strat.

A tad brighter and a tad louder.
Parallel = green AND white to switch, all the rest to ground. If out of phase, black AND red to switch, all the rest to ground.
 
Re: Question on Seymour Duncan wiring for my strat.

GregJr said:
A tad brighter and a tad louder.
Parallel = green AND white to switch, all the rest to ground. If out of phase, black AND red to switch, all the rest to ground.
Click to expand...

Awesome thank you so much. I will rewire that as soon as I get my vintage rail. I do have another question. From the wiring you described if I take the red and white wire and run them to the coil cutoff switch instead of the ground on the volume pot could I split it like my humbucker...whereas I could flip the toggle to make it a single coil? If so would I solder it to the exact same place as the humbucker? I assume this switch does the same as a push/pull!

Thanks again for all your help.
 
Re: Question on Seymour Duncan wiring for my strat.

A Hot Rails pickup running its coils in parallel will end up producing an output level very similar to the Vintage Rails. If nothing else, this would save you the expense of another new pickup.
 
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