Rotary Switch

[AssaulT/A]

Greetings everyone, forum newbie here. I'm posting again, because I think I put this in the wrong place yesterday. I'll get right to it.

I'm rewiring a PRS style guitar (2HB) but I wanted a rotary switch instead of toggle, because I like the look of the three knobs. I have push pulls coming as well to split them, so I'd like to wire a 6 position, 2 pole rotary to have Neck pickup, Bridge pickup, and Both as options. I know I'll have to have some duplicate positions, which is fine. If it's possible, I'd also like to have one position totally dead, like a killswitch of sorts.

If anyone could instruct me how to do this, I would be very grateful indeed.

Thanks All,
AssaulT/A

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Rotary Switch

Sure. But with a 6 position rotary switch you have a couple extra positions to play with. Here's one wiring scheme that will give you:

Position 1 = Bridge only,
Position 2 = Bridge and Neck (parallel),
Position 3 = Neck only,
Position 4 = Bridge and Neck (series),
Position 5 = off,
Position 6 = off

Using this layout for the 2P6T rotary (see item #3511, notice there is a "red" half and a "blue" half):

http://www.stewmac.com/Pickups_and_Electronics/Components_and_Parts/Rotary_Switches.html

Wire as follows:
Bridge pup black wire to "blue" common,
Bridge pup green wire to ground,
Bridge pup red and white wires soldered together on one p/p (as on the next diagram),
Neck pup black wire to "blue" lug 1 with shunt wire to "blue" lug 2 and wire to vol pot,
Neck pup green wire to "red" common,
Neck pup red and white wires soldered together on the other p/p (as on the next diagram),
Shunt wire from "blue" 4 to "red"4,
Shunt wire from "red" 2 to "red" 3 and to ground.

Diagram of the wiring of the two p/p pots:

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=2h_1v_1t_3w_2pp

Sorry I don't have the capability to show you a diagram of all this, but the descriptions should be easy to follow and you can draw up a diagram from these descriptions.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Rotary Switch

Nuts! I answered in the other forum room.

 

[AssaulT/A]

Re: Rotary Switch

Thank you, i like that idea. Could you clarify, what do you mean by "shunt wire"?

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Rotary Switch

Hard-wired cross links between the layers of the rotary switch. (Some of these connections may have to be made before assembling the switch layers onto the rotor.)

 

[AssaulT/A]

Re: Rotary Switch

Well I tried it and screwed it up somewhere lol. In all possible combinations, there is no output signal at all. I think it may be all the grounding I had to do to the bottoms of the pots. Are all those really necessary?

 

[Swyse]

Re: Rotary Switch

You will need everything grounded together as shown for the circuit to work properly.
I drew it up how GuitarDoc wrote it. Maybe this will help you find where you went wrong.

 

[AssaulT/A]

Re: Rotary Switch

Thank you, that's very helpful. It looks like everything is in place, so I still think it's my grounds. Any tips on how to ground 6 wires to the back of a push pull pot?

 

[AssaulT/A]

Re: Rotary Switch

Well I figured out what the problem was. I had also sheilded the control cavity with aluminum tape, and on of the pots had turned and was touching the tape. It's working perfectly and sounds fantastic! Thank you to everyone who provided input, i appreciate it.

Thanks All,
AssaulT/A

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Rotary Switch

That's a very common problem. But thankfully, it's very easy to fix by rotating the pot.

Glad you got things up and running.