Series/cut/parallel switch - resistor on cut?

[cheecharron]

Hi everyone,

I'm using a DPDT on/on/on switch to wire a series/tap/parallel switch for a humbucker. I've read about the benefit of putting a resistor in the tap circuit to retain a bit of the grounded coil, thus preventing the single coil from sounding too weak on its own. However, I haven't seen anything about doing that in a series/tap/parallel switch. There's probably a good reason for that, but I am a wiring novice, so I can't be sure. That said, if I adapted a common series/tap/parallel switch by putting a resistor where the red arrows are below, could this achieve the goal of adding a bit of the south coil to the full north coil on the split? From what I can tell, the resistor wouldn't affect the series selection, as the signal could proceed unhindered through the switch-enabled connection. It also wouldn't appear to affect the parallel selection. What happens in the tap selection is a mystery to me. Any thoughts?

Many thanks!
cheech

 

[Artie]

Re: Series/cut/parallel switch - resistor on cut?

Nothing will happen. I'm not on my "drawing" computer right now, but you simply will have a resistor going to ground. Both ends of the screw coil, (green and red), go to ground, with red going through a resistor. I can see what you're trying to do, but this isn't quite it. Let me "doodle" some stuff. Slowly.

P.S. You need the resistor to feed the red wire to the black wire for this to work.

P.S. 2: I don't think you can do this with a DPDT switch.

 

[cheecharron]

Re: Series/cut/parallel switch - resistor on cut?

Thanks. I see what's wrong now. At this point, I've gone through just about every iteration of this switch. The closest thing I can get is a fully functioning series, a split with a resistor on the grounded coil (which is what I want), yet a parallel option with one of the coils going to ground through the resistor. I'm thinking a DPDT won't do the trick. Alas. Thanks for your help though!

 

[vinnie1971]

Re: Series/cut/parallel switch - resistor on cut?

You would do it in the same way to make sure that the series link between the 2 coils when the are simultaneously grounded they ground via a resistor.

Guidance on resistor, depends what output you have and what you want. For vintage (up to 8k) i use 4.7k. So instead of splitting down to 4k it splits to 6k.
For 8 to 10k I use 3k, so again split to about 6 to 6.5k. For more than 10k is like 2k this will split 10k to around 7 K. I don't get the maths, it's not as simple as halving your humbucker output and adding the resistor- I got to these figures with a multi meter.

It's sounds great and it's about time Seymour Duncan try it - why pay all that money on humbucker, split coils only to sound horrible? Sounds like true single coil and you don't get the huge volume drop splitting via a resistor.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[cheecharron]

Re: Series/cut/parallel switch - resistor on cut?

Thanks for the tips!