Took A Wrong Turn Somewhere Around Albuquerque???

[Nostalgic Distortion]

So last night I moved one of my my Pegasus/Sentient sets into another guard. Originally I had them hooked up to a H/H Strat guard with a vol. & two tones. The bridge knob Is a P.P. to tap the humbuckers? It sounded okay but the way it was built was kinda strange, a junkie Alpha 500K vol. pot, reg. CTS 250K neck tone, & a Alpha 250K push/pull for the bridge tone? After buying another Pegasus & running it straight off a single 500K pot I realized how much those two 250K tone pots were holding the pickups back!

So, the idea was to have 1 vol. & 1 tone, both 500k pots, & because the only pickup I had any interest in tapping was the neck I figured I'd achieve that by installing a D.P.D.T. switch? I'd never done one like this so I asked for so help finding a diagram and someone was nice enough to send me this. View attachment 65881

When I saw it I was amazed by how simple it was, well how simple it seemed anyway? My guard is built a little different than the one in the diagram but not anyplace that should have changed the way the switch works? Really the only difference was they've got the pickups grounded off the tone pot & I have everything grounded off the volume pot? I think my switch my be bridged differently as well but everything is where it should be & it works fine.

The issue is when I flip the switch instead of cutting out the inner coil of the neck humbucker it seems like it's cutting about 1/2 the power to the wrong coil. It almost sounds like it's making the pickup go out of phase with itself? I mean it actually sounds kinda cool for clean tones but its not the desired result I was looking for. If anyone knows WTF I went wrong and can perhaps tell me how to correct this it would be much appreciated!!!!!

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Took A Wrong Turn Somewhere Around Albuquerque???

Doesn't really matter where grounds go as long as everything gets grounded (pot to pot to jack to bridge to pickups).

And unless the Pegasus is wired backwards, running red+white to ground should result in the slug/inner coil being the only one active. Unless I misunderstood what SD's diagrams mean by "split to slug coil".

 

[dotsdad]

Re: Took A Wrong Turn Somewhere Around Albuquerque???

Why do you have some things grounded to the tone pot and some to the volume? Give it a direct path to ground

 

[dotsdad]

Re: Took A Wrong Turn Somewhere Around Albuquerque???

Also did you remember to connect the third leg of the volume pot to ground
. The drawing shows it bent back but not actually connected.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Took A Wrong Turn Somewhere Around Albuquerque???

I did the leg in the diagram that way to allude to it being grounded to the pot. It's touching, but there was no way to really do a solder joint in the program I used to make that diagram. In theory, if you're at the stage to start tinkering with this stuff, you should know the volume pot gets one leg grounded.

As for indirect grounding, depending on the distance and length of pickup lead, the neck pickup will reach no further than the volume pot, while the bridge pickup can reach the tone pot easily. As long as they're all linked to the bridge and jack grounds, it's the same as having everything on the jack.

 

[Nostalgic Distortion]

Re: Took A Wrong Turn Somewhere Around Albuquerque???

Yes, I think maybe I misled you somehow, first of the guard that had stuff grounded off everything was the old one, that's gone. The guard that the pickups are in now was already built & fully functional, all I'm doing is adding the switch to this pickguard that is made up of two 500K pots, a volume & a tone, with everything grounded off the volume pot.

Basically the normal way one would build a Strat guard? Mine is not the same as the diagram, even that has the grounds coming off the tone pot. None of that should make a difference if all I'm doing is adding a toggle switch to tap the neck humbucker, should it?

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Took A Wrong Turn Somewhere Around Albuquerque???

None whatsoever.

 

[Demanic]

Re: Took A Wrong Turn Somewhere Around Albuquerque???

Ground is ground.

 

[Nostalgic Distortion]

Re: Took A Wrong Turn Somewhere Around Albuquerque???

Okay so any ideas on what might be causing it to only half work?

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Took A Wrong Turn Somewhere Around Albuquerque???

It could be a difference in how your blade switch works in relation to the one in the diagram (which is based on the SD diagrams - http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=2hb_1vol_1tone_5way - note that a 5-way and a 3-way are built on the same base platform).

Perhaps you're getting red+white to hot with the black somehow? Like once you squish everything in place and screw it down, there's some exposed wire touching a hot contact?

If your pickup output is reduced to sound like half a coil (as opposed to one half of a humbucker), then I'd definitely say there's something coming into contact with the wrong point.

Look for any exposed wire and cover it with electrical tape, including your ground points just to be safe.

 

[Nostalgic Distortion]

Re: Took A Wrong Turn Somewhere Around Albuquerque???

Alright, thanks, I'll give it a try! The way that blade switch is bridged when you attach your hot leads from the pickups you almost do it backwards? It's hard to explain? Like typicality one would run the neck lead to the prong that is towards the bridge and the bridge pup's lead towards the neck? By doing this when you push the switch back, the bottom of it slides forward engaging the bridge and vice versa when you flip it forward? The bottom of the switch where the contact is slides backwards and turns on the neck pickup?

The switch in this guard I have is strange, when I hooked up the leads the way you normally would the pickups were backwards on the switch, basically all I had to do was flip the leads & everything was fine. Anyway, that's when I first noticed there was something odd as far as that switch goes? I'll go through & check all my joints and stuff too but I'm pretty sure everything where it's supposed to be?

I should have just went with a kill switch, I really don't tap my pickups anyway because it I've got a bunch of H/S or H/S/S guitars laying around, so I'd probably be more concerned with all this if I only had one or two guitars & needed the versatility but really I can just use another guitar? Versatility is always nice & the Sentient does sound real pretty when split but not as nice as a true single, of which I have tons! Like I said before whatever it's doing actually sounds kinda good, mostly for clean tones. Like it turned into a phase switch or something, there's a bit of a volume drop & it gets quite bright but in a neat 70's funk way???

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Took A Wrong Turn Somewhere Around Albuquerque???

In my diagram the pickups are not attached to the commons of the switch. If your switch is reverse-wired, then you probably have them on the commons, which means you're getting both pickups in all positions.

 

[Nostalgic Distortion]

Re: Took A Wrong Turn Somewhere Around Albuquerque???

Well, I mean if I tap on the neck pickup with a screwdriver while it's switched to the bridge it doesn't make any noise & vice versa? So I don't think that they are both working all the time? I cranked the amp & put a healthy dose of gain on top before testing your theory, both pickups are dead quite while they are disengaged....

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Took A Wrong Turn Somewhere Around Albuquerque???

Hmmm.

I don't know then. In theory, the splitter will route the red+white to ground or will disconnect them from ground, which should be the same as if they were flapping about freely like the bridge pickup.

It's the same as what every SD diagram shows for coil splitting.


I'm wondering if your pickup is wired backwards internally?

Is the Pegasus based off the Full Shred by any chance?

 

[sharp]

Re: Took A Wrong Turn Somewhere Around Albuquerque???

By the way: tone knob wired like this will do nothing:
middle lug is disconnected

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Took A Wrong Turn Somewhere Around Albuquerque???

By the way: tone knob wired like this will do nothing:
middle lug is disconnected

Most SD diagrams show the center lug only having the cap on it, and the lead from the volume running to the outer lug.
Though I do admit the lead to the tone lug is incorrect in my diagram: it should go to the center if the cap is on the outside lug, and to the other outer lug if the cap is in the middle.