Upgrade the electronics

MrFlexx

New member
I have a Charvel San Dimas with a JB and a '59 but I hate the electronics in the guitar as it seems to be the cheap ones. The thing I do like though is the no-load tone control and the split-coil on the volume. I want to change the 3-way switch to a CLR and the input jack to a Switchcraft, but I have no clue on what pots to get.
I want to have coil-split on the volume control and a parallel/serial on the tone control. I also want a treble bleed. Do I need a paper bee .22 or .47 or none? And lastly: Schematics for this?
 
When you say 'parallel/serial', I am guessing you mean with 1 pickup...neck or bridge? Also, are the electronics not working, or what? Generally, you'd use 500k pots, and cap is your choice- 47 shaves off more high end.
 
Yes I mean with 1 pickup, the way Dann Huff uses it. The guitar is a Mexico made Charvel that plays and sounds better than my americsn ones. I tried over 10 different ones and this is one of the really great ones. The problem is that it's cheaper electronics in these guitars. Lime the 3-way switch goes silent between the positions and the CLR in my other Charvels do not. So I'm changing all the electronics.
 
Finding a diagram for both split coils is easy. Adding to that a diagram that can provide one pickup in series/parallel is a little harder. Actually, I am not sure how possible that is as you need to separate the series link to do that. Anyone else?
 
Be careful re-wiring Charvels. The pickups in mine had the wires in a different configuration than the normal manufacturer's colour codes. (slug/screw coils were reversed by wires and the polarity of one pickup was opposite.
 
You want your caps to be .022 uf or .047 uf. That "zero" is important. I prefer .022 myself. You don't need expensive caps in a guitar tone circuit. I use Orange Drops, which even are overkill.
 
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