Wanting to Add Coil Split to Hot Rails in a Strat via 3 way switch or push/pull

[Sbudnack]

I recently put in a Hot Rails pickup in the bridge position of my strat. It installed perfectly with the wire switch, but now I'm missing the humbucking position 4 (bridge and neck pickups combined). I think a Push/Pull pot will fix this, but I'm unsure. Has anyone else had experience with this and if so, how do I wire it? I'm guessing I'd use a 250K pot (if that's not appropriate and I'd need 500K, please let me know). I've looked at a bunch of diagrams but am still confused. Can anyone tell me exactly what color wires to solder where if I bought the pot?
I've also thought of using a DPDT ON/ON/ON switch. I don't mind drilling the pickguard of my MIM strat, but again, I'm not sure how to wire it or if i can do what I want it to do. If I went with this option, I'd want one position to be one coil, the middle both coils humbucking and the third position, the other coil so I could possibly get some more sounds. I thought I saw a video of a guy that did this mod, and I liked the idea and push/pull aren't my favorite. Can anyone tell me how which color wires of the Hot Rails would go where? If this idea would work, it'd probably be my preferred method.

I know it's a lot of questions, but any feedback would be appreciated. Thank you!

 

[BriGuy1968]

Re: Wanting to Add Coil Split to Hot Rails in a Strat via 3 way switch or push/pull

Hi Sbudnack and welcome to the forum!

Yep... you have a bunch of questions there, so let just get you started by telling you what the different color wires in a SD humbucker do:

• Black is North Start (or Hot). This will be your output to the switch.

• White is North Finish. (see comments for Red)

• Red is South Finish.
  • In order to run in series humbucking mode, the red and white wires are connected to one another. You could also connect these to ground via a switch in order to split to the North coil or to "Hot" to split to the South Coil. Splitting takes away any hum cancellation.
  • In order to run the pickup in parallel humbucking mode, these wires are separated, with the white connected to ground and the red connected to "Hot."

• Green is South Start, which is generally connected to ground with the bare ground wire.

As for the pot, a 250k will work, but it will be a bit muddier for the Hot Rail (since it's a humbucker). On the other hand, if your other pickups are single-coils, you may want to stick with the 250 in order to keep the brightness down from the other pickups. 250k or 500k will both work, but it may be a matter of taste. If the 250k is what you have, use it and if you find it to be too muddy try swapping it out for the 500k. If you like how it sounds, leave it!

If you need further help figuring things out, it would be helpful to know things like what kind of switch you have, exactly what you'd like it to do, and what the other pickups are.

 

[Sbudnack]

Re: Wanting to Add Coil Split to Hot Rails in a Strat via 3 way switch or push/pull

Thank you! You've already been very helpful. The other two pickups are stock Fender single coils in the neck and middle positions. The switch I'm looking to get is the Dimarzio 3 way on-on-on DPDT mini switch. I'd like to have one position the hot rails by itself humbucking. As for the other two positions of the switch, I'd want to be able to have the hot rails split to sound like a single coil and then whatever I'd need to do so that I have the option when I'm in the bridge and middle pickup position to have it hum cancelling.