Wiring help

[NoOnesFang13]

It's been a long time since I've been on here, but I need some help with wiring. I have a P-Rails in a box and enough parts to throw together a 1 pickup Strat. The simple answer would be to do a 3 way switch and be done with it, but that would be too easy. The plan is to throw in a super switch with this layout.

5 Parallel bypass tone with set cap (kind of like an esquire)
4 Parallel
3 Blade (500k resistor in line to "see" 250k)
2 P-90
1 Humbucker

I've sat here for about an hour looking at it and I think I'm right on positions 1-4 but I have no idea what do do for 5. But then again it could be completely wrong. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[beaubrummels]

I think you need a jumper between red+white on 2 and 3. I think you are out of lugs on the switch to bypass the tone control on 5. The switch isn't controlling the tone now, and all 4 sections of the switch are used up on coil ends.

 

[Artie]

You only need two quadrants to do every mode of a humbucker. (Or P-Rail.) That leaves the other two for tone switching and adding the resistor.

I did this quik-'n-dirty, so hopefully it makes sense. I'm not sure I understood your position #5 correctly. Let me know if this makes sense.

 

[NoOnesFang13]

You only need two quadrants to do every mode of a humbucker. (Or P-Rail.) That leaves the other two for tone switching and adding the resistor.

I did this quik-'n-dirty, so hopefully it makes sense. I'm not sure I understood your position #5 correctly. Let me know if this makes sense.

Every time I have wiring questions you always seem to come through. Thanks man.
This looks like for the most part it will work for what I wanted. It was hard for me to wrap my head around.

As far as position 5 goes it should be in parallel, so shouldn't there be a jumper between lugs 4 and 5?
Other than that the thing I wanted to do with that position was to bypass the tone control and use a separate cap to a preset value instead of using the tone control when I switch to that position as a pseudo "neck" position sound by rolling off the high end. From your diagram it looks like its bypassing the tone but I don't see a way with that setup to add a cap in.

I edited your diagram to what I think will work for what I want, but I might be missing something. I put a jumper from lugs 4 and 5 on the bottom right bank. Ran the wire from the top lug of the volume pot to the common on the top right bank. then positions 1-4 go into the tone pot. Position 5 goes strait into a cap to ground.

 

[Artie]

Yup. Good catch. (On the 4-5 jumper.) I think your cap scheme is good too. Just heading out to a Dr's appointment, but I'll double check it when I get back. But it looks ok.

 

[Chistopher]

If I could make a slight recommendation, right now you have the switch modes in a configuration that doesn't make too much sense to me. It may make sense to you, in which case feel free to ignore me, but I think it would make most sense to put the switch like this:

1 - Humbucker
2- P90
3- Parallel (esquire mod)
4- Parallel
5- Rail

This way as you go from one side of the switch to the other it progressively gets hotter.


Another suggestion, put a small trimpot in series with the cap to tune how dark you want to 5 position to sound. I found the 3.3k to 6.8k range works well.

 

[NoOnesFang13]

If I could make a slight recommendation, right now you have the switch modes in a configuration that doesn't make too much sense to me. It may make sense to you, in which case feel free to ignore me, but I think it would make most sense to put the switch like this:

1 - Humbucker
2- P90
3- Parallel (esquire mod)
4- Parallel
5- Rail

This way as you go from one side of the switch to the other it progressively gets hotter.


Another suggestion, put a small trimpot in series with the cap to tune how dark you want to 5 position to sound. I found the 3.3k to 6.8k range works well.

The trimpot is a good call I didn't think of. As far as the positions go I put it in order of the positions I would use on a "regular" 5 way. I use position 3 the least and single coil bridge tones are usually my least favorite, but I still want the option. Position 4 I like to use for parallel on one of my other guitars (a firebird pickup in parallel sounds awesome), And position 5 is usually what ii use for cleans. I typically am not a fan of clean bridge tones.

TLDR the positions are more based on muscle memory rather than any real reason.