Wiring questions???

Rumble_b · May 4, 2006

Ok here it is. I'm redoing a old guitar I have and I'm changing the p/u's. My first question is about the old wiring. The humbucker(bridge) is wired with a coil-tap but it only has three wires coming from it. One is ground of course and the other two go to the mini switch. From the switch one wire is grounded(soldered off of the side of the switch) and one runs to the p/u selector switch. Is this wierd? I thought it should have four wires???

On to my next question. I'm putting in a GFS lil Killer(neck) and it is a four wire. I understand(I think

) how to wire it. But my question is, because the neck and bridge are never on together(three p/u's) can I use the same mini switch as the bridge p/u for the neck p/u???

sysexguy · May 4, 2006

With a three wire PU, one wire is the hot (goes to volume pot or PU selector), one is ground and the third is the coil tap which is actually the '-' of the screwed coil and the '+' of the slugged coil. By grounding (with the switch) the tap, only the screwed coil is on and thusly you have single coil sound.

With a four wire setup, you have this option and also the option of running the coils in series (normal HB) or in parallel (also humbucking but a touch more single coil in sound). You may also have a seperate ground (5th wire) which allows different phase options too.

Using the same switch for both pickups will tie the two pickups together unless you use a DPDT (6 pole) switch. Luckily, these are easy to find, cheap and will fit in the same hole so it's really no hassle.

Stew Mac has tons of schematic resources and us guitars canada board members compliled a list.....search the site. There are many very clever ways to do the coil tap.

Andy

Wiring questions???

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