Need some advice/help on wiring this up (5 way import style blade switch)

[toonskeez]

This post is directly related to this one:

Is it possible to change a pickups' tone via a 3 way mini toggle switch and no tone pot? (or some other way with no tone pot)

I am in the middle of a new guitar build (see: https://www.tdpri.com/threads/new-build-thinking-of-two-humbuckers-and-single-coil-in-middle-position-opinions.1104191/) Regarding that thread, I went with the Guitar Fetish over wound tele neck pup for my middle position pup. Anyway, the pickup...

www.tdpri.com

I'm using an import style 5 way blade switch, due to the standard 5 way switch being too tall to fit in through the f hole and I've never wired an import 5 way switch before.

So anyway, I'm going to have 2 vol pots, 2 tone pots, 1 two way (ON-ON) mini toggle switch, 1 three way (ON-OFF-ON) mini toggle switch.
I'm going to have 3 pickups: neck, middle, bridge.

1 vol control will control both the neck and bridge pups.
Other vol control will control the middle pup.
1 tone control for the neck pup.
Other tone control for the bridge pup.

I hope to use the 3 way (ON-OFF-ON) toggle switch to give three tonal option for the middle pup:
- simulate tone at ten
- bypass the cap (brightest sound)
- simulate tone roughly half way down

I'll use the 2 way (ON-ON) switch as a phase reverse switch for the middle pup, so I can get out of phase sounds in both positions 2 & 4. I've wired switches for phase reverse before, so this bit is not new to me.
I guess the main areas I'm not sure about are how to wire the 5 way import style blade switch to the appropriate pots and also the right way to incorporate the 3 way toggle switch for middle pup tone.

 

[smoothrecluse]

Here’s a Link to a similar discussion on The Gear Page about your tone capacitor switch.

 

[toonskeez]

Here’s a Link to a similar discussion on The Gear Page about your tone capacitor switch.

I get a "

Oops! We ran into some problems.​

"when I click on that link for some reason

 

[toonskeez]

disregard that, sorted now, cheers.

 

[toonskeez]

Actually, that post on gear page is not quite what I'm aiming for.
I'm aiming to use just the one cap (either .033 or .047) and 2 resistors with that cap. The idea is to have those 3 components wired to the 3 way switch, which will allow me 3 different SET tonal options for the middle pup.

 

[toonskeez]

Also, @eclecticsynergy in that directly related post I mentioned above, has already given me good instructions on how to wire the cap and 2 resistors to the 3 way switch; it's just all the rest of the wiring that I'm not 100% sure about.

 

[smoothrecluse]

Actually, that post on gear page is not quite what I'm aiming for.
I'm aiming to use just the one cap (either .033 or .047) and 2 resistors with that cap. The idea is to have those 3 components wired to the 3 way switch, which will allow me 3 different SET tonal options for the middle pup.

Sorry about that, I forgot that you won’t have a tone pot for that middle pickup. I’m sure the good folks around here can point you in the right direction. I don’t envy the task of having to fish the components in through the f-hole!

 

[toonskeez]

Sorry about that, I forgot that you won’t have a tone pot for that middle pickup. I’m sure the good folks around here can point you in the right direction. I don’t envy the task of having to fish the components in through the f-hole!

cheers, yeah that f*cking f hole does try one's patience. I've done it once before though with my epi dot, so at least I know what's ahead of me.

 

[Steve Holt]

Okay...so this isn't EXACTLY what you asked for so apologies in advance. Also a caveat that I'm not an expert, but you get what you pay for.

Let's start with the On-OFF-On switch.

Up - you have a capacitor/resistor of your choosing that could simulate the tone half down that you're wanting. I don't know what cap that would be.

Down - I would just use a 250k or 500k resistor. My understanding is that when your guitars tone pot is at 10, the capacitor is not affecting the tone. But the signal is still passing through the pot, which is a resistor, and that affects the signal. I'm not 100% sure that I have the diagram correct for how this resistor would be need to be wired. Here's a good read though:

How To Use Resistors In A Guitar & Cool Tricks | Fralin Pickups

Resistors are basic components that add a lot of versatility to your guitar. Using Resistors in a guitar can add a whole new layer of tone.

www.fralinpickups.com

Middle - switch is off - guitar tone is unaffected by anything on this switch.

Next is that part you may not like. I got lost trying to put the neck and bridge on one volume pot, while having the middle on its own. Typically if you have one volume for all pickups, you run the pickups to the switch, the switch to the input of the volume, and then the output of the volume goes to the jack. When you have each pickup on its own volume. You run the pickups to the volume input, volume output goes to the switch, and then the switch goes to the jack. I've never seen one volume controlling two pickups with a separate volume controlling another on a 5 way switch. That's not to say it can't be done, just that I haven't come across it yet. I can modify the drawing if someone explains it to me.

So what I did was sacrifice one of your tone pots to give each pickup its own volume, and then put bridge and neck on one tone pot. That is a lot more straightforward. Hopefully this helps more than it hurts!

 

[toonskeez]

Thanks; I appreciate the effort. I had a feeling my desired outcome wouldn't be straightforward. At least with your diagram, if my setup isn't possible, I'll have a backup. Regarding the middle tone switch, I haven't done anything like this before, so I'm just going on what other people are telling me, but I do have some basic understanding of how pots, caps and resistors affect the signal.
As I understand it, in the 3 way on-off-on toggle switch, the middle position would bypass tone, so give me the brightest tone,
the up and down positions would need to have both and cap and resistor working with each other, to simulate a tone pot of a certain value, with it's tone turned up/down whatever amount.
In these two scenarios, the resistor represents amount of frequencies you're stopping going through the cap and then to ground , so if there was no resistor, all the high frequencies would go to ground, give a really dark tone, as if the tone was at zero.
So if I use say a 250k resistor in one position, I'd be mimicking a 250k tone pot turned to ten and if I use a 100k resistor on the other position, I'd be mimicking a 100k tone pot turned to ten. hmmm... as I write that, I'm not sure if my understanding is correct, I honestly don't know. maybe someone can chime in here and tell me if I'm right, or misunderstanding how this works.
Also, @eclecticsynergy in the other thread, is saying to wire the 3 way toggle differently to what you're saying, so... I dunno.

 

[Steve Holt]

Thanks; I appreciate the effort. I had a feeling my desired outcome wouldn't be straightforward. At least with your diagram, if my setup isn't possible, I'll have a backup. Regarding the middle tone switch, I haven't done anything like this before, so I'm just going on what other people are telling me, but I do have some basic understanding of how pots, caps and resistors affect the signal.
As I understand it, in the 3 way on-off-on toggle switch, the middle position would bypass tone, so give me the brightest tone,
the up and down positions would need to have both and cap and resistor working with each other, to simulate a tone pot of a certain value, with it's tone turned up/down whatever amount.
In these two scenarios, the resistor represents amount of frequencies you're stopping going through the cap and then to ground , so if there was no resistor, all the high frequencies would go to ground, give a really dark tone, as if the tone was at zero.
So if I use say a 250k resistor in one position, I'd be mimicking a 250k tone pot turned to ten and if I use a 100k resistor on the other position, I'd be mimicking a 100k tone pot turned to ten. hmmm... as I write that, I'm not sure if my understanding is correct, I honestly don't know. maybe someone can chime in here and tell me if I'm right, or misunderstanding how this works.
Also, @eclecticsynergy in the other thread, is saying to wire the 3 way toggle differently to what you're saying, so... I dunno.

Yeah that's the part I don't really know much about. But you're right you'd need a resistor on each end to replace the missing tone potentiometer.

 

[toonskeez]

So do I take it that with my current controls, there is no way to control both the neck and bridge volume with one volume control?
Is the way that the 5 way blade switch works just too constrictive to allow for my desired outcome? Surely there is some wiring trickery that can accomplish what I want? or maybe not... sux if the latter.

 

[Steve Holt]

So do I take it that with my current controls, there is no way to control both the neck and bridge volume with one volume control?
Is the way that the 5 way blade switch works just too constrictive to allow for my desired outcome? Surely there is some wiring trickery that can accomplish what I want? or maybe not... sux if the latter.

It might be possible with a super switch. That's a big might because I haven't looked into it at all. But if a super switch won't fit, then it's probably not worth looking into. You need 1.5" of depth to be able to fit it in there. It might also be possible without a superswitch and some wiring trickery as you say.

Do you know any other examples of 3 pickup guitars with 2 volumes I could look into?

 

[toonskeez]

Off the top of my head, no. Just did a quick search there and nothing comes up, so... doesn't look promising.
Doesn't look like a super switch would fit in to my guitar, as it looks pretty much the same size as a standard 5 way switch, which doesn't fit. I actually emailed a guy who wrote a guitar electronics wiring book who basically said it would be ok to contact him with any questions.
That was about a week ago and no reply. Might email him again. could have gone into his spam folder too of course.

 

[toonskeez]

oh, and I bought a copy of his book in pdf format. So after that, I got an email reply from him saying it was ok to contact him with any questions; automated email obviously, but still why would he say it was ok to contact him if he has no intention of replying?

 

[Beebe]

For the tone switching I would use an RC circuit calculator.

For my Esquire circuits I remove the signal path cap, pick one of the popular tone cap values and then use an RC calculator to pick the resistor for the desired cut off frequency.

I went with 2.20kHz for my forward (dark) setting (3.3k resistor). Which was a smidge darker than my tone down all the way. On this circuit:

 

[Beebe]

For the tone switching I would use an RC circuit calculator.

For my Esquire circuits I remove the signal path cap, pick one of the popular tone cap values and then use an RC calculator to pick the resistor for the desired cut off frequency.

I went with 2.20kHz for my forward (dark) setting (3.3k resistor). Which was a smidge darker than my tone down all the way. On this circuit:

View attachment 1039716

Edit: Just a coincidence that the cap value also has a "22" in it.

 

[toonskeez]

Okay...so this isn't EXACTLY what you asked for so apologies in advance. Also a caveat that I'm not an expert, but you get what you pay for.

Let's start with the On-OFF-On switch.

Up - you have a capacitor/resistor of your choosing that could simulate the tone half down that you're wanting. I don't know what cap that would be.

Down - I would just use a 250k or 500k resistor. My understanding is that when your guitars tone pot is at 10, the capacitor is not affecting the tone. But the signal is still passing through the pot, which is a resistor, and that affects the signal. I'm not 100% sure that I have the diagram correct for how this resistor would be need to be wired. Here's a good read though:

How To Use Resistors In A Guitar & Cool Tricks | Fralin Pickups

Resistors are basic components that add a lot of versatility to your guitar. Using Resistors in a guitar can add a whole new layer of tone.

www.fralinpickups.com

Middle - switch is off - guitar tone is unaffected by anything on this switch.

Next is that part you may not like. I got lost trying to put the neck and bridge on one volume pot, while having the middle on its own. Typically if you have one volume for all pickups, you run the pickups to the switch, the switch to the input of the volume, and then the output of the volume goes to the jack. When you have each pickup on its own volume. You run the pickups to the volume input, volume output goes to the switch, and then the switch goes to the jack. I've never seen one volume controlling two pickups with a separate volume controlling another on a 5 way switch. That's not to say it can't be done, just that I haven't come across it yet. I can modify the drawing if someone explains it to me.

So what I did was sacrifice one of your tone pots to give each pickup its own volume, and then put bridge and neck on one tone pot. That is a lot more straightforward. Hopefully this helps more than it hurts!

View attachment 1038982

Hey, Just had a quick thought and thought it worth mentioning (even though it most likely won't lead anywhere, but anyway)
What the hot wires from Neck and Bridge pups go to the one volume control (for example the neck vol one in above diagram),
then wouldn't that vol pot control both neck and bridge volume?
Then that would leave a free lug on the 5 way switch: B3 (the one that the bridge pup vol pot would have otherwise used).
Could that lug now be used to go to the bridge tone control pot? so both Neck and Bridge pups could have their own tone controls?
I'm not an expert on how 5 way switches work, so forgive me if I'm totally wrong here.

 

[toonskeez]

Actually, wait, now that I think more about it, I guess that wouldn't work right? as both neck and bridge pups would go to just one lug on the 5 way switch. Doesn't help that I don't know how exactly a typical 5 way switch works. Think I have more reading to do.

 

[toonskeez]

Came across this:

HSH Strat wiring 2 volumes no tone 5-way lever switch

Hi Folks :) Have anybody tried such config in Strat? On SD site I have found a schem, but only with one volume. Would anyone rearrange it for two volumes (bridge, middle&neck) please? Would be very grateful, thanks in advance. Regards, Andy

www.strat-talk.com

Seems like that diagram can give two vol controls in a strat setup, which is pretty much what I'm looking to do.
Only difference is that that guy wants to control neck and middle with one vol, whereas I want to control neck and bridge with one vol.