Please check my wiring diagram: DiMarzio Super Switch

[Jason Rodgers]

Ok, I need to have my head checked on one more detail, but I think it solves my problem with out-of-phase wiring.

So, I want to wire up my pickups slugs out, blades in. If the polarity is the same in both, the neck pickup should be slug-North, blade-South; the bridge pickup should be blade-North, slug-South. Right?

Now, here's my problem: I put black/white leads on the blades, and red/green leads on the slugs, which I then matched up with my black/white/red/green hookup wire. This means that if I have the pickups positioned opposite of one another, whether that be slugs in or out, I'm going to end up out-of-phase in position 3, because they're now wired to the switch oppositely (which is what you guys have been kindly telling me all along). In other words, the switch is seeing this:


To remedy this, I'll need to switch the hot and ground on the neck pickup, like this:


Does this necessitate any changes to the inside/outside coi split connections on the Super Switch, or is it as simple as swapping the black and green?

Here's my long-term solution to this problem: only use black-start and white-finish leads on all coils, THEN make sure my hookup wire comes off the humbucker as black/white-North and red/green-South. I think that's what folks typically do (or something like that), but I was taking the color-coding all the way back to the leads, which led to my confusion.

Good grief.

[eschertron]

Since I'm still confused about pickups in general, and your (unnamed) pickups in particular, the only advice I can offer is to leave your leads long enough to move them around during the testing and debugging phase. Giving yourself a little 'slack' (literally) allows you to change the hardware implementation to meet the needs of the design. Once the thing is as you want it, then tighten up all the connections.

[big_teee]

You can build your pickups however you like, and use any color you like.

However, This is the industry more or less accepted standard.
1. Humbuckers wound Counter Clockwise (CCW) looking down from the top.(right side top going, or Left side bottom going)
2. Humbuckers, North Magnet Edge on Slug Coil, South edge on Screw coil keeper bar.
3. Humbuckers, Output on Start of Slug coil, Ground on Start of Screw coil, with Finish leads tied together.
4. Humbuckers, 4-wire Most accepted is SeymourDuncan layout, black to Slug Coil Start, White to Slug Finish, Green to Start of Screw coil, and red to finish of Screw coil.

I like to follow this layout because it matches all the great SD wiring diagrams.
YMMV,
T

[Jason Rodgers]

You can build your pickups however you like, and use any color you like.

However, This is the industry more or less accepted standard.
1. Humbuckers wound Counter Clockwise (CCW) looking down from the top.(right side top going, or Left side bottom going)
2. Humbuckers, North Magnet Edge on Slug Coil, South edge on Screw coil keeper bar.
3. Humbuckers, Output on Start of Slug coil, Ground on Start of Screw coil, with Finish leads tied together.
4. Humbuckers, 4-wire Most accepted is SeymourDuncan layout, black to Slug Coil Start, White to Slug Finish, Green to Start of Screw coil, and red to finish of Screw coil.

I like to follow this layout because it matches all the great SD wiring diagrams.
YMMV,
T

Ok, let me see how I check out here...
1. Check.
2. Now this is where I'm getting confused. On a typical humbucker setup, the neck and bridge pickups are arranged so the slugs are in and the screws are out, right? So that means North is in and South is out, right? Does this fix my original diagram (circled in blue)?

The polarity is still opposite in switch position 3, though. And in position 2 and 4, the inside or outside coils will have the same polarity, which will not be humbucking. This is why I suggested in my previous post that the magnets be oriented North toward the neck and South toward, regardless of the coil type (slug, screw, blade, whatever), and that the black and green be swapped when going to the switch.
3. My fixed diagram above now shows this (except I used blades instead of screws).
4. Yes, that's what my fixed diagram now shows.

What am I still missing, here?

[big_teee]

That may work, but that layout makes me dizzy.
One thing that really doesn't help.
You lay the colored pickups out like a regular guitar, with the neck on top and the bridge on bottom.
But on the switch you show the bridge pickup on top and the neck on the bottom.
That just confuses the hell out of me, when tracing through the diagram.
I suggest redoing the switch layout, showing the bridge on the bottom to match the other pictures.
Then we could make more sense of it!
I still like the SD layout, it is much easier to trace.
T

[eschertron]

I thought I was the only one dizzy...

I don't make pickups, I just use 'em, and as far as I know SD makes all their pickups to the same spec with regards to polarity and lead colors. This helps reduce, and possibly prevent, the confusion that arises over mixing and matching. I think I know what you did and why you did it; so that a matched hum-cancelling pair could be made from two blades, and another from two slugs. Do I have that right?
So as long as the N coils are wound the same and have the same color leads (and the S coils likewise) then the hookup drawing from whichever company will work, no problem.

[Jason Rodgers]

Ok, let's toss my confusing diagram. I'm not going to use it anymore, but was trying to illustrate a point that I'm still struggling with.

Let's say I buy a set of SD humbuckers that I want to put in my guitar. Neck is wound to ~8k, slugs north, screws south; bridge is wound to ~9k, slugs north, screws south. Both pickups have a black hot wire coming off the north coil, a green ground coming off the south coil, and red and white that will be joined for series wiring.

Time to put them in the guitar. Do I:
A- Install them both with north up? This would allow inside north-south and outside north-south combinations on positions 2 and 4.
B- Install the bridge pickup with north up and the neck pickup with north down? This is what you see on many guitars (screws out), but now an inside coils combo would be north-north, and outside would be south-south in positions 2 and 4.

If the only difference between neck and bridge pickups in most sets is the turns count, how do you mount them to get the correct polarity for all the combos of humbuckers and single coils we're talking about here?

EDIT: Holy crap, this same thread has happened elsewhere... http://www.seymourduncan.com/forum/s...When-Splitting

[eschertron]

Time to put them in the guitar. Do I:
A- Install them both with north up? This would allow inside north-south and outside north-south combinations on positions 2 and 4.
B- Install the bridge pickup with north up and the neck pickup with north down? This is what you see on many guitars (screws out), but now an inside coils combo would be north-north, and outside would be south-south in positions 2 and 4.

Are you dismantling the pickups and reassembling them in some fashion? if not, then it doesn't matter electrically what you do to physical orientation. If you do want NS pairs of slugs and blades, then swap the coils and the magnets in one of the pickups. Then wire it up according to manufacturer's diagram.

There will be those who say they can hear the difference when a pickup is rotated for the slugs to be closer or farther away from the bridge (is that 'up' and 'down'? See, I don't even know that much) but in my opinion it's merely for aesthetics. You can try it either way.

[Jason Rodgers]

I appreciate your patience, guys. Going alllll the way back to the top: these are my hand-wound pickups, and this diagram illustrates as exactly as possible what I'm trying to do. I tried to clean up the orientation of the neck/bridge and switch numbers for less dizziness.

Don't worry about the fact that the neck has north blade and south slug and the bridge has north slug and south blade. Does it work?

Thanks!

[big_teee]

[eschertron]

Yay!

[Jason Rodgers]

Woo! Thank you!

[Richard]

One thing you may want to consider is that in position 2 the unused coil of the bridge pickup is still connected to the output. The other end is not cot connected and this may pick up interference. I would run the jumper to terminal 2 on the lower right pole of the switch tying all 1-4 together so the two ends of the coil are connected in position 4. This effectively removes the coil, I believe this helps reject RF interference.

[big_teee]

One thing you may want to consider is that in position 2 the unused coil of the bridge pickup is still connected to the output. The other end is not cot connected and this may pick up interference. I would run the jumper to terminal 2 on the lower right pole of the switch tying all 1-4 together so the two ends of the coil are connected in position 4. This effectively removes the coil, I believe this helps reject RF interference.

I don't follow?
When I try to follow your directions, I always short out or tie something together?
If the cable is a shielded cable and leads are kept short, I've had no issue.
I've run them that way many times, without problems.
T

[Jason Rodgers]

One thing you may want to consider is that in position 2 the unused coil of the bridge pickup is still connected to the output. The other end is not cot connected and this may pick up interference. I would run the jumper to terminal 2 on the lower right pole of the switch tying all 1-4 together so the two ends of the coil are connected in position 4. This effectively removes the coil, I believe this helps reject RF interference.

I'm not going to say you're wrong, because my understanding is hanging on by a thread, but the coil cutting method in my diagram came from the DiMarzio diagram I referenced in my original post. The way I understand it, the link from the right side to the left side of the switch on terminals 2 and 4 bypasses the black/white coil path by connecting the hot directly to the red. The grounding of terminals 2 and 4 on the left side of the switch short out the red/green path by connecting the ground directly to the white. In both cases, the unused coil is still "alive" and sending signal to the switch, but since there's no connection on the right terminal (the empty 2 and 4 coming from the pickup hot), it's just empty when the switch wiper arrives and it's disconnected.

Did any of that actually make sense, or is in any way true? Like I said, I'm barely hangin' on here, and taking notes so I don't forget this in 24 hours.