Custom Guitar Wiring. I need help!!

[HarryBB]

Hi, i have a ibanez ex and im doing it up, i have got a EMG 81 (neck) Seymour duncan lipstick (middle) and a Rockfield Fatass (neck)
for each pickup it has have a tone and volume, and a coil split for the rockfield and a 3 way selector and a killswitch.
i was going fairly well until i hit a bump in the road, which is the selector switch, the switch im using is 3 way and looks like this

http://rocky.digikey.com/weblib/ITT%...0TO61-1385.jpg

its got 6 prongs at the bottom so i thought that if i hooked the emg, seymour duncan, and rockfields hot and ground to one prong each then another cable going from them to the output, butttt its not working and only one pickup will work, so someone, PLEASE tell me, help me. what selector switch to use and how to wire it.
Help will be EXTREMELY appreciated.

[Sweetfinger]

Link is just a photo, is the switch on-on-on, or on-off-on? Generally with three pickups, you'd use a 5 way switch.

[txstrat]

Assuming you have a on-on-on switch and want to play one pickup at a time, I think this would work. see pic

[HarryBB]

yeah its a on-on-on, i only need to play one at a time.
i heard having a 5 way with a active emg and 2 passive pickups would be difficult to wire.
please give me some help!
cheers

[Jazz P Bass]

3 Pickup wiring

Advised reading:GM Arts - Guitar Pickups

[HarryBB]

thanks txstart, but i wired it like that and no sound at all came out.
Are the pickup 1,2 and 3 wires the hot and ground wire? then a hot and ground wire going to the output?
thanks

[txstrat]

Just wire the pickups in parallel (as if it were only one pickup). Then you solder the ground wires to the switch like shown. The switch will close the circuit for every pickup that has it's ground wire "on".

[Robert M. Martinelli]

yeah its a on-on-on, i only need to play one at a time.
i heard having a 5 way with a active emg and 2 passive pickups would be difficult to wire.
please give me some help!
cheers

The main problem when mixing EMG pickups with passive ones is not the wiring, (as you might wire a standard 5-position the usual way), the real problem being the extremely different output level and impedance.

A std. Strat pickup puts out some 120 mVp-p, a standard humbucker is in the 200-300 mV p-p range, while a "hot" humbucker can be as high as 400-500 mV p-p (playing "normally"). The output impedance for passive pickups at the resonant frequency can go from about 150 KOhm for a Fender Strat PU to 200-250 KOhm for a "hot" humbucker.

EMG pickups have an output level in the 3Vp-p range and their output impedance is rather low ( 10 KOhm ).

This means you will have pickup balancing problems no matter what switch you use, unless you do something to "tame" the EMG, which seems unreasonable, because you probably like its high output.

This said, let's get back to your wiring problem. a DPDT on-on-on switch is not well suited for pickup switching IMHO, it suits "pickup mode selection" better ( e.g. series-split-parallel ). The main issue with them is that you'd need separate "kill" switches to "mute" each pickup.

You can either use a standard 5-way switch, or three DPDT on-OFF-on switches, in which case you would get 7 basic combinations, with a center OFF position that would render your supplementary "kill" switches useless, making the circuit simpler and the guitar easier to operate ( I guess you don't want to carry a manual on-stage ). These DPDT on-OFF-on switch can easily be wired for parallel (up) or series (down) operation for increased versatility. In both modes the passive pickup(s) will still retain their "humbucker" behavior
(this doesn't of course apply to the EMG81, which doesn't offer coil selection possibilities).

Hope this helps

Best regards

Bob

[HarryBB]

OK so, i thiinkk i might have found whats wrong with it, i got it hooked up how it is on the picture^
but only the emg is woking, and i think the neck pickups not working because iv got the wrong type of capacitor on it, could that be a reason?

[HarryBB]

Bob, thanks alot man, very helpfull