Mighty-mite Switches

[StratDudeDan]

i'm starting to scare myself with this one, but i always see diagrams for strat and tele switch wire done with two rows of four pins.

however, the switches i own are all one row of 8 pins.

4 3 2 1

5 6 7 8

compared to

x x x x x x x x

question:

using the numbers above, who here knows what the pins are on the below drawing? i'll give a cookie out, even. it's just totally baffling me, probably because i'm tired, but you never know.

(btw, my guess was 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, but that was wrong...possibly 1 2 3 4 5 8 7 6?)

[lovekraft]

I'm unsure of the pinout on those particular switches, but you can use a multimeter set for continuity testing to quickly find out. Just pick two lugs, and cycle the switch until it beeps!

[frank falbo]

It's split in half, and the inner two lugs are the constant hots for each side. So in my mind it goes like this:

123H H123

or think of the 5-way like this:

NMBH HNMB

and the 3-way like this:

NNxHHxBB

Depending on how you install the switch this could be backwards.

[StratDudeDan]

i was thinking (going downward):

neck + mid pup (parallel)

open

mid + bridge pup (parallel)

hot

hot (the two hots wired together)

tone for neck + mid pup

open

tone for mid + bridge pup

this in a 3-way switch would give me:

pos 1: neck + mid (parallel)

pos 2: all three (parallel)

pos 3: mid + bridge (parallel)

yes, i'm talking for a 3 single coil strat here. one of my odd ideas. does this sound correct?

[frank falbo]

No, because you can't wire pickups together in parallel and then expect them to magially disconnect from one another when you're in another position. Your idea would give you all three pickups in all three positions. You need to use the other side of the switch if you want to separate it out. What you're talking about is using a tele diagram like this:

NNx HH xBB

But then hotwiring the middle pickup on all the time, either by running it to the pot or connecting it to one or both of the center hot lugs. If you want the seperate tone knobs to work in positions 1 and 3 and be disengaged in the middle position, you'd wire them to the opposing open lugs, like this:

NNT HH TBB

Just make sure the bridge side of the switch has the neck's tone wired to it and vice versa.

If you wanted the tones to work individually in positions 1 and 3 but both to work in position 2, then you'd wire them straight off of one of each Bridge and Neck lugs.

[StratDudeDan]

that would give me (with the mid wired "direct" so it's always on):

neck + mid parallel

all three parallel

mid + bridge parallel

correct? i understand what you were saying about wiring in parallel then disappearing. i just forgot to actually draw out or picture the wiring, so that didn't even pop into my brain. i was just like...but the bridge isn't wired there...but then...it is, so i was wrong.

also, would this then give me hum cancelling in positions 1 & 3? that's mostly what i'm looking for, 'cause i never use the others that much...

[StratDudeDan]

fyi, it works the way i planned.

so the official pinout is as follows:

if two rows of four lugs has this pinout:

8 7 6 5

4 3 2 1

where 1 is the neck pup and 4 and 5 are hot

then the pinout on one row of eight pins is:

1 2 3 4 5 8 7 6