Switched Out A Rotary For A 3-way

[Hendrxapprentice]

Hey, i have a Dillion PRS Copy and i never liked how it had a 3-way rotary switch for the pickups. Only because it's a little more difficult to turn the switch rather than flip it. Anyways, i went to a music store and got a les paul style three way switch. I put it in the way it should go (from looking at how it was wired before) and when i plugged it in it sounded like the volume knob was at less than half way the whole time. When it would usually sound really hot with distortion, it sounded like a single coil pickup with half distortion. It really sucks now and i was planning on selling it sometime in the future, but it looks like ill have to switch back to the rotary. Why dos it sound bad? Are les paul switches lower in output for some reason? I like the real PRS 5-way rotary, but that also changes the way the polarity is instead of selecting them. Because they're HFS or whatever that is called.

[Sambo]

sounds like you've wired it wrong bud. Try looking for a generic 3 way pikcup schematic on the net. If it sounds thin and like a single coil. It probably is (ie you've inadvertantly wired it so the pickup is tapped)

S

[Logical Frank]

If it sounds thin and like a single coil. It probably is (ie you've inadvertantly wired it so the pickup is tapped)

My first thought as well. GuitarElectronics.com should have a wiring diagram for you: http://guitarelectronics.com/category/wiringresources/

[Hendrxapprentice]

It would be wired wrong, but i dont see how it can. It's wired exactly like the schematics. There's the wire from the neck and middle pickup and then the one from the volume position. Maybe they're just made to be rotary. It's not too big of a deal cause i can just wire it back to the rotary and then sell it again.

[al heeley]

I don't know about the colour coding for your p'ups but the prs ones are wierd. The Custom 24 with 5 way rotary has its bridge pickup (HFS pickup) colour codes reverse to the neck pickup, the PRS vintage bass. SO red wire on one is equivalent to white wire on the other. Beats me how they settled on such a dumb idea. This is just begging for trouble when wiring up, especially when trying to adopt different wiring schemes from third parties.

[Drak]

Maybe they're just made to be rotary

Not true. A rotary or lever switch is just a switch, plain and simple, that's it. Some may be rotary, some may be lever, some might be toggle, some might be slide switches, they're all switches and they all operate under the same principles.

You're wiring is screwy somewhere, trust me here.

It would be wired wrong, but i dont see how it can.

You need to get past this thought and start breaking it down, wire by wire, connection by connection, isolating the problem, then you'll find it.

[Robert_the_damned]

if you can give me more details I can draw you a diagram to follow:

what pickups do you have (how many pickups, how many wires each and if known what brand)?

what kind of lp switch did you buy (the box kind or the skeleton kind)?

what kind of other controls are there and what do they control?

from one of your post you say you have a middle pickup...if you have three pickups then a standard lp toggle switch is not what you want (gibson 3 pickup guitars have a differant design of switch I believe).

Robert

[Hendrxapprentice]

Ok ill explain it to the best of my ability, so here it goes;

It's a dillion prs copy but the pickups dont have the crazy wiring like in the actual PRS guitars with the five way rotary. There's only a tone control, volume control, and 3 -way pickup selector. There's a wire coming from the neck pickup and one from the bridge pickup that connect to the rotary and the tone control. It's just like a les paul i wired the other day. The toggle switch is the skeleton kind. Im going to try to wire the pickups to the other 2 parts on the opposite side of the switch.

[al heeley]

Do your pickups have 2, 3 or 4 wires (ie: can you coil-tap them)?

[Jozer99]

Hers how it should work:

Four lead switch (Gibson uses these)

			   _

			  /  \

			  \  /

			   ||

		 ||||||||||||

---------------------------

|						 |

|						 |--5

---------------------------

	 |	  |	 |	 |

	 1	  2	 3	 4 





Three lead switch (Gibson ripoffs sometimes use these, they still work fine)

			   _

			  /  \

			  \  /

			   ||

		 ||||||||||||

---------------------------

|						 |

|						 |--5

---------------------------

	 |	   |		|

	 1	  2&3	   4 



Wiring:

1.  Output from neck PU volume knob

2.  To hot on the output jack

3.  To hot on the output jack (connect 2&3 together)

4.  Output from bridge PU volume knob


There may be a 5th pin somewhere out to the side, connect this to the shared ground of the guitar.