Concentric Pot Wiring Help

hondarider22

Newbie
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I've decided to  undergo rebuilding a 1980s charvel randy rhoads flying v and i was having trouble trying to figure out how to wire the guitar up.  I plan to use two concentric  pots and a three way switch to allow for a seperate volume and tone for each of my pickups (dimarzio dp220 and air norton s).  IM confused on the wiring becuase ive never dealt with concentric pots, and there isnt enough room in my control cavity for 4 nobs and a stwitch. 

PLease Help.

Thanks
 
hey

Im assuming that you want it wired up like a Les Paul. a volume and tone control for each pickup?

http://www.guitarelectronics.com/product/WDUHH3T2202

just imagine this diagram with the pots stacked on top of each other. should work.

Brian
 
thanks for the tip... i thought that might work, but i wasnt sure how the ground on the tone pots would work being that the tone adn volumes are stacked on top of each other
 
I love these things, after I wired up a "Mustang" with them I went back and rewired up my Telecaster & another guitar, just cause it gives you so many tonal options to do the four-knob tone balancing onstage. In a some ways they're easier to wire, cause the tone capacitor mounts so directly between the concentric pots. A few points:

Either pot can be the tone or volume, so if you want to do pinky-finger volume swells, I recommend you use the small-knob, inner, bottom pot for volume. It's the smaller top knob but the bottom pot. The larger bottom knobs are 1" in diameter and unless you've got pinkies the length of Paul Gilbert's, it ain't a-gonna swell.

For convenience's sakes (& repetitive laziness) wiring diagrams almost always show all grounds going the the back of the pots - they don't need to, in fact you're increasing the risk of frying them up if you try to keep piling grounds on. Each pot shell does need to be grounded once, so the easiest thing I've found with the concentric pots is to ground the pickup to the bottom, easy-to-get-to shell, then ground that shell to the top shell with a very short wire (1 cm?) on the sides of the shells. (Actually I do this in reverse - stick the pot(s) in a vise or even a block of wood with a hole for the shaft, and do ALL the wiring within the pot before you hook it to the guitar or pickguard.) All your grounds have to end up connected to the output jack eventually, but if you're throwing in some rocket-science switching those poor pots don't deserve all the heat.

It may (or may not) help you to get a set of kid's colored markers and re-draw the wiring diagrams with your own code for hot leads, ground wires etc. - it helps me keep the relationships straight, when I'm adapting or combining elements of different diagrams. I still don't really understand them, but I can get a guitar to do what I want it to if I can get my drawing comprehensible to ME.
 
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