Question for the wiring experts

[Fat Pete]

Hopefully one of you will just know this...

2x SD Dimebuckers with the red & white series links wired to a DPDT for splitting. Humbucking when split with both on? If not (as I suspect), is it just a simple wire swap to use the other coil one?

Thanks!

 

[Cagey]

Green is ground, red/white wires together, black is hot = humbucking.
Green is still ground, ground the red/white through a switch, black is still hot = single coil.
You only need a SPST switch, but a DPDT can be wired to work.
Be sure to use shielded cable from the pickup to the switch.

 

[Fat Pete]

Thanks Kevin. I know the basic split thing. My question is when 2 split (SD) humbuckers are both split and both selected, are they hum cancelling?

 

[Cagey]

No. The two single coils will be in parallel with their winding orientation and magnetic polarity the same. Effectively the middle position of a 3 position switch on a Tele.

 

[Fat Pete]

No. The two single coils will be in parallel with their winding orientation and magnetic polarity the same. Effectively the middle position of a 3 position switch on a Tele.

Right, that's what I thought. So is there a way to wire it so it is hum cancelling, without also making it out of phase?

 

[Verne Bunsen]

Generally speaking, you'll want one screw coil and one slug coil to be hum-cancelling. Series link wires to ground as Cagey describes gives you the slug coil, series link wires to hot will give you screw coil. Again, generally speaking. It assumes that the bridge and neck humbuckers are wound with the same direction and polarity, which is typically the case. If they are reverse wound and polarized relative to each other, then same coils would hum-cancel. I wound the humbuckers for my Candy Apple Red Thinline this way for that very reason, hum-canceling with both screw coils. If the full humbuckers are in-phase with each other, you shouldn't encounter any phase issues by combining coils.

 

[Cagey]

What he said.

 

[Fat Pete]

Generally speaking, you'll want one screw coil and one slug coil to be hum-cancelling. Series link wires to ground as Cagey describes gives you the slug coil, series link wires to hot will give you screw coil. Again, generally speaking. It assumes that the bridge and neck humbuckers are wound with the same direction and polarity. If they are reverse wound and polarized relative to each other, then same coils would hum-cancel. I wound the humbuckers for my Candy Apple Red this way for that very reason, hum-canceling with both screw coils.

Thanks Vann. I've now found out that they are both bridge models anyway so will definitely be wired the same way. I might come back with a revised diagram to check I've got it right...

 

[Fat Pete]

Try again...

So, instead of this:

Would this work:

?

 

[Verne Bunsen]

That will work, you'll get the neck screw coil and the bridge slug coil with the switch up and it should hum cancel.
:icon_thumright:

 

[Fat Pete]

That will work, you'll get the neck screw coil and the bridge slug coil with the switch up and it should hum cancel.
:icon_thumright:

Thanks again!

 

[Verne Bunsen]

You bet! I use this approach often in guitars with humbuckers and Fender style wafer/lever switches, using the Oak Grigsby single wafer "half-super" switch. Put the hot wire on the positions where you want the full humbucker and the series link wires where you want the split. I picked it up from Fender's 90s MIM Tele Special (HB in the neck) wiring.

 

[spaceranger]

If you want a brighter tone from humbuckers, more like a single coil, but you don't want to drop the hum-cancelling, then go for a series/parallel switch wiring instead of split-coil. I don't like split-coil because it drops the output of the pickup in half and defeats the hum-cancelling. Unless you have a really hot pickup (like a JB in the bridge), if you split a humbucker then the one active coil is going to have weanie thin output.

I put a JB bridge and Jazz neck pickups in an LP doublecut type knock-off guitar, wired them up for independent series/parallel switching and phase reverse on the bridge pickup, and it's the most useful and flexible dual humbucker wiring scheme that you can get. About the only way to take it further would be another switch to toggle between both pickups in series or both pickups in parallel. Both humbuckers in series would have even more output (and a bit less treble), and would work a bit like a built-in boost in some ways.

Here's a wiring diagram for independent series/parallel switching. I would prefer to put the volume and tone pots after the pickup selector switch myself, but whatever works.

Here's another diagram that incorporates a phase reverse mini-switch for the neck pickup (it really doesn't matter, but I always wire it up on the bridge just because that's what I've always done, you need both pickups selected for the phase reverse to have any real effect anyway), but you'll have to extrapolate how to fit that in with the series/parallel wiring.