(Somewhat) complicated 5-way switching help

Ace Flibble

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Not being a fan of push-pull pots or excess mini-switches, I came up with the following idea for a 5-way pickup selector, being used with two humbuckers:
Position 1: neck pickup in series
Position 2: neck pickup in parallel
Position 3: both pickups normally
Position 4: both pickups, one of them out of phase
Position 5: bridge pickup in series

So 1, 3 and 5 are normal double humbucker style options, with 2 and 4 being lower output, more uncommon tones.

My question really is just can this all be done on one single 5-way switch? For what it's worth, the only other controls will be two volume controls, then straight to the jack.
 
Should be possible... for #4, out of phase with the other pickup or with itself?
 
That's a toughie - you will definitely need a megaswitch from stew mac  it's got four sets of lugs and four outputs, it can't do everything but if you get creative you can do a lot. You might need one push-pull or on/on switch in addition, just looking at your needs. Read their description of how it works, draw out the lugs on a piece of paper and work it out, for complicated original schemes that's the best way. My guess is you can do it - one lug for neck pup, one for bridge, one for phase switching - the series / parallel within one bucker could probably work.
Have fun! This is your chance to really understand guitar wiring.
 
tfarny said:
That's a toughie - you will definitely need a megaswitch from stew mac  it's got four sets of lugs and four outputs, it can't do everything but if you get creative you can do a lot. You might need one push-pull or on/on switch in addition, just looking at your needs. Read their description of how it works, draw out the lugs on a piece of paper and work it out, for complicated original schemes that's the best way. My guess is you can do it - one lug for neck pup, one for bridge, one for phase switching - the series / parallel within one bucker could probably work.
Have fun! This is your chance to really understand guitar wiring.

I was going to recommend the mega-switch as well.  The big problem will be doing the series/parallel switching.  A regular 5 way won't have the ability to do this as you'll need to flip the hot and ground leads on one of your pickups to get what you want.  The mega switch might just work - but as tfarny says you'll need to draw it out to be sure.
 
Argh, Stew Mac. Being in England it's a bit of a pain to order from there for one small thing. Oh well, I'll look into it. At least I now know there is something out there that should be able to do it, if I can get my head 'round it. Thanks peoples.

dbw said:
Should be possible... for #4, out of phase with the other pickup or with itself?
With the other pickup. I wasn't aware a pickup could be out of phase with itself? Well, you learn something new every day.
 
In the UK you can buy a megaswitch from axesrus www.axesrus.com - free postage, great service although the website is a good example of web 1.0. No affiliation.
Other vendors are available.
 
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