Toggle Switch Wiring Question

[rspst14]

I have a Telecaster body that's routed for two humbuckers, 1 volume, 1 tone, and a three-way toggle switch that is located in the upper left-hand corner of the body.  Every wiring diagram I've seen shows the hot wires from the pickups being soldered to the toggle switch, but this body doesn't have a route that goes from the neck pickup cavity to the switch cavity.  I have to run wires from each side of the toggle switch into the main control cavity, then solder them to the hot wires from the pickups.  This works, but it results in some long wire runs. 

Is there any way to wire the hot outputs directly to the volume pot?  It can be done with separate volume pots, but I don't know if there is a way to do it with just one volume control.  Thanks.

 

[crash]

I think it's drilling time.  If the switch cavity is where you describe, it should only be about 2 inches above the neck pickup route.  Go get a really long drill bit so you can drill it close to horizontal.

 

[line6man]

The pickup selector selects which pickup(s) feed into the volume pot. The volume pot can only only control one signal, unless you want to do a dual-ganged pot with one gang per pickup. This works fine when soloing pickups, but when combined, the total parallel resistance will decrease to one-half the value of the pot, and turning the pot turn will place an increasing resistance between the two pickups, preventing their LCR from interacting as it normally would.

The other option, of course, is two separate volumes.

There is nothing wrong with long runs of wire from coil to pickup selector. The ESR of the wire is too low to even pay attention to, and the parasitic capacitance should be very low if you use unshielded wire. If you don't, it's still only a couple of feet. The big thing is exposing unshielded wires which are carrying high impedance signals to any sources of RFI/EMI nearby.

If it's bothering you this much, drill a channel for the pickup leads to go directly to the switch cavity.

 

[rspst14]

Thanks, that was the sort of explanation I was looking for.  I suppose a few more inches of wiring doesn't make much of a difference when you're ultimately sending the signal through 10-15 feet of cable into the amp. 

 

[line6man]

Thanks, that was the sort of explanation I was looking for.  I suppose a few more inches of wiring doesn't make much of a difference when you're ultimately sending the signal through 10-15 feet of cable into the amp.

The reason why the length of guitar cables is significant is that the design of an unbalanced coaxial cable allows it to function as a capacitor, which interacts with the resistance of the pickups to form a low-pass filter. As you know, unbalanced coaxial cable has a conductor at the center, which is surrounded by an insulating material, which is then surrounded by a shield of either foil or a braid of stranded wire. The insulating material between the two conductors of the cable acts as a dieletric, which gives the cable a parasitic capacitance, that increases with length. The wiring in a guitar usually consists of unshielded single conductors, separated by a reasonable amount of air. The capacitance of which is not significant.

As I said before, even if you opt for shielded wire, the capacitance of a couple of feet of wire is low. It will only make the signal a tad darker, if you can hear the difference at all. In any case, the worst case scenario is to use higher value pots or shorter lengths of guitar cable. This is certainly not something to be worried about. The only worry is exposing unshielded connections to RFI/EMI, but that's questionable to begin with.