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I see this come up quite a bit and thought I'd do this little quot;quick referencequot;.
In these diagrams, the red/white pair is shown as simply red, to keep the drawing simple. Just remember that it represents both wires. Connections are shown with a big black dot. Wires that cross without connecting don't have the dot.

Hope this makes sense.
None of these require magnet swaps or pup flipping. Just install the pups in the quot;normalquot; fashion.

Artie

P.S. The two halves of the push/pull pot can be two separate pp's, for individual control.


Originally Posted by ArtieToo
Hope this makes sense.

Artie, um....I'm having trouble with the diagrams and the ideas of of inside/outside and north/south.

For the first two diagrams, it looks like for quot;insidequot; you mean the quot;neckquot; coil of each pickup and for quot;outsidequot; you mean the quot;bridgequot; coil of each pickup. Not saying I'm right, but I think of quot;insidequot; as the two slug coils and quot;outsidequot; as the adjustable pole pieces.

For the second two diagrams, it looks to me that your are splitting to one north coil and one south coil in each diagram, so I don't understand the labels of quot;split to northquot; and quot;split to southquot;. The humbucking part looks right because you do have to have a north coil and a south coil together to be humbucking, right?

Anyway in general, I'm confused by the north/south polarity thing. Do neck and bridge humbuckers normally have the same relative polarity (say north for the polarity of the adj. coils and south for the polarity of the slug coils) or do they have opposite polarities? When do you have to flip magnets?

Thanks, Rusty


Originally Posted by Rusty FingersFor the first two diagrams, it looks like for quot;insidequot; you mean the quot;neckquot; coil of each pickup and for quot;outsidequot; you mean the quot;bridgequot; coil of each pickup. Not saying I'm right, but I think of quot;insidequot; as the two slug coils and quot;outsidequot; as the adjustable pole pieces.

For the second two diagrams, it looks to me that your are splitting to one north coil and one south coil in each diagram, so I don't understand the labels of quot;split to northquot; and quot;split to southquot;. The humbucking part looks right because you do have to have a north coil and a south coil together to be humbucking, right?

Anyway in general, I'm confused by the north/south polarity thing. Do neck and bridge humbuckers normally have the same relative polarity (say north for the polarity of the adj. coils and south for the polarity of the slug coils) or do they have opposite polarities? When do you have to flip magnets?

Thanks, Rusty

Hey Rusty; Your assumtions are correct, but somehow you're misreading my diagrams.

Think of it like this - normally, when one mounts two humbuckers, one is turned 180 deg's from the other. You would have the adjustable coils on the quot;outsidequot;, just as you said. So, if we ground the red/white wires of both pups, we've selected the stud coil of both pups - ergo, the quot;insidequot; coils. That's what my first diagram shows. Pull the knob up, and both red/white's short to ground. (You could also say - short to the green wire.)

The next diagram is the opposite: short to the black wire. Which gives us the adjustable coils, or quot;outsidequot; coils.

In the next two diagrams I use quot;northquot; and quot;southquot; to refer to the physical orientation relative to the guitar sitting in a stand, rather than to magnetic north and south. That might be where part of the confusion is. So, in the first diagram, you short the r/w to black, giving you the adjustable coil of the neck, and you short the r/w of the bridge to green, giving you the stud coil of the bridge. Basically, you've just connected a humbucker, with the coils 3quot; or 4quot; apart.

The next diagram is simply the opposite. Does that make sense?

Artie


Originally Posted by ArtieTooHey Rusty; Your assumtions are correct, but somehow you're misreading my diagrams.

Think of it like this - normally, when one mounts two humbuckers, one is turned 180 deg's from the other. You would have the adjustable coils on the quot;outsidequot;, just as you said. So, if we ground the red/white wires of both pups, we've selected the stud coil of both pups - ergo, the quot;insidequot; coils. That's what my first diagram shows. Pull the knob up, and both red/white's short to ground. (You could also say - short to the green wire.)

Does that make sense?

Artie

Artie.....um....no, not yet. I'm looking at the physical position of pole pieces and the wires shown, but not thinking about wire colors. Lets stick to the first diagram. I agree that you are selecting the slug coil of the bridge pu, but it looks to me that you are selecting the adj. poles of the neck pu. Doesn't the diagram show the adj. pole as the output when split? I think my confusion is that you show the green wire for the neck pickup coming out of the slug coil and the green wire for the bridge pickup coming out of the adj. pole coil. Wouldn't the green wire be associated with the same type of coil for each pickup?

Rusty


Originally Posted by Rusty FingersI think my confusion is that you show the green wire for the neck pickup coming out of the slug coil and the green wire for the bridge pickup coming out of the adj. pole coil. Wouldn't the green wire be associated with the same type of coil for each pickup?

Rusty

Ok, I see what you mean. Thats my fault for mixing quot;schematicquot; type drawing with diagram type. There's not supposed to be any correlation between those colors and the specific coil. The quot;pupquot; symbols are just supposed to be a quot;blockquot; that indicates the orientation of the coils.

I should probably change that.

Artie

Ok . . . better?


Originally Posted by ArtieTooOk . . . better?

Ok Artie, Now I get it.

If you don't mind a suggestion or two, I'd change diagrams 3 and 4 to read quot;split to neck-side coilsquot; and quot;split to bridge-side coilsquot;. I think that would be clearer.

From info I found at Stew Mac (haven't confirmed it here yet), for Duncans the adj. coils use South magnetic polarity and the slug coils use North magnet polarity. That's why diagrams #3 and 4 are a little confusing, since the bridge pu appears reversed if you consider quot;Northquot; and quot;Southquot; to be magnetic polarity. If it were me. I'd put North and South Magnet info on all four diagrams.

Rusty


Originally Posted by Rusty FingersIf you don't mind a suggestion or two, I'd change diagrams 3 and 4 to read quot;split to neck-side coilsquot; and quot;split to bridge-side coilsquot;. I think that would be clearer.

Good idea. Done.

Thanks for the critique and suggestions Rusty. Hopefully, its a little clearer now.

Artie


Originally Posted by ArtieTooGood idea. Done.
Thanks for the update Artie. I really appreciate all of your drawings and the work that goes into them. They always make me think....sometimes a little too much!

Rusty