Coil Tap Confusion

[Tom5150]

Hey there guys, i wish to tap the bridge pickup on my strat, which is a JB

im not sure of the correct terminology when it comes to tapping, but i wish to use a switch, not a pushpull pot, and the switch ive got is a DPDT one.

In the down position, i would like a full humbucker, and then with the switch up, i would like just the back single coil on.

Im quite knowledgeable about electronics in general, but building Amplifiers is more of my thing.

So could someone please explain to me how to wire this please?

I looked at the diagram on the site, and i dont understand how that is cutting out one of the coils, so could someone please explain to me exactly how this wiring setup works please?


I dont quite understand how disconnecting the two internal wires still makes the pickup work? I dont see how there is still a connection between the black and green wires , and also how you can determine which coil is tapped away.



Thanks very much, and i hope ive been as unambiguous as possible


Tom

[jeremy]

to split the pup, you ground out one of the coils. you only need half a dpdt switch so there are only three contacts to worry about and one of them isnt used.

on the middle contact you wire the red/white series connection, the other you connect to ground. std series wiring traces from green (ground) thru the red white connection then to black which goes to the 5 way switch or volume or output depending on how its wired.

when you flip the switch and ground out the red/white connection you trace from the white (ground) thru the black to the switch or whatever, giving you only one coil active since both the start and finish (green and red) are grounded.

you determine which coil is active by what pairing of hot/ground wires you use. black as hot, green as ground will give you one coil. the reverse - green as hot, black as ground will give you the other coil. you may run into phase issues depending on what other pups are in the guitar but that can all be fixed one way or another. what other pups would be used with this pup?

[Tom5150]

Thanks Jeremy



So im guessing that what you explained would only make the screw coil work?

the reason i want the coil tap is to get the '4' position strat sound using the jb and a middle single coil.

Would it be best to use the screw coil for this? or would the other coil work better?


Thanks

[jeremy]

taste my friend. you might like it one way where i would prefer it the other. splitting it will make a noticaeble difference. if it were me i would try it the easy way first and see how it sounds with your rig

[Tom5150]

Fair enough


Thanks very much Jeremy!!!

[Tom5150]

Sorry Jeremy, i just re-read, and totally missed the last paragraph of what you said!!!


The other pickups are two dimarzio hs-3's.

I had it wired up a while ago, and when i used the JB as it should be wired, i had phasing problems when using it in position 4 with the hs-3 in the middle.

So im just going to follow what you said, but swap the hot and ground wires, and hopefully i should be good

[Zhangliqun]

The screw coil (or whatever coil is facing the bridge) sounds pretty scrawny by itself. The other coil (usually the slug coil) sounds beefier because it's farther from the bridge and will pick up more mids and lows.