HSS strat wiring help, HB in parallel DPDT pot + Blender pot

hello and welcome to the nut house - it's like the psych ward but with more solder and they don't take away your shoelaces!

to be honest, i worked all day in the sun so it's a minor miracle i am able to form reasonably coherent sentences. but one of the guys will be around to help you further

quick glance it doesn't seem too impossible with a super switch

stick around!

Run of the mill Strat switching:

5 - Neck
4 - Mid + Neck
3 - Mid
2 - Bridge + Mid
1 - Bridge

Master Volume and Master Tone

(no need to use the other half of the 5-way to select tone control)

DPDT Series/Parallel switch for Bridge HB

North coil stacked over South coil in series mode

Auto-split in positions 5~2

accomplished with the other half of the 5-way
connects the North (-) to ground in positions 5~2
redundant in parallel mode
shunts the South coil in series mode, leaving just the North coil in use.

Bridge-to-Neck Blender

connects between bridge lug and neck lug of pickup selector
audio taper no-load pot
clockwise = no connection
rotate counterclockwise to blend in.

In positions 5~2 of the 5-way, with the S/P switch in Series mode, the Bridge will be just North coil only. Position 3 is irrelevant since it's Middle only. But in positions 2 ,4, and 5, you'll get exactly what you said you wanted in your OP.

Likewise when in Parallel mode, all inclusions of the Bridge pickup will have both bridge coils in parallel.


I don't have the time to do a full workup on a diagram but this seems like a good community project.
We'll invite others who might like to do some drawing.
The first step would be to draw the DPDT as a S/P switch for the Bridge pickup.
Then add in half of the 5-way to do the auto-split in positions 5~2 when the S/P is in series mode.

When we get that far, the rest is a cakewalk.

Thank you so much Yogi B for taking the time to do the schematics, it looks fantastic!
That guitar stencils project really makes it look pro.
I had started drawing my own schematic but 90% was wrong and not a single wire on the DPDT switch was correct, haha.
I'm so excited to get going right away but I'll let all you experts have a look at it before I start soldering tomorrow.
Thank you all for helping out, this place rocks!

I'm not doubting YogiB's diagram, and perhaps I'm just being my usual obtund self, but in position 4, won't the blend knob be blending both the neck and mid into the bridge?

I haven't started soldering yet.
Before falling asleep last night I thought a lot about the schematic and it occured to me that I would like to have a no-load tone pot.
I previously had thought I couldn't do that to a DPDT pot but I was wrong, it worked just like on normal pots by scraping off the carbon track at the end.
Then I realized I could have the no-load to function as a Blender in the DPDT pot.
Having access to both parallel DPDT and blender in one pot means I would have much easier playing access functionality of the pots.
I very rarely use the tone pot so why not have it in pos 3 and have all the business in the first two pots.
I hope this little alteration of Yogi B's schematic doesn't change things too much and will have all switching options intact.

Revision 1:

pot 1 - Volume
pot 2 - DPDT & Blender
pot 3 - Master tone

Tone lug 2 goes to Vol lug 1 (with 22n)
Tone lug 3 goes to ground

Wires going in to the DPDT are unchanged.
Green DPDT goes out to lug 2 of Blender, and that green lug 2 goes out to the switch.
Blender lug 3 Red goes to the switch.

Please let me know if the above is correct and will work.

Thanks for the correction, what was I thinking.
When I look closer on your schematic image each lug is numbered!
Now with that fixed does it look correct now?

Revision 1:

pot 1 - Volume
pot 2 - DPDT & Blender
pot 3 - Master tone

Tone lug 2 goes to Vol lug 3 (with 22n)
Tone lug 1 goes to ground

Wires going in to the DPDT are unchanged.
Green DPDT goes out to lug 2 of Blender, and that green lug 2 goes out to the switch.
Blender lug 1 Red goes to the switch.

Great!
Your schematic is easy to follow and I hope to be steady on the hand and not make any soldering mistakes.

I have a question about the DPDT nr 2 wire going to ground.
In your schematic it looks like it is soldered two times.
I'm guessing that the purpose of that little piece of metal sticking out on top of the DPDT switch above the six lugs is to have an easy place to ground to.

This is going to be fun!

In the middle of soldering I decided to replace the neck HS3 with a Dimarzio Area 58 and I assume it has the same 4 wire code as my previous HS3. What I noticed is that in my previous wiring I had the HS3 green going to the switch and red going to the ground (black & white taped together).
That gave me the expected sound in 4th position mid+neck.
I have now tested the new wiring (Area 58 neck: red going to switch and green to ground) and something is not right.
In all positions where the neck is mixed or blended in with other pickups I get an extremely thin sound (out of phase?).
The neck sounds good on its own in pos 5 and the other pickups sound good (HB in parallel is very nice).

What causes this and how do I fix it?
Should I wire it like I previously had with my HS3 (Green going to the switch and red going to the ground)?
On this HSS strat I assume the stock mid pickup is rwrp.

That sounds like a good idea, I will do that and see if it helps.
But aren't the wires supposed to be this way they are now?
The HS3 will find a good place in another strat for the yngwie moments.
I wanted a more traditional strat sound for this one and the Area 58 sounds fantastic on its own, first time I try area pickups.
I've gotten the three Area 58, 67 and 61 and will likely try them all in this guitar. I was a bit worried putting the 67 in the neck since I've read that sometimes the 67 can be rwrp. Is there any info on the pickup if they are rwrp or can I test it with a multimeter?

those dimarzio areas are all 'stacked humbucker' single coils (dimarzio calls them virtual vintage). that's why they have the two extra wires that are soldered and maybe heat shrunk together. in my brief experimenting, don't even bother trying to use the series connect wire to split them: sounds about the same.

so with those it's even easier because all you're caring about is the system polarity of each pickup. swap them leads, boyo!

Switching the red and green wires did the trick!
I'm so happy and thankful for all your help, I could never have done all this by myself.
Now I have a very versatile HSS tone machine that sounds fantastic.
What I'm most impressed by is the blender knob, it offers very telecasterish tones which is exactly what I wanted.
The HS3 is great with low to high overdrive or distortion but was a bit sterile sounding for clean sounds.
The Area 58 can do it all from vintage bell cleans, blues to yngwie and with a bit more attitude than the HS3.
It has zero hum and is more silent than the HB.

Here are some more questions:
I put in a 500k linear DPDT pot to function as parallel switch and blender knob.
1 - Does the value of the pot affect the sound at all for the no-load blender knob or DPDT, will a 250k sound the same as a 500k pot?
2 - Can a no-load tone pot value be reduced by adding a resistor, like a normal pot can going from 500 to 250 with a resistor?
3 - Can I measure the value of an installed volume pot with my multimeter, if so how?
I can measure the installed tone pots on the lugs but not the volume pots installed in my guitars.
4 - In an SSS guitar, will a pos 1 bridge + blender max neck sound identical to pos 5 neck + blender max bridge?

In my previous stock wiring I had diconnected (desoldered) the tone knobs to get more highs because the guitar was a bit dull sounding.
During this new wiring I measured the 250k tone pot in the middle and it was only 185k. That is more than the 20% tolerance I think these Fender pots have. I decided to increase the value of it to 300k by scraping the inner and outer sides of the carbon track to reduce the taper evenly, and also making it a no-load pot by cutting the carbon track at the end. So now I have a very versatile and brighter tone pot.
I learned it from this video, "How to Increase a Pot's Resistance Value"
I assume that in the no-load tone position that I now have, it should sound the same as when I had the tone pots disconnected.

Here are my opinions:

1. With the control fully clockwise, a 250k no-load pot will sound exactly the same as a 500k no-load pot.
   
   
2. Adding a resistor in parallel with a no-load pot defeats the purpose.  I wouldn't.
   
   
3. You can estimate the value of volume pot with some careful measurements and a bit of math.  However if you have a parallel treble-bleed network with unknown resistor value, this will severely complicate the matter.  The short version is:  Measure the resistance between tip and jack of the output jack.  (You can do this without even taking the cover off the control cavity.)  Rotate the volume pot until you get maximum resistance displayed on your meter.  This value will be 1/2 1/4 the total resistance of the volume pot + DC resistance of whatever pickup(s) is/are selected, so multiply that number by two four then subtract the pickup resistance.  If you have a treble-bleed network (which includes a parallel resistor) that will complicate the bejeezus out of the math.  For additional information: Discerning Strat-Type Resistances
   
   
4. If by "+ blender max" you mean the position on the blender where the resistance is zero and the maximum possible contribution of the 'blended' pickup is added, then theoretically yes.  If that position of the blender is actually zero resistance, the blended pickup will be directly in parallel with the selected pickup.
   

My apologies, sunguitar. I told you wrong. The factors are 1/4 and four.


Disconnect any and all wires to the ClockWise lug then measure from the CW lug to CCW (ground) -OR- from the wiper to the CCW when the knob is rotated fully clockwise. This assumes there is no external resistance from wiper to ground.