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Old 07-05-2009, 04:06 PM
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Rainer Bastian Rainer Bastian is offline
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Default 3-way switch connections

Here are the connections necessary for installing the 3-way switch with serial/parallel/single coil mode.

Assuming you have the same colours on your connectors you will have to solder them to the switches as follows (single coil mode with the outer coils, i.e. neck pickup - neck side coil, bridge pickup - bridge side coil)

So for the NECK switch the wiring will be (sorry Roberto for copying your layout ...;-)


EMPTY---------------------------Connector to bottom left
top left pin---------------------------------top right pin




BLACK and BLUE---------------------------YELLOW
middle left----------------------------------middle right




Connector to top right
BROWN----------------------------ORANGE and WHITE
bottom left--------------------------------bottom right



For the BRIDGE PU SWITCH wire as follows:


EMPTY---------------------------Connector to bottom left
top left pin---------------------------------top right pin




BLACK and BROWN---------------------------ORANGE
middle left----------------------------------middle right




Connector to top right
BLUE--------------------------------YELLOW and WHITE
bottom left--------------------------------bottom right



This layout will work if the colours are used with the following scheme:

Circuit connectors:
WHITE - Hot
BLACK - Ground

Pickup connectors:
YELLOW - Neck Side Coil +
BLUE - Neck Side Coil -
ORANGE - Bridge Side Coil +
BROWN - Bridge Side Coil -

For use of the inner coils in single mode please exchange the layouts for both switches. It is NOT recommended to use both Bridge side or both Neck side coils together because they would hum also when mixed together.

I installed this wiring on another bass and it works as expected. The single coil mode opens up the upper mids and higher registers.

As posted before I planned to give it a try at one of my Smith basses but I couldn't find a matching 3-way switch (black and with a short paddle) up to now.

Ken, I would be highly interested in the results if you would ever evaluate the 3-way coil switch.
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