Could you wire this up?

Alegree

Edit: I'm asking if you could wire the pickups in to the coloured loose wires, not if you could wire the whole thing up yourself.

As I'm sure all of you have heard by now, I'm planning on releasing my Chameleon humbuckers very shortly.

To get the most out of them, I've devised a wiring harness of two push/pulls and a 3 way rotary to provide access to every tone available. It came to my attention that most peoples' eyes glazed over when I explained or showed them how it was wired up.

So, I've been playing around trying to make harnesses that will make it as easy as possible to wire up to someone who has no idea what they're doing. Here's the results, and I'd love to hear if you think you'd be able to wire it up, or if you think there could be any improvements I could make to it before the official launch.


The full harness. Looks quite daunting. The thing is wired up as much as is possible before the pickup leads have to be passed through the body into the cavity.


The rotary switch. There's two black wires coming off it lacked N & B for neck and bridge. The idea is that you'd have to connect up the black wire from each of the pickups to it's respective partner here. With the amount of wires going all over the place, I think heatshrinking all the connections off will be necessary.


Here's one of the push/pulls. Labelled B on top for bridge. You can see the green/white/yellow and blue wires are loose. Following the same principle as before, you'd have to match the covers from the respective pickup.

Other than that, you'd need to unsolder the switch and resolder it when it's in position just like any normal LP harness.



I'd provide all the instructions just like this, and I don't think it'd prove any more difficult than wiring up normal 4 cond humbuckers, but I'm not in a position to make that judgement; so I'd love to hear the views of people who are! Any feedback or suggestions (regardless of their stance!) are most appreciated.

guitars4you

I don't want to be the bearer of bad news but I think to many it looks to complex and messy - Granted the likes of @ICBM would have no/little issue following it, as would many FB members who are tech minded, but not so sure about your regular 'Little Johnny'  - Not sure what else to suggest - I dare say the more options you have regarding wiring/switching, then the more it can look like a plate of spaghetti - Hope it goes okay for you but I think it needs to be more simplistic, or a more simplistic version as standard but a chart to show 'additional' option if required

guitarfishbay

I mean I think I should be able to do it, but it looks pretty daunting so I probably would pay someone else to do it, and expect they'd want to charge a little more than a standard install job too.

I think the excess wiring on your photo makes it look even more difficult to be honest.  I know that'd be necessary for an install, but on a small piece of cardboard like that it makes it look a bit overwhelming to me anyway

WezV

yeah, its a bit informal as it is - but assuming its not the finished article that can be improved on.

I don't like the idea of having a switch i need to unsolder on a pre-wired harness.... but i am not the sort to use one so i don;t know if that's normal

I would focus on the pickups  and plenty of wiring diagrams,  keep this as an option when requested.   

I think i have said it before, but not everyone will want all the options some  may choose these pickups for a couple of the sounds available and would be after much simpler switching

Alegree

Thanks for the comments thus far. The loose additional spaghetti wire is a necessity in order to be long enough to reach the jack/switch, so unfortunately I can't see a way that can go.

I suppose I should have added a bit of context. This will be sold separately to the pickups, which are perfectly capable of being wired up to allow any number of variations from the minimum to the maximum. This is just the 'be able to do anything' harness. Taking on board your feedback, perhaps I could offer some that allow only two/three modes per pickup too. But there will be plenty of wiring diagrams and such provided on my website along side this. 

ICBM

Suggestion - it would be a lot easier to see what's going on if you used multiple wire colours. Even for someone with an unnatural ability to follow wiring diagrams .

If you're intending to offer it as a pre-wired loom, I would strongly suggest using shielded cable too - there's a lot of potential for noise there, as well as shielded cable being much neater.

Alegree

ICBM said:

Suggestion - it would be a lot easier to see what's going on if you used multiple wire colours. Even for someone with an unnatural ability to follow wiring diagrams .

If you're intending to offer it as a pre-wired loom, I would strongly suggest using shielded cable too - there's a lot of potential for noise there, as well as shielded cable being much neater.

Good suggestions on both counts, although I have a question. Why would you want/need to see what's going on? You just need to  match the colours of the pickup leads to the colours already on the harness. My intention is that it should be possible to wire it up without any wiring diagram at all.

clarkefan

Re. the harness, two thoughts, wire up everything first, and use push - push pots, much more useable,  particularly live or on the fly.

ICBM

Alegree said:

Good suggestions on both counts, although I have a question. Why would you want/need to see what's going on? You just need to  match the colours of the pickup leads to the colours already on the harness. My intention is that it should be possible to wire it up without any wiring diagram at all.

True, but some people may want to alter it to fit in different guitars, to minimise the length of cable - which also helps with keeping noise down. It's much easier to do that with colours.

WezV

Alegree said:

The loose additional spaghetti wire is a necessity in order to be long enough to reach the jack/switch, so unfortunately I can't see a way that can go.
 

There is a lot you can do to make it neater

you seem to have 3 wires going from the rotary to each push/pull, grouping those wires would make it a hell of a lot neater even if it was just a couple of cable ties, but a 3-conductorribbon cable would be much neater, a shielded 3-conductor cable would help prevent noise

 Use a shielded wire for the output jack and you can group those two together - try to get the ring connection on the closest ground point to the tip connection  

 its fine having a long run to the switch, but even 3 braided wires soldered together (the Gibson way) is going to be much neater and be easier to handle

ICBM

WezV said:

 Use a shielded wire for the output jack and you can group those two together - try to get the ring connection on the closest ground point to the tip connection  

 its fine having a long run to the switch, but even 3 braided wires soldered together (the Gibson way) is going to be much neater and be easier to handle

The long run to the switch on a Les Paul *must* be shielded if it's not going to be very noisy. If you're not being vintage correct I would always use a single shielded cable - I use standard 4-conductor and use the spare core to double the ground connection - that means you don't need to connect the shield at the switch end, if it makes things easier (it can).

The link to the jack should be shielded as well. The ones between the controls aren't as critical even if the cavity isn't shielded, and if it is then it doesn't matter.

Bridgehouse

I'd cope with wiring that up. 

But - isn't the real advantage of your new pickups the sheer variety of different ways they could be wired up?

Personally I'd prefer a set of wiring diagrams showing the possibilities....

WezV

Are you telling me or @Alegree ;

can't say i have ever wired a les paul switch without shielded cable to know how noisy it would be.

I have just looked at pre-wired harnesses for LP's and the accepted standard seems to be that the switch, and often the jack is not prewired - which makes perfect sense.  You can pre-wire the switch end with a single 3-core wire or 3 braided wires soldered together... then its just a few solder connections for the end user, but no real way around that in a LP

ICBM

WezV said:

Are you telling me or @Alegree ;

can't say i have ever wired a les paul switch without shielded cable to know how noisy it would be.

Alegree - although if you haven't tried it, next time you're working on one with a shielded cable, just disconnect the shield at the control cavity end.

Quick answer - very .

Alegree

Bridgehouse said:

I'd cope with wiring that up. 

But - isn't the real advantage of your new pickups the sheer variety of different ways they could be wired up?

Personally I'd prefer a set of wiring diagrams showing the possibilities....

clarkefan said:

Re. the harness, two thoughts, wire up everything first, and use push - push pots, much more useable,  particularly live or on the fly.

The idea is the sheer variety that can be used simultaneously on different switches. It can be wired up in hundreds of different ways for sure, but that's not the intention.

This harness allows Strat, Tele, P90, split PAF, PAF, and high output humbucker modes on each pickup.

Sadly it's not possible to get all these combinations on solely push/pulls. I'm pretty sure this is the most convenient way possible to achieve it all.

WezV said:

Are you telling me or @Alegree ;

can't say i have ever wired a les paul switch without shielded cable to know how noisy it would be.

I have just looked at pre-wired harnesses for LP's and the accepted standard seems to be that the switch, and often the jack is not prewired - which makes perfect sense.  You can pre-wire the switch end with a single 3-core wire or 3 braided wires soldered together... then its just a few solder connections for the end user, but no real way around that in a LP

I always wire up jacks/switches for the sake of people who struggle with wiring diagrams. I tell them to take a photo of it and make themselves familiar before unsoldering it so they know how to reconnect it. 

Sporky

I reckon I could do that from scratch more easily than I could work with a part-wired harness.

Bridgehouse

Sporky said:

I reckon I could do that from scratch more easily than I could work with a part-wired harness.

That's kind of what I was thinking..

Alegree

Bridgehouse said:

Sporky said:

I reckon I could do that from scratch more easily than I could work with a part-wired harness.

That's kind of what I was thinking..

Sporky said:

I reckon I could do that from scratch more easily than I could work with a part-wired harness.

Why? 

Sporky

Alegree said:

Sporky said:

I reckon I could do that from scratch more easily than I could work with a part-wired harness.

Why? 

I think it'd be easier for me to follow. I've done some pretty complex schemes, but sheets worked them out from scratch. Other people's writing schemes rarely make sense to me.

Funkfingers

I cannot help thinking that the likely customers for the Chameleon pickup pair will be self-selecting. The sort of guitarist who appreciates the sonic possibilities of the switching options will comprehend the necessary complexity of the wiring harness. 

The "Little Johnny" type of punter is unlikely to require anything this complex to begin with.

sweepy

Maybe its the luddite in me but the fewer breaks in the signal path the better, I used to have mad switching options like that on my guitars in the late 70's and 80's, soon got very tedious indeed and the only switch I then fitted was a "blower" switch