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.
Alegree pickups & guitar supplies - www.alegree.co.uk
Comments
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
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
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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.
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.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
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
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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.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
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....
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
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Quick answer - very .
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
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.
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.
The "Little Johnny" type of punter is unlikely to require anything this complex to begin with.