Tele 3 way switch wiring questuon

DrBob

I’m trying to draw out a wiring diagram for the lefty Telecaster I’m building with my daughter as part of the Posca paint pen challenge. I’ve got my head round the flipped connections on the Rev log pots but looking at the way the 3 way is wired it feels like its done the “other way round” as compared to a Strat 5 way and I wanted to check my thinking .

So, with a standard Strat 5 way you get 2 sets of 4 connectors and the way it works (I think) is that in each set of 4 connectors there’s an “always on” or common ? that is always connected whatever the blade position is whilst the other 3 are connected in either 2 (in the instance of the neck or bridge pickup) or 3 (middle pickup) of the 5 blade positions and what you do is wire a pickup to each of the short legs with the output to the volume pot.

BUT ! From what I understand of the Tele wiring diagrams I’ve looked at it’s Arse about face and the pickups are wired to the two “always on” blades on either side whilst it’s the output to the volume pot that is wired to take the pickups outputs in the respective positions.

Is that right ? And is there any benefit to doing it the Tele as opposed to the Strat way round. And in fact could you do it the “Strat way round” on a Tele switch ?

CasperCaster

If you parallel the two 'Common' terminals on the switch and use them to feed the volume control, and accordingly amend how each pickups hot feeds the switch, you have the potential to wire the Tone control differently.

Normally the Tone is paralleled off the volume pot input (or output if you want to try 50's Gibson style) - i.e. master tone. If you change the wiring you could wire the tone to the spare terminal on the neck pickup side of the switch (so when the neck pickup isn't selected the Tone control is), which would give you a bridge only tone. If the Tone is paralleled to where the bridge pickup is connected to the switch, you get the Tone control in bridge and middle positions, but not neck position. The two equivalent variations with regard to the neck pickup are also possible. Many Tele players never want a tone control on the neck pickup, so my first two suggestions are common choices.

I have some diagrams but they are on my home PC so can't upload currently - easier to see than to describe!

EDIT: images @ http://imgur.com/a/w64m6nR

Funkfingers

DrBob said:

From what I understand of the Tele wiring diagrams I’ve looked at, … the pickups are wired to the two “always on” blades on either side whilst it’s the output to the volume pot that is wired to take the pickups outputs in the respective positions.

Is … there any benefit to doing it the Tele as opposed to the Strat way round. … could you do it the “Strat way round” on a Tele switch ?

Yes. It is possible to use the common/wiper terminals as the signal output and connect each pickup to two adjacent terminals on its respective pole. The generic eight-contacts-in-a-line PCB selector switch is often wired this way. It can now be purchased with some of the terminals physically bridged.

The advantage of the traditional Tele selector switch connections arrangement is that the pickups can be disconnected more easily.