Who can help me understand the 3 way Tele blade switch?

[ten56gibby]

LP style pickup toggles make perfect sense to me with lugs and what makes what do what. But I cannot make sense of how 3 way Tele switches work and I'm having no luck at all trying to search on my own. Apparently it just clicks with everybody else, but I can't learn {censored} unless I can understand WHY something works.

 

My best guess thus far: there are 4 lugs on each side so that there's not a backwards way to mount it. But I'm not seeing how the middle selection on the most common wiring has both pickups selected when only one lug is active. Is it because the end lug on both sides are the hot out from the switch and are jumpered to both pickups?

 

Excuse my mad MS Paint skillz, hopefully this'll help clarify the question

[snowaie]

I just want a LP style switch ob my tele.

[golias]

LP style pickup toggles make perfect sense to me with lugs and what makes what do what. But I cannot make sense of how 3 way Tele switches work and I'm having no luck at all trying to search on my own. Apparently it just clicks with everybody else, but I can't learn {censored} unless I can understand WHY something works. My best guess thus far: there are 4 lugs on each side so that there's not a backwards way to mount it. But I'm not seeing how the middle selection on the most common wiring has both pickups selected when only one lug is active. Is it because the end lug on both sides are the hot out from the switch and are jumpered to both pickups? Excuse my mad MS Paint skillz, hopefully this'll help clarify the question

 

I don't know for sure if that's a correct diagram of how a Tele switch works, but that picture makes perfect sense if closed = "off" (shorted).

 

Left image: Red is shorted off. (Green is on)

Right image: Green is shorted off. (Red is on)

Middle image: Neither is shorted off. (Both are on)

[ten56gibby]

I made that diagram as my best blind guess to make sense of it. It's probably wrong. lol

[Mr.Grumpy]

I can't make sense of your diagram either... But I do know the "classic" tele switch is a two-pole, three-throw design. That means there are two "common" terminals, and it's connected to one of the three switched terminals depending on the position of the switch. If you have one of the standard open "wafer" type tele switches, it's easy to see how it works and what's connected to what... if metal is touching metal, it's making contact and closing the circuit.

 

[golias]

Here is the way Seymour Duncan draws the "basic" Tele wiring:

 

As you can see, the ground doesn't go through the switch at all. The bridge goes in through the top-left lug on the picture, the neck through the bottom-right, with the output wire joining 4 of the remaining 6 lugs.

 

In position 1, the neck circuit is closed and the bridge is open. Neck only.

In position 2, both the bridge AND the neck are closed and you get both in parallel.

In position 3, Bridge only.

 

There are other diagrams around for how to use a 5-way to give you the option of wiring the pups either in parallel or series.

[ten56gibby]

I need to see the significance of each lug.

[New Trail]

The common poles (one on each side of the switch) and wired together and that wire goes to the hot input of the volume potentiometer. The hot wire from the lead pickup is wired to the other two unused poles on one side of the switch so that it is on in the lead and middle position on the switch. The hot wire from the rhythm pickup is wired to the other unused two poles on the other side of the switch so that it is connected when the switch is in the middle and neck positions. It's really a pretty simple switch.

[golias]

 

I need to see the significance of each lug.

 

 

I'll number them from 1 to 8 so I can talk about it without having to bust out MS-Paint or Photoshop to draw it. Going left-to-right, the top row in that SD diagram are 1-4, bottom row, 5-8.

 

5, 6, 3, 4 are all wired together to the output. As far as the circuit is concerned, these 4 lugs are all a single lead. (the "common" connection on the outside of the switch)

 

1 accepts the hot lead from the bridge pup.

8 accepts the hot lead from the neck pup.

 

2 and 7 are unused.

 

I've color-coded it using Yellow for an unconnected pickup wire, and red for the output and any pickup wire which is connected to the output. So if you were to brutally yank the switch out of the housing, you would have:

 

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

 

Position 1 closes the circuit between lug 1 and lug 5 while leaving the rest open. The neck circuit is therefore live while the bridge is not.

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

 

Position 3 likewise closes the circuit between 8 and 4

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

 

Position 2 closes 1 to 6 and 8 to 3.

 

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

 

Make sense now?

[ten56gibby]

I think I've ALMOST got it now. The middle position combines 2 with 6 and 3 with 7. Right?

 

(black is opened)

Neck closed / position 1

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

 

Both closed / position 2

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

 

Bridge closed / position 3

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

[golias]

 

 

 

If you look at the Seymour Duncan drawing, that should make it a little more obvious.

[ten56gibby]

Still don't ENTIRELY get it, but am a helluva lot closer. Thanks, Golias

[bsman]

Still unanswered: Why is the m%O@#f>@#r so complicated (i.e. eight lugs) when you only use two of 'em to attach pickups?!?!

[golias]

 

Still unanswered: Why is the m%O@#f>@#r so complicated (i.e. eight lugs) when you only use two of 'em to attach pickups?!?!

 

 

Probably because Leo was able to get cheap 8-lug 3-way switches back in the day, and now it's entrenched by tradition.

 

I think the extra poles afford some alternate-wiring options as well, such as having one position use both pups in series instead of parallel, at the cost of giving up one of the single-pickup positions.