Would this wiring idea work?

[Keith Crossen]

Would it be possible to set up a coil tap arrangement with a pot rather than a switch?
If my thinking is correct, a normal coil tap switch simply sends one of the coils to ground.  Could a pot be used instead of a switch so that one of the coils could be progressively sent to ground?
Would this work?  Has anybody tried it?

[Twinfan]

Yep, I think that's been done on Yamaha guitars in the past?  Certainly one of the bigger manufacturers does it as I'm sure I've read about it.

PhillyQ is good for remembering this stuff, so hopefully he'll chime in here...

[Fikealox]

That's a really interesting idea, actually :D

[FELINEGUITARS]

Yes it can be done and we do it a bit on some of our guitars
From back  of pot - viewing the 3 tags
Centre tag of pot = connect coil connection wires
Right hand tag = connect to earth (earth back of pot too)

[gingataff]

My first guitar was a Marlin that had a pot and a mini-switch, one was a coil split and the other phase, but I was never sure which was which.

[WezV]

on the peavey t-60 they combined it with the tone pot

something like 0-5 on the pot are tone as normal and 5-10 are a gradual coil split

nice idea but in reality it gets a bit fiddly

i think the only difference was that the coil split wire was sent to the unused tag of the tone pot so its an easy mod to try

[Keith Crossen]

Sounds like a plan.  I have an Ibanez S520EX as my backup guitar so I'll give it a go at the weekend.  Thanks for the pointers.

[Philly Q]

PhillyQ is good for remembering this stuff, so hopefully he'll chime in here...

Drat, I'm too late!  :lol:

It's not a mod I've ever actually used, to be honest, because I like my tone pots too much.  But it's a very neat idea.

Here's a diagram, for what it's worth (using Duncan colour codes):

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=1h_1v_1sas

[FELINEGUITARS]

No - it works reallywell

We put it on one of Antag's guitars as I recall

Turned up full - it's humbucking
Down full it's single coil
Inbetween - it's progressively turning off one coil

Easy really
I just want to find a dual gang pot (not dual concentric though)to do it to a 2 humbucker guitar  with 1 knob so on a Les Paul you can have 2x volume, 1 x tone and the coil split control

[dave_mc]

they do it on those vintage advances, don't they?

there's something similar on my eggle vienna too.

I'm not too fussed, to be honest, hitting a push/pull or push/push is a much faster way of accessing it, if you ask me (plus that way you get a tone pot too), and at the end of the day, unless it's one extreme or the other, it's a pretty subtle difference... or at least, i can only really hear much of a difference at either extreme... the pot doesn't seem to do too much from 10-1 (still sounds humbucking), then from 1-0, it's suddenly single coil... maybe the ones i've tried have been faulty, of course. but i'd still prefer the faster mechanism...