Hi. First build with 2 disc piezos turned out good, now on to better stuff! Half way through a build with a rod bridge piezo and a single coil pup. Question is blend pot, 3 way, or separate. So, as a novice, a blend pot seems better than a 3 way switch, cuz adjustable in percentage. Am I missing something? And my 3rd option, "separate" means no 3 way switch or blend pot, but just wire a volumne pot between rod piezo and out jack, and another vol pot between pickup and jack and then just adjust those to the right "blend" ( turn one vol off, other full on, vis versa, or a mix ). Ideas? I won't even bring u p where to put the tone pot(s) yet! Thanks so much for at least reading this
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Hi Harley,
You seem to have a good idea about your options. Blending via the volume pots gives the best control and variation, but
just using separate volume pots wired to the same output will not work because as you turn one down both signals will bleed to ground through whichever volume is turned down.
You are on the right track though, if you add diodes (cost a few cents) on the output from the two volume pots they act like a one way valve for the electrical circuit and let the pots work independently of each other.
This is where I first came across this idea http://www.strat-talk.com/forum/stratocaster-discussion-forum/13405...
I recently wired up an electric guitar I made from a chopping board using this idea and it works so much better than a blend pot. I didn't bother with the treble bleed mod on each pot. You don't have to follow the diagram in the link exactly - I prefer my usual way of wiring a volume pot (left:in,middle:out (diode goes here),right:ground) so did it as per normal and added a diode to the hot output from each of the volume pots.
The diodes I used were 1N5819 as I thought they would cope better with the theoretical high voltages a piezo can produce. You could also add a tone pot to the magnetic pickup as per normal.
cool david, that is very good info. I like the idea of no 3way or blend pot, just the 2 vol pots, and I never would have known about the diode fix (plus just adding my own 'diodes' makes me feel like a rock star builder even though i am newbie). I may try this, and the blend pot...gives me a reason to build another one---fyi, is there a group or forum on here for guys whose wives leave them because they won't stop building cbg's in the garage!?)
Replies
You seem to have a good idea about your options. Blending via the volume pots gives the best control and variation, but
just using separate volume pots wired to the same output will not work because as you turn one down both signals will bleed to ground through whichever volume is turned down.
You are on the right track though, if you add diodes (cost a few cents) on the output from the two volume pots they act like a one way valve for the electrical circuit and let the pots work independently of each other.
This is where I first came across this idea
http://www.strat-talk.com/forum/stratocaster-discussion-forum/13405...
I recently wired up an electric guitar I made from a chopping board using this idea and it works so much better than a blend pot. I didn't bother with the treble bleed mod on each pot. You don't have to follow the diagram in the link exactly - I prefer my usual way of wiring a volume pot (left:in,middle:out (diode goes here),right:ground) so did it as per normal and added a diode to the hot output from each of the volume pots.
The diodes I used were 1N5819 as I thought they would cope better with the theoretical high voltages a piezo can produce. You could also add a tone pot to the magnetic pickup as per normal.
Regards,
David
cool david, that is very good info. I like the idea of no 3way or blend pot, just the 2 vol pots, and I never would have known about the diode fix (plus just adding my own 'diodes' makes me feel like a rock star builder even though i am newbie). I may try this, and the blend pot...gives me a reason to build another one---fyi, is there a group or forum on here for guys whose wives leave them because they won't stop building cbg's in the garage!?)