My new single coil has 4 wires vs my old having 2?

[Mbourn]

I am replacing the pickups in my RG550 and the new single coil pickup I bought (Dimarzio HS-2) has four wires like a humbucker, but the one I'm replacing only has two wires.

Do I ignore the extra wires and just use the red and black or am I needing a new switch to make this new pickup work? Would I need to ground or do something with the extra wires given the option to use only the red and black?


Links:

Two wire: http://dimarzio.com/Text/Wiring/Humb...eHumbucker.pdf

Four wire: http://dimarzio.com/Text/Wiring/HumbuckerSingle.pdf

[elcid]

The HS-2 is a humbucker, there should be instructions with the pick up on how to wire it for use as a single coil, the switch you have should be fine

[lyconxero]

Yeah, you can wire it as a single coil without a problem on the 5 way switch that you already have. Of course, if you wanted to wire it as a humbucker then you'd need to get a multi-pole switch from Dimarzio.

[Mbourn]

Well... It's good to know I won't have to get another pickup, but what do I do with the additional wires? The instructions are not as specific as a newbie like me needs.

Should I just solder all the other wires to ground or do they have a purpose in a non-hum setup?

Thanks!!!

[buddroyce]

There should be 4 wires plus a bare wire. Standard wiring would have you join the black and white wires together(solder them and them tape 'em up). The green and the bare go to ground and then just use the red wire as your live.

[Mbourn]

Excellent!

[guitarshredder7]

yeah thats it

[MicJustMic]

There is a problem if you wire it as a humbucker and drop it into the 550 using standard wiring.

In positions 2 and 4 you'll have some 60 cycle hum instead of them combining properly with the split coil on the full sized humbucker.

If you can live with that simply make sure you're in phase and wire it as suggested, if you would rather have it work as a standard single (keeping hum-canceling in all but position 3, like standard HSH) then you'll have to experiment a bit.

I'm not sure how to wire it with the Ibanez humbuckers to keep things properly phased, but with a set of Dimarzio humbuckers you would connect the red to ground, black to the input on the switch and tape off the other two, DO NOT connect the other two to anything, DO NOT connect them to each other, just let them hang loose, tape them so they don't short anything.

This will give you the top coil only of the stacked pickup wired as a standard single coil. I've found that while you lose hum-canceling, you end up with a slightly hotter pickup than using both coils.

If if sounds out of phase in positions 2 and 4 simply reverse the white and red wires.

http://www.jemsite.com/tech/img/t_wd_7ap1.gif

This is standard HSH wiring, when you use the HS-2 in single coil mode it's identical. To have hum-canceling in all 5 positions you'll need something like the Dimarzio 4 pole switch, or the StewMac Super Switch.

I tried it with the Super Switch and it worked fine, but I wasn't all too happy with the sound of the HS-2 with both coils running, so I took it out and wired it like a Jem (I have Evolutions in my 550) and I'm very happy with the results.

Mic