the YM50 works exactly the same as any 5-way Strat switch. the 8 tabs you see are actually two banks of 4 poles. in each set of 4 poles, there is a common output that the others all switch into (usually called 0) and three others that switch into it (1, 2, and 3).
on a Strat 5-way, going from neck to bridge, the five positions connect these lugs:
1 to 0
1 and 2 to 0
2 to 0
2 and 3 to 0
3 to 0
and they do it on both banks of poles at the same time. on a normal Strat, you only need one bank of 4 poles to switch the pickups. the other bank isn't used. the reason the switches have two banks is that Leo Fender got a great deal on some USAF surplus two bank switches in the 50s. everybody since has just copied his specs.
Ibanez got the clever idea to use that second bank of poles to automatically coil cut the humbuckers on a H/S/H guitar in positions 2 and 4. that is the
standard JEM switching scheme.
knowing that theory, when you see a particular model of 5-way switch, like the YM50, all you have to do is find out which tabs are which banks of 4, and which poles are the common 0 and 1, 2, 3.
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Originally Posted by harmonic
http://www.jemsite.com/tech/img/t_wd_777.gif
But the switch is just a picture and tells me absolutely nothing about the actual signal flow through the switch.
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actually, the rest of the diagram does tell you how the signal flows through the switch. the tabs that are soldered to the
bridge humbucker wires must be #3s. the output to the volume pot must be the common #0 of the bank switching the pickup output. the tab with the middle single must be #2 of the bank switching the pickup, and the tabs with the neck pickup wires must be #1s. the bank that coil cuts the humbuckers has a wire running to ground, and no wire on the common output.
so on that diagram, the pole assignments from left to right would be:
1 (bank 1)
2 (bank 1)
3 (bank 1)
0 common (bank 1)
0 common (bank 2)
1 (bank 2)
2 (bank 2)
3 (bank 2)
in this diagram, bank 1 is switching the pickup output to the volume pot and bank 2 is coil cutting the humbuckers. it doesn't matter which bank is doing what, so long as everything is wired right.
