Help with 5-Way Special Switch Wiring

[JDA]

Hi,
I've got a Charvel 3DR with one single coil (2 wires black & white) and the JC-90 Humbucker (4 wires red, white, black, and green). The previous owner had bypassed the 5-way switch and had the bridge pickup wired directly to the volume pot.

I think the 5-way switch is what people refer to as the special switch. It has a bunch of lugs and jumper wires.

Is there a wiring diagram for this switch or can someone explain how to wire this up with my pickup configuration?

Thanks! JD...

[DHardmanJr]

If it's a "SuperSwitch" or "Megaswitch" ... there are wiring instructions on the stewmac.com site. Otherwise I dunno.

[Hellbat]

http://audiozone.dk/cm/displayimage....488&fullsize=1

[JDA]

Thanks guys for the replies. The schematic Hellbat posted should help out quite a bit. Does anyone know who makes a 3-way switch that would fit this guitar, in case I go that route?

Thanks! JD...

[Hellbat]

I used a Fender telecaster 3 way switch on my Charvel Model 5 when I switched the pickups out for SD Blackouts recently. The screw holes lined up perfectly. I did end up staying with thte Charvel switch tip instead of the giant telecaster one though.

I had initially used the 5 way super switch when I put in a JB/Pearly gates combo and it took me like an hour and a pounding headache to figure out how it worked. Since the Blackouts don't have coil tap I decided it wasn't worth the headache to try and use it with them.

[Newc]

That's the Jackson Special 5-way, which came standard on a lot of Jacksons from 86 to 94. It can do 5 separate functions. The standard Fender-style 5-way is a 3-way switch with bridges between 1 and 2 and 2 and 3, but this switch has the ability to do 5 independent connections - if you want bridge+middle of a 3-pickup guitar, you have to manually wire the two prongs together.

That said, the picture you posted is how the usually came stock: wired for standard Fender-style operation, with maybe a coil tap on h-s models.

You should be able to just connect the bridge and neck pickups to the end prongs (the one with the bit of red wire on it and its twin on the other end of the switch) and get whatever it was originally wired for. All those blue wires are the jumpers that connect the two halves of the switch. Remove any of them and you will have at least one dead spot. Remove them all and you've got a wiring job you won't want.