the Fly Clone Project

I apologize if this has been covered before. I haven’t had much success in my searches.
I have a ‘98 Fly Deluxe and I’d like to change the pickups. I’m not afraid of modifying the pickups to fit and using double sided tape to keep them in place (things I’ve read are necessary).
I would like to keep the ribbon cabling intact and not do any drilling. I’d also like to be able to coil split and was thinking I could use a Freeway Switch to accomplish coil splitting with no drilling.
Sooo. I looked in the cavity today and I’m overwhelmed. I’m not certain I can replace the magnetic pup selector switch with a Freeway Switch. The magnetic switch has 12 lugs.
I’ve attached a pic.
Anyone know if there’s anything I can do? Do I have to bypass the board as I’ve read some do (the passive mod I believe it is called - I don’t want to lose the piezo).
Thank you in advance!

Hi @Presence76,

You can replace the pickups without switching to point-to-point wiring. Check out this post on pickups for some options. If I recall, @@jb63 has a Freeway Switch in one of his Flys that @dayn installed for him, so I know it's been done.

There are a variety of wiring guides in this section of our forum that you may find useful.

vjmanzo wrote: ↑Wed May 20, 2020 7:08 pm Hi @Presence76,

You can replace the pickups without switching to point-to-point wiring. Check out this post on pickups for some options. If I recall, @@jb63 has a Freeway Switch in one of his Flys that @dayn installed for him, so I know it's been done.

There are a variety of wiring guides in this section of our forum that you may find useful.

I've used lots of Freeway switches, to do lots of things, but I've never tried it on a Fly. The owner of that company is fairly quick to respond, and will make or refer you to a relevant wiring diagram for his switches to work with whatever you need. Would be worth reaching out to Alasdair Bryce if you need help.

Bump. The pin arrangement of the pre-refined switch is explained/diagramed in this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=309

I found that the control cavity requires light routing/sanding for a Freeway Switch to replace the pre-refined C&K, due to the larger footprint of the flange containing the switch’s radial solder pad arrangement. Given the fragility and irreplaceability of the ribbon assembly, I don’t recommend anyone attempt to incorporate a Freeway Switch unless the original switch has failed and/or the entire control circuit is or has been rewired point-to-point.

In the case of the latter, swapping the control layout so that the Freeway switch occupies a space away from the edge of the cavity rout will save you the trouble of additional routing. I did the job with a dremel sanding barrel just to be able to say that a routing bit isn’t strictly necessary for the job - But, obviously, a routing bit or even a drill press with a forstner bit is more efficient for adding the necessary millimeters of space the flange of the Freeway needs to fit.

I've just replaced all my guts for the ghost acoustasonic and a freeway switch (with phase push/pull). Did you find that the single coil selection on the freeway was ridiculously quiet?

@mtyrrell1982, are you saying that the split coil noise is quieter than you expected, or that the split coil signals are unusably weak? If the latter, you’ve got a bad connection somewhere under the hood.