Adding an Alumitone and a Free-Way to a NiteFly

Discussions of the NiteFly NFV1-8, NFV-M, and NFV-SA models
valrus
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Adding an Alumitone and a Free-Way to a NiteFly

Post by valrus »

I'm following up on my plan from this thread to put an Alumitone and a Free-Way switch in my NiteFly. What I'm stuck on is how to adapt the Free-Way's coil split to the Alumitone's (unusual?) wire schema. I'm working off two diagrams. This one is for the Free-Way switch. Note there are two holes per terminal on the actual switch.
Screenshot 2023-02-20 at 4.19.55 PM.png
And this is for the Alumitone.
Screenshot 2023-02-20 at 4.48.24 PM.png
My question concerns what to do with the white and white/black striped (henceforth just "striped") wires from the Alumitone. My understanding, from the Free-Way schematic, is that the north and south finish wires connect to the same terminal so that depending on the position of the switch they'll connect either to each other (for humbucking) or to ground (for coil splitting). The Alumitone will be in the bridge position so I'm looking specifically at the BT terminal.

Now for the Alumitone, it seems that the humbucker configuration requires grounding the striped wire and leaving the white one unconnected, and vice versa for coil splitting. Pretty straightforward for a regular switch but I don't understand how to adapt that to the Free-Way switch. If I connect the white and striped wires to BT, they'll both either connect to each other or to ground, neither of which match either of the Lace diagrams, so I assume that will be a bad idea. But is there a way to adapt the schematic to the Lace wiring? Maybe something clever having to do with G3 per the note in the Free-Way diagram? Maybe I should just contact Free-Way?

Paging @mmmguitar, who said in my intro thread they'd be happy to help when I finally got around to this. 😁
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Re: Adding an Alumitone and a Free-Way to a NiteFly

Post by mmmguitar »

valrus wrote: Mon Feb 20, 2023 8:22 pm Paging @mmmguitar, who said in my intro thread they'd be happy to help when I finally got around to this. 😁
Edit: Third revision of this post, due to brain farts.

I first replied with a guide which presumed that the Free-Way is a "shorting" switch (achieves splitting by sending NT and BT connections to ground via the GD contact). Then I convinced myself it was a 2 pole non-shorting switch which wouldn't tap the Alumitone; and rewrote everything with alternative diagraming relayed via text. Then I looked AGAIN, and realized that the first way makes more sense, even with the 10 contact selections. If you have a multimeter, checking for continuity between the NT+GD and BT+GD connections in switch positions 6,7,9, and 10 will confirm that it's a shorting switch. But I'm fairly certain it is.

Here's my original post; should that prove the case:


Yep! The short answer is that you can adapt the Alumitone to the Freeway switch diagram by soldering the white wire to the BT contact. You can solder the green and striped wires to a grounding point permanently, without worrying about toggling between the white and striped wires as Lace's diagram specifies.

In case you brought it up because you were wondering: The two holes through each contact's solder pad are so you can solder in jumper wires between contacts, or thread a single bare wire through both of them for the sake of holding the wire in place while you solder to the pad (if you so wish - The wire needs only be soldered to the pad; with the holes as an option if you find it's a three-handed job).

---

The more technical explanation is that Lace is omitting a helpful bit of info from their diagram: The Alumitone doesn't actually require switching between which of the striped and white wires are grounded. You can have the striped and green wires grounded at all times, then add the white wire to ground when you want the "split" sound (the Alumitone humbucker is actually a novel kind of single coil pickup, with a "tap" wire decreasing its inductance when grounded). The reason Lace shows a toggle switching between the striped and white wires is because they're redundant to one another for function of grounding the pickup - But so are the start and series connection wires when you split a humbucker.

For what it's worth: I briefly had a HSH set of Alumitones in a guitar, and my experience was that the "split" sound of the Alumitone "humbucker" was about on par with cutting 3db from the signal. The humbucker-sized Alumitone is essentially the same pickup as the single-sized one, but with a relatively greater inductance resulting from the increased amount of aluminum in the larger housing. For people who want to regulate relative output between positions, the tap wire is there to help the humbucker-sized model drop to around the same output as the single-sized model - But if you're combining the Alumitone with any typical pickup (which you are, in this case), the effect may prove more subtle than in a typical split humbucker+middle single coil arrangement.

Let me know if you want me to clarify anything. Also: Don't be surprised if you wire everything up and find that some of the combinations in the ten switch positions are out of phase. You're kind of playing mad scientist with this setup. Have you decided whether you want position 3 to be split neck+tapped Alumitone, instead of the humbuckers in parallel?
Summary of the Parker Guitars speculator market from 2020 onward: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory
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Adding an Alumitone and a Free-Way to a NiteFly

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Damn, you’re cool, @mmmguitar! 🤘

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valrus
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Re: Adding an Alumitone and a Free-Way to a NiteFly

Post by valrus »

Wow, @mmmguitar, what a great comment — you really went above and beyond. Based on what you said (actually, maybe based on a previous iteration of your comment where you suggested tapping the Alumitone with a separate switch 😳), what I think I'd like to do is this (mad scientist hair intensifies):
Proposed Wiring.png
Basically, control splitting of the middle pickup (which this Free-Way configuration doesn't do) and tapping of the bridge Alumitone with a separate SPDT switch I'm already using for splitting the neck and middle pickups in my current setup. This takes advantage of your note about permanently grounding the striped wire and just grounding the white wire for tapping; without that, I'd have needed to replace that switch with a DPDT (which I don't have one of). The Alumitone is "high output" so being able to tap it does seem useful.

But this is weird because it redirects the tap wires from the BT terminal entirely, and I don't know what effect that would have, nor what positions 6 and 7 would do with this modification. I think I will have to crack out the multimeter when I look at this next, but it's late right now. I'll let you know my findings when I test...
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Re: Adding an Alumitone and a Free-Way to a NiteFly

Post by mmmguitar »

@valrus, having the tap (white) wire of the Alumitone and the series connection of your middle humbucker wired to a SPDT means that, depending on the toggle position, either the Alumitone would always be tapped or the middle pickup would always be split. Positions 1 and 6 would be redundant; because the SPDT would be dictating what the Free-Way switch sees from the Alumitone. Soldering the Alumitone tap to BT and the middle humbucker's series connection to the middle lug of the SPDT (with one of the outside lugs going to ground) would give you more flexibility.

As you can probably tell, I look forward to hearing how this project turns out for you. Is your Alumitone a Deathbucker, Fusion 251, or the "original"?
vjmanzo wrote: Tue Feb 21, 2023 12:04 am Damn, you’re cool, @mmmguitar! 🤘
In this medium, perhaps. I find people tend to regret asking me tech questions in person; on account of my shameless predilection for verbally circumnavigating these thoughts until my conversant feels their soul leaving their body.
Summary of the Parker Guitars speculator market from 2020 onward: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory
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Re: Adding an Alumitone and a Free-Way to a NiteFly

Post by valrus »

mmmguitar wrote: Tue Feb 21, 2023 4:08 am @valrus, having the tap (white) wire of the Alumitone and the series connection of your middle humbucker wired to a SPDT means that, depending on the toggle position, either the Alumitone would always be tapped or the middle pickup would always be split. Positions 1 and 6 would be redundant; because the SPDT would be dictating what the Free-Way switch sees from the Alumitone. Soldering the Alumitone tap to BT and the middle humbucker's series connection to the middle lug of the SPDT (with one of the outside lugs going to ground) would give you more flexibility.
I may have been imprecise, or I might be misunderstanding. I should have specified the SPDT is a 3-position on/off/on, so in the middle position neither the Alumitone's white wire nor the middle pickup's series connection would go to ground. Is that right or is there still something I'm missing?

But, regardless, maybe it would be more straightforward just to do what you say and treat the SPDT as a two-position toggle so that if it's up, the middle pickup is split, and if it's in the middle or down, it's not. What do you think?
mmmguitar wrote: Tue Feb 21, 2023 4:08 am As you can probably tell, I look forward to hearing how this project turns out for you. Is your Alumitone a Deathbucker, Fusion 251, or the "original"?
It's an "Aluma Captain?" I got a good deal on it and it came in blue so I took a chance on it. There seems to be vanishingly little info on what it actually sounds like but I tend to find things to do with what I have rather than pursuing some particular perfect tone.
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Re: Adding an Alumitone and a Free-Way to a NiteFly

Post by mmmguitar »

valrus wrote: Tue Feb 21, 2023 10:34 am the SPDT is a 3-position on/off/on, so in the middle position neither the Alumitone's white wire nor the middle pickup's series connection would go to ground.
Ah. I understand what you’re going for, now. That said, positions 1 and 6 on the Free-Way would still be redundant to one another unless you ran a jumper wire from the Alumitone tap’s connection on the SPDT to the BT pad on the Free-Way.

I looked into it; and the Aluma Captain comes in standard and Deathbucker varieties, with a set of the two designating the DB for bridge position. If that’s the one you own, then you’re correct about the tap making a bigger difference than with the standard Alumitone in balancing with other pickups. Very interested to know your impressions.
Summary of the Parker Guitars speculator market from 2020 onward: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory
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Re: Adding an Alumitone and a Free-Way to a NiteFly

Post by valrus »

This is in progress! I'll update when I have more info...
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Re: Adding an Alumitone and a Free-Way to a NiteFly

Post by valrus »

Well, currently I have a nonfunctional guitar, with what sounds like a 60hz hum when I touch the strings and no discernible output in any position of the Free-Way switch. Debugging time! For now I'm just going to throw a pic of the current state of the wiring in here and then go to bed, cause I've looked at this enough for today. Very interested to get to the bottom of this. I'm not experienced enough with electronics to know even what to look for or what the hum indicates. Possibly I grounded the output signal somehow?
Dud Wiring.jpeg
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Re: Adding an Alumitone and a Free-Way to a NiteFly

Post by valrus »

Actually let me add a recording of the sound the guitar makes when plugged in too. The hum is constant but gets louder when I touch the strings:
Hum.mp3
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Re: Adding an Alumitone and a Free-Way to a NiteFly

Post by mmmguitar »

@valrus, it appears the main ground wire running to the output jack broke away from the bottom of the mag vol pot (or perhaps you had it connected to a different common ground)?
Screenshot_2023-02-22_at_2.17.29_AM_50.png
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Re: Adding an Alumitone and a Free-Way to a NiteFly

Post by valrus »

Yes indeed. Thanks @mmmguitar. I noticed that but couldn't figure out where the heck it was originally connected. Thanks for confirming that it's definitely not supposed to be like that!

I'm back to work today so won't be able to work on this till this evening at the earliest, but I'll fix that as soon as I can. Probably I'll just replace all the wires from the jack since it seems like the ground one is too short for me to flip the pickguard over, as you can see I've done here, without risking breaking it. Only troubling thing is the wires from the jack seem like a multi-conductor shielded wire kind of situation? Can I just use three separate wires?

Also, if you have any tips on testing the guitar without having to reassemble it, please let me know. For this particular issue I can just plug it in as the hum happens whether the strings are vibrating over the pickups or not, but once I'm testing more specific things it'd be nice not to have to reassemble and restring it only to re-disassemble it if something else is wrong.
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Re: Adding an Alumitone and a Free-Way to a NiteFly

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valrus wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 11:22 am Can I just use three separate wires?
Yes. Concerning checking your work: Your NiteFly has three signal paths you can check for continuity at each component connection:

1. Pickup lead wires >selector switch>volume pot>mag/mix/piezo switch>lug of stereo jack. In this particular circuit, your tone pot and SPDT switch are in parallel with other components in an otherwise-linear signal path.
2. Piezo summed signal wire from underside of trem>piezo vol pot>lug of stereo jack
3. Pickup ground wires > all common grounding points on undersides of vol and tone pot casings and trem claw (your pickguard shielding is also grounding components in contact with it)>ground lug of jack.

As for ease of reassembly with wired pickguards (to which I welcome you to the club of frustration comprised of all of us who work on them): These days, I'm trying out some solderless quick-connectors which had been included with other parts I bought. Prior to that, I would just give myself a greater length of lead and ground wire to the jack than required to allow the pickguard to be flipped over and sitting off the guitar body without straining those wires. Once I've soldered one end of connections, I take the other ends and twist them a number of times until the entire length of the wires are effectively braided together. After soldering the other ends of the braided wires, this ensures I have enough slack to work with, while helping to distribute tension in hope of preventing one delicate connection from being tugged on more than the other (some heat shrink tubing or wrap of electrical tape at each end of the braid can also help reinforce this).

It comes down to your preference, but I also suggest [REDACTED DUE TO DECAFFEINATED STUPIDTY]
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Re: Adding an Alumitone and a Free-Way to a NiteFly

Post by valrus »

After fixing the ground wire I now have a working guitar again! I played around with the Free-Way and toggle switch combinations some... whew. There are a lot of options here, which is what I wanted since I don't have room for a whole guitar collection.

Some are redundant: e.g. positions 1 and 6 with the toggle set to tap the Alumitone are exactly the same, I think; ditto 2 and 7 (though I did make your suggested change while I was fixing the jack, @mmmguitar, I don't know that it made a difference?) Some are not useful: for some reason the DiMarzio Cruiser I have as the middle pickup has extremely low output except when split (??!?!!?) so position 8 is too quiet to really be of any use unless I pull the toggle up. (This was a problem with the previous configuration too, so no harm no foul as far as this mod goes.)

Still, overall this is a pretty exciting setup and pretty much exactly what I envisioned when I decided to give it a try. Thanks again for all the help @mmmguitar! I'll probably post some more detailed notes on different pickup settings, if only for my own reference, in the future. I'll also post a pic later as I've now gone in even harder on the purple/blue combo I had going. But right now I really need to go to bed!!
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Re: Adding an Alumitone and a Free-Way to a NiteFly

Post by mmmguitar »

Glad to see that you're going through all the options and hearing what is and isn't working for you, @valrus. Apologies for my brainfart suggestion to swap the Alumitone tap wire being electrically identical to how you already had it: I'm going to be a coward; and blame my coffee for having worn off when I typed that. :?

Your Cruiser is working as it should: Dimarzio's early "humcancelling single" designs are a bit louder split than when the primary coil is combined with the noise-cancelling dummy coil in humbucker mode (The Cruiser is a 5k humbucker with a 4k coil and a 1k coil which is unusably weak on its own). When the coils are combined (either in series or parallel), there's a lot of signal cancellation caused by this disparity in wind, as well as how close the coils are to one another. The HS-2 is another famous Dimarzio pickup that's louder split than when wired as the "humbucker" it's sold as. Other Dimarzios, such as the Chopper and Satch Track, use more symmetrical coil pairings which, in turn, behave more like you would expect a humbucker to when split.
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Re: Adding an Alumitone and a Free-Way to a NiteFly

Post by valrus »

mmmguitar wrote: Thu Feb 23, 2023 3:15 am Apologies for my brainfart suggestion to swap the Alumitone tap wire being electrically identical to how you already had it
I like it more this way anyway because the Free-Way has two holes, and the toggle doesn't. 😁
mmmguitar wrote: Thu Feb 23, 2023 3:15 am Your Cruiser is working as it should
That's disappointing — I was thinking maybe I had just messed up the wiring in my previous configuration somehow. Since I'm on a roll I will probably go ahead and replace the Cruiser since it's by far the weak link in what I have now. Then maybe I can leave this guitar alone for a while.

Currently I have a Fast Track 1 in the neck position and I'm pretty happy with that, so maybe I will get another for the middle, or perhaps get a Satch Track for the neck and move the Fast Track to the middle. I'd happily consider other options, though Dimarzios do have the advantage of fitting cleanly into a single-coil pickup slot and having purple covers (very important!!)

Also, any recommendations for wood hole fillers that can be re-drilled? Some of the screwholes for the pickguard are getting loose from all the dis- and reassembly and I'd like to nip that in the bud.
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Re: Adding an Alumitone and a Free-Way to a NiteFly

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valrus wrote: Thu Feb 23, 2023 1:19 pm any recommendations for wood hole fillers that can be re-drilled?
You can test the depth of each pickguard screw hole with a tooth pick, apply some Titebond original wood glue along the pick on the end you’re inserting, then clip the pick so it sits in the hole without being proud of the guitar surface. Once the stuff cures (24 hours is what Titebond specifies, but a tiny pickguard dowel job is probably good after an hour if the ambient temperature is around 70*F), that glued toothpick becomes a dowel which will give the screw threads some extra resistance and material to grab onto. If you have generic cyanoacrylate super glue on hand, that will also work without having to buy Titebond you’re unlikely to use outside of heavy repairs. Of course, the super glue cures much faster and always wants you to spend the next hour with your fused fingers in a mug of warm water.

You may want to shoot Dimarzio an email soliciting recommendations - Often, you’ll get the guy who designed the pickup responding. In the meantime, are you wanting anything more specific out of the middle pickup, other than a single-sized humbucker that sounds good when split and and combined with other pickups?
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Re: Adding an Alumitone and a Free-Way to a NiteFly

Post by valrus »

Thanks for the toothpick tip! I will give that a try.
mmmguitar wrote: Thu Feb 23, 2023 1:42 pm You may want to shoot Dimarzio an email soliciting recommendations - Often, you’ll get the guy who designed the pickup responding. In the meantime, are you wanting anything more specific out of the middle pickup, other than a single-sized humbucker that sounds good when split and and combined with other pickups?
That's mostly it. I am also looking at Zexcoils (maybe a ZTM4), which promise to be noiseless when split, as I do note that both of these rails are a bit noisy when I split them. I think our house wiring is not super great. But I will send an email to Dimarzio too and see what they have to say.
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Re: Adding an Alumitone and a Free-Way to a NiteFly

Post by mmmguitar »

Sounds good, @valrus. Please continue to share the developments in your tone quest. I've been curious to try Zexcoils, but haven't yet had the opportunity. That ZTM4 you linked to has me interested. If I happen to buy one before you do, I'll post how it compares to the Satch Track (which is in two of my other guitars).
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Re: Adding an Alumitone and a Free-Way to a NiteFly

Post by valrus »

I ended up ordering a Zexcoil ZTM4 rather than email Dimarzio. Noiseless splitting sounded too good to resist, and TBH I was feeling a bit burned by the Cruiser being so quiet unsplit when there was nothing about that in its description on their website... either it's working as intended, in which case it was described badly, or it's malfunctioning! It's been a busy week so while I've played with the guitar some I haven't really gone through the tones in a disciplined way to make notes about them.
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