# How to wire Nazgul/Sentient set into Ibanez 5 way switch?



## Sentient (Feb 17, 2019)

I'm hoping someone else has wired up a couple of Seymour Duncan humbuckers to an Ibanez with this switch and can give me a bit of advice... 

Thought I had what I needed with this Seymour Duncan wiring diagram. But then as I'm about to remove the Ibanez stock Quantum pickups, I realize my 5 way switch (3SWLSC) doesn't look like the switch in the SD diagram. (See image below for my switch; bottom wires are original neck pickup, top is original bridge which only had 3 wires.)




All of the stock pickups wires were only running to this switch and touching nothing else. The neck pickup had the 5 wires shown in the bottom of that pic but the bridge humbucker only had the three wires you see in the upper right. That red & black wires on the top left then ran to the volume knob. 

I'm not trying to do anything fancy or out of the ordinary, and was just going to replicate the original wiring configuration. Currently stuck not sure what to do next. Tired of Googling with no luck, thought I'd ask you guys. Really hoping somebody here has some experience with a similar situation.


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## oversteve (Feb 17, 2019)

Which exact guitar and what pickups are the original pickups? Also what are the colors of wires in the top of the photo, it's hard to tell because of heatshrink tubing


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## DudeManBrother (Feb 17, 2019)

My guess is the COLD HOT upper refers to the top coil of the neck pickup Start and Finish; which for Seymour Duncan is Black (start) and White (finish). The lower coil is Green (start) and Red (finish). The OUT goes to your potentiometer, and the bridge TAP is where you probably take a North and a South wire and solder them both to that lug, while the other North and South go to HOT and GRD. That’s what I’d try anyways.


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## Sentient (Feb 17, 2019)

oversteve said:


> Which exact guitar and what pickups are the original pickups? Also what are the colors of wires in the top of the photo, it's hard to tell because of heatshrink tubing


Guitar is a 2018 Ibanez RG7421PB. The stock pickups (shown below) were Quantums. The one with the green housing was in the bridge and looks like it only contained 3 wires (red, white and a bare ground in black heat-shrink tubing). They were the wires at the top of the first picture at the top of this thread. 



Here's a more complete shot of the original wiring:


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## DudeManBrother (Feb 17, 2019)

Try this


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## Sentient (Feb 17, 2019)

DudeManBrother said:


> View attachment 67100
> 
> 
> Try this


Please forgive my ignorance but I thought green was "ground", but the bottom right of that pic recommends green to "Hot"; Is that right?


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## oversteve (Feb 17, 2019)

that one scheme should be good if you have a reverse polarity sentient since most of the time Ibby puts RP pickups in the neck (should say rp in the sticker next to Sentient), if it's a regular one then it should probably go bare-green-red-white-black from left to right in the bottom, top is ok


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## DudeManBrother (Feb 17, 2019)

Sentient said:


> Please forgive my ignorance but I thought green was "ground", but the bottom right of that pic recommends green to "Hot"; Is that right?


Green is the start of the winding on the lower coil. It goes to ground for a typical series/out of phase (humbucking) use. This switch seems to want each wire separate, and I’m assuming that the start means HOT and the finish means COLD.

EDIT: unless, like @oversteve says, the reverse polarity isn’t standard, then try the GRWB left to right.


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## Sentient (Feb 17, 2019)

oversteve said:


> that one scheme should be good if you have a reverse polarity sentient since most of the time Ibby puts RP pickups in the neck (should say rp in the sticker next to Sentient), if it's a regular one then it should probably go bare-green-red-white-black from left to right in the bottom, top is ok


I'm not sure whether or not my Sentient is an RP or not. Not seeing that on the packaging or on the label underneath the pickup... 

However, now that you mention that, I did find it peculiar that the Sentient's wire housing exited the pickup from the opposite corner I expected it to. What I mean is, the Nazgul wiring exited the pickup directly where the hole in the body of the guitar was there for the wire to go into. But if I had put the Sentient in that way, the SD logo would've been upside down (which seemed wrong). So I installed it as the pictures below show. If that was wrong, please let me know quickly before I put the strings on.


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## Sentient (Feb 17, 2019)

DudeManBrother said:


> View attachment 67100
> 
> 
> Try this





oversteve said:


> if it's a regular one then it should probably go bare-green-red-white-black from left to right in the bottom, top is ok


So I went by the image scheme @DudeManBrother provided combined with the non-RP recommendation by @oversteve and everything works and sounds good. I really appreciate you two taking the time to advise and provide images. That helped more than you know. Cheers to you guys.


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## CrapCannon86 (Feb 20, 2019)

@Sentient Is there any way you could post a picture of how it looked when you finished it?! I am trying to put in the Pegasus/ Sentient set in my same style ibanez and its driving me crazy!


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## oversteve (Feb 20, 2019)

CrapCannon86 said:


> @Sentient Is there any way you could post a picture of how it looked when you finished it?! I am trying to put in the Pegasus/ Sentient set in my same style ibanez and its driving me crazy!


look at the picture few posts before, the top row marked there, and the bottom row bare-green-red-white-black from left to right


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## Sentient (Feb 20, 2019)

CrapCannon86 said:


> @Sentient Is there any way you could post a picture of how it looked when you finished it?! I am trying to put in the Pegasus/ Sentient set in my same style ibanez and its driving me crazy!


Sorry, I don't have a good image of my final soldering (was so relieved to get it done I forgot to snap a pic) but , here's an update of the image originally provided by @DudeManBrother showing what @oversteve described above. This is what I did:


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## Konfyouzd (Feb 20, 2019)

Can't you just match the wires' color codes and wire up the Nazgul Sentient exactly the way the Quantums were wired?

Often when I switch pickups, I just figure out the color codes and swap the joints one at at time until the new pickups are wired and the old ones can simply be unscrewed and removed.


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## Audiowonderland (Feb 20, 2019)

I have the same switch in an RGA42FM and I am trying to replace the Quantums with Gravity Storms. Are the Humbuckers in your example opposite polarity? I am trying to determine if I need to flip the wiring or magnet of the neck GS when I install it.


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## CrapCannon86 (Feb 20, 2019)

@Sentient @oversteve yeah i did that, and thanks for that by the way! The bridge sounds perfect, but the neck pickup (from the middle part of the selector and on) feedback a lot. The sound is still coming out and sounds okay, but you can hear the buzz behind it. thats why i was hoping to see yours. but if that's what you did then i guess i am missing something else entirely! any ideas?! Thanks!


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## KnightBrolaire (Feb 20, 2019)

Konfyouzd said:


> Can't you just match the wires' color codes and wire up the Nazgul Sentient exactly the way the Quantums were wired?
> 
> Often when I switch pickups, I just figure out the color codes and swap the joints one at at time until the new pickups are wired and the old ones can simply be unscrewed and removed.


no. ibanez's OEM pickups don't follow duncan wiring colors, so you have to swap some around. I don't remember if all ibby OEMs follow dimarzio wiring codes or not, but that's usually a good place to start ime since ibby regularly uses dimarzios.


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## Konfyouzd (Feb 21, 2019)

Oh I know Duncan's colors don't follow the OEM colors. That's not what I was trying to say. Sorry for the confusion. I was saying to find the analogous wires and arrange them the same as the wires you're replacing and then replace one joint at a time. Not that you should use the exact same colors, but make the same connections whatever the colors may be and that replacing each one at a time can help in avoiding confusion like this.


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## oversteve (Feb 21, 2019)

CrapCannon86 said:


> @Sentient @oversteve yeah i did that, and thanks for that by the way! The bridge sounds perfect, but the neck pickup (from the middle part of the selector and on) feedback a lot. The sound is still coming out and sounds okay, but you can hear the buzz behind it. thats why i was hoping to see yours. but if that's what you did then i guess i am missing something else entirely! any ideas?! Thanks!


essentially one of these wirings for the neck pickup should work depending on the type of SD pup you have: 

from left to right
bare-green-red-white-black
bare-white-black-green-red
bare-red-green-black-white
bare-black-white-red-green


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## Cl4iro (Dec 8, 2019)

hello, im sorry if im replying on an old thread. But I'm installing an SD distortion/jazz on an Ibanez S521, replacing the original quantum, with the exact same 5 ways switch. I already install following the same scheme above. But found out that it has crazy buzz everywhere. I look up the ground everything seems installed correctly. I already changing all of the cable position but it still have buzz. anyone have the solution?


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## Adieu (Dec 8, 2019)

Cl4iro said:


> hello, im sorry if im replying on an old thread. But I'm installing an SD distortion/jazz on an Ibanez S521, replacing the original quantum, with the exact same 5 ways switch. I already install following the same scheme above. But found out that it has crazy buzz everywhere. I look up the ground everything seems installed correctly. I already changing all of the cable position but it still have buzz. anyone have the solution?



Do you have a multimeter with a buzzing continuity tester mode? See if the grounds have nice solid connections between each other

As to swapping 5 / 4 / 3 / 2 conductor pups...

Basically, using the Duncan colors as the example:




5: as is
4: solder together green and bare, they're the ground
3: green/bare = ground, white/red = tap, black = hot
2: green/bare = ground, black = hot (white/red soldered together and taped off with electrical tape)

If you're NOT changing the switching and just swapping 1 or more pups, "convert" them as above and solder onto existing factory connections as per above color and 5/4/3/2 conversion instructions


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## johnc64 (Dec 24, 2019)

I have undertaken a similar project - putting a SD/'59 in the neck and a SD/JB in the bridge of my S521. This was the ONLY helpful thread I found in the whole internet on the subject! I did some searching and I think I found the OEM for the switch that Ibanez sources. It is a Hongyu H11803-4-5-18-SC. They do have a couple of "circuit diagrams on that site, which I am adding here for future reference.

I have been tracking my progress in a Google Doc (WiringSeymourDunctionTo2SWLC.gdoc) that is open for comment for anyone interested. I am happy to try suggestions and make changes to document what actually works for the next person that tries this. (EDIT: Apparently I cannot post a link on this forum yet, because my account is too new - so here it is broken up just add dots between docs/google/com and use it as a URL:

docs google com/drawings/d/1TxVLJqmA6uhjoNc9aidI8RXhIamDdA2QGGs58pq9dww/edit

Using the hints here and available from the manufacturers, I seem to be getting decent output from positions 1, 2, 3, 5 - but position 4 is a no-op. I get nothing at all in that position and have yet to figure out why - unless the polarity combining from the single coils tapped from each pickup is causing them to just cancel each other out?


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## parsedout (Apr 27, 2020)

DudeManBrother said:


> View attachment 67100
> 
> 
> Try this


I registered just to say thank you for this. Like others I searched all over without much concrete advice. This works perfectly on my RG6003 with SD SH-6 set. Thank you!


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## DudeManBrother (Apr 27, 2020)

parsedout said:


> I registered just to say thank you for this. Like others I searched all over without much concrete advice. This works perfectly on my RG6003 with SD SH-6 set. Thank you!


Glad to hear it; and welcome to SSO. Post some pics of your Ibby; and do visit our “Kiesel-Never Again” thread to violently bash, or vehemently defend the Kiesel brand, and its fearless leader  I kid, I kid. Welcome aboard


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## remus (Jun 13, 2020)

DudeManBrother said:


> View attachment 67100
> 
> 
> Try this


Registered so i could see this image, but now i gotta thank you . This is great, after wasting time trying to understand wiring, polarity and other control cavity related topics(which i have a very basic grasp even now) this was just perfect. I went from i don't know to successfully installed my new SD set custom 5 / '59 neck in my BBS S521 Ibby in a matter of minutes. The bridge pickup is screaming on low notes and i couldn't be happier with my tone. Thanks so much again, that pic is a life saver


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## Norad865 (Jul 1, 2020)

Same here, this is the only post that helped me install my first set of humbuckers in an RGA. I learned so much over these 2 days, I hope I don't forget. Thank you.


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## Patrick1894 (Nov 21, 2020)

I installed today some DiMarzio Crunch Lab and Liquifier pickups into my Ibanez RG and encountered the same problems with the 3SWLSC 5-Way Switch.

My solution was to mount both Pickups with the same N/S magnetic polarity (north facing the neck), as it's mentioned on the switch itself ( right under the "1748"). Furthermore I followed the upper / lower scheme, so the neck pickup in series mode is wired in a different order (HOT - White - Green - Red - Black - GND), which is needed for the inner coil splitting on switch position 4 according to the wiring diagram, connection LOWER HOT NECK with HOT Bridge

----NECK-------------------------------BRIDGE--------
Bare -> GND ---------------------OUT -> HOT Volume Pot
Black -> Upper COLD ------------GND -> GND Volume Pot
Red -> Upper HOT ---------------GND -> Green & Bare
Green -> Lower COLD -----------TAP -> Black & White
White -> Lower HOT -------------HOT -> Red

I think the problem with SD pickups is that the neck pickups seem to have a "S/N" polarity, when you install them with the SD logo in the right way.


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## mdgh (Dec 3, 2020)

Hm. This might be relevant to my interests soon. Could be installing a pair of SD Invader in my RG652FX. Very likely a SD pair anyway.


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## Cesar1776 (Dec 27, 2021)

This is for DiMarzio pick ups


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