What's the right pot to replace with push pull for coil tap on SE HBII Piezo?

[mintakka]

Was going to nab a used Hollowbody 2 Piezo Core, but I decided to save 2 grand and go with a new SE model. Only had it for a day, but I'm really happy with it. One thing I'm wondering is how hard it would be to put a push-pull pot on this and re-wire it for split coils. Does anyone know if the wiring diagram for the SE is the same as the Core model? I found diagrams for the core on Google, but nothing appears to be SE specific.

Has anyone here done this mod? I have some Fralin Pure PAFs in a kit guitar and I'm thinking this SE would be really nice if I swapped those in and installed a coil split.

 

[Boogie]

Not my area of expertise, but maybe Maui Wowee?

 

[Malloc]

A few things: 1. I’ve added a push/pull tone to core HBII for splitting and it’s possible but *very* tight. I had to add insulation between the pos casing and the piezo PCBA. 2. Be careful of the phasing between pickups and piezo. You may have to swap the magnetic phase if the new pickups are out of phase with the piezo unit. 3. It ends up being a decent stretch to get the split wires over to the tone pot and I had to add an extension. 4. It’s not easy to work inside a hollowbody if it’s your first time. Prepare to drop components inside of it a time or ten.

Edit: ya definitely best to test the piezo phasing first since you will have to reverse the magnet on those Fralins if they’re not phased correctly.

 

[mintakka]

Thanks - this is really helpful because honestly I didn’t think the piezo system had a phase direction, with it not being magnetic. I guess I need to research more about how that system works in general before I get started. The Fralins are a matched set, but I’ll have to test them to see if they’re aligned with the stock pickups.

also I did notice that the tone pot sits right above the PCB - glad to hear you were able to squeeze a push pull in there with some effort.

 

[Hotspur]

There was some discussion of this earlier and I don't know if anyone's done it yet (when you do it, I really want to hear how it sounds!) but the consensus seems to be that mini-toggles are the way to go, particularly if you want independent coil splitting.

The stock pickups are supposed to be splitable.

 

[mintakka]

I'll definitely post back if/when I mod the guitar. I'm the kind of personality I just like to tinker with stuff, so I don't think I can help myself. Actually that's partly what pushed me to an SE - I wouldn't be able to resist DIY-ing a $5000 guitar, so I just won't put myself in that situation... Well, maybe someday..

The stock pickups are splittable. This weekend I'll probably test the phase of the stock magnetic pickup and of my Fralin set. I'm thinking even without understanding fully how the piezo system works; as long as my Fralins have the same polarity as the stock pickups, they should be swappable without interfering with the piezo. If they're not, then I guess I have more to think about. As it stands, I don't think I want to install any mini-toggles or anything that would require permanent modifications to the wood.