Re: Rotary switches, whut?

Posted by Marbles on Dec 03, 2020; 9:30pm
URL: http://guitar-fx-layouts.238.s1.nabble.com/Rotary-switches-whut-tp49494p49502.html

@Sensei
Thanks so much for your elaborate answer! I think I am sort of getting there. Well, I get it with 1 pole used. I thought the commons/poles had to do with the amount of turns, but that ofcourse is nonsense. The stuff I was missing, I think, that you all helped me understand is that: When your signal goes from a common to a pole, it does not go  back to the rotary, and from there on back to the board. It goes directly to the board from the pole.
So in your first example, and Pavlos' of the mega clipping options: every pole goes to a different clip option. And all those options/diodes are attached to a gain pot, or in case of most muff circuits on this page, would go to the midboost/cap switch. You could, (not a good idea) solder a diode configuration on each pole, and solder the ends of those diodes all to the board again (hope I have at least this right?)

The second option (2P6T) for me is what harder to get: When you compare it to the dpdt, and it has 2 commons, I thought that would mean that I would have the board go to common 1, and then solder a clipping combination from Pole 1 to Pole 7, and then from common 2 back to the board. However when I look at for instance the Pharaoh Supreme, it looks as though this works exactly as your example 1. Like half of the rotary is not used. Basically a 1P6T switch. Half of it unused.

4P3T I can however not even get close to understanding haha. That's not your explanation, it's me.

@Bolsyo thanks so much too for commenting. But in the case of the Ezekiel, with my understanding, it has the same thing going on? As in: 1 common is used with the Poles connected to it, and the other commons are unused. You could clip them off if you wanted or, use an 1p4t.

Do I understand a little bit, or did I waste your time? :D I can't seem to come up with a lot of situations where you would use more commons. Am I right in understanding that this is uncommon (ha-ha) in pedals? And only used if you would want to switch 2 unlinked things at he same time? Like a capacitor change in the first and second clipping change?

@pavlos Good to hear you're doing ok! Same here. I'm not allowed to complain. A hermit by nature and my line of work is not affected too much by it. Consider myself very lucky