F-100 E wiring

I got this picture from the gallery. It's the physical parts of the electronic package for an F-100.



Here is a hand drawn wiring diagram.



My question is: Does anyone have a picture of the circuit board bottom showing the components and the connections.

Does anyone have detailed list of the components on that board. I think they are in the list but nothing saying what goes where.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Tom

Never mind, I think I answered my own question. I had emailed some pics to a fellow G&L'r who knows quite a bit about this guitar and I didn't notice an oddity until I actually was preparing the pic for emailing. I had already put the guitar up so I couldn't check at the time but this is what I saw in the picture and really thought that something might be fried.



If you look at the pots and the circuit board below them it looks like something really bad. I was playing it the other day and it was behaving quite badly, jumping in volume etc. Turns out to be a bad wah peddle I think. But, I thought it was the electronics and frankly was afraid to open it up for fear of what I might find. Today I got the courage to open her up and turns out it's just 37 year old velcro and the breakdown of it. I played it straight into the amp and everything behaved well.

While I am at it now, several people have mentioned that they have never seen an F-100 with four switches. There should be a pickup selector, a red splitter switch which should be a three way giving you hum bucking mode, single coil mode with bass boost and single with no boost. Then there is a white three way active/passive with regular high impedance mode, low impedance with no boost and the third is low Q and treble boost. Man, that's a lot of stuff going on.

Problem is, my prototype has three switches and the selector switch. These three switches are only 2 way with a black, red and white. Other than the white active/passive switch I'm not really sure what the others do for sure. It appears as if they do this: Black switch is hum bucker/single and the red does the phase. One of them disables the selector switch and seems to put it in single coil with only the inner and outer coil on each pickup working, i believe that's the black one. My mind is still spinning from trying to determine what does what and I already put it up. Thing is, my bench (dining room table) only has an Orange miny amp so it's hard to really hear these kind of differences. It's mostly for "does it work or not" kind of work.

So...any of you got an F-100 with four switches and know all that they do?

BTW: Isn't this thing beautiful though?



Tom

My question is: Does anyone have a picture of the circuit board bottom showing the components and the connections.

I can open up my F-100E and take some pics. Maybe you can decipher the differences between your prototype(3 mini toggles)
and my stock (2 mini toggles) circuitry.

That prototype sure is a beauty

While I am at it now, several people have mentioned that they have never seen an F-100 with four switches. There should be a pickup selector, a red splitter switch which should be a three way giving you hum bucking mode, single coil mode with bass boost and single with no boost. Then there is a white three way active/passive with regular high impedance mode, low impedance with no boost and the third is low Q and treble boost. Man, that's a lot of stuff going on.

Problem is, my prototype has three switches and the selector switch. These three switches are only 2 way with a black, red and white. Other than the white active/passive switch I'm not really sure what the others do for sure. It appears as if they do this: Black switch is hum bucker/single and the red does the phase. One of them disables the selector switch and seems to put it in single coil with only the inner and outer coil on each pickup working, i believe that's the black one. My mind is still spinning from trying to determine what does what and I already put it up. Thing is, my bench (dining room table) only has an Orange miny amp so it's hard to really hear these kind of differences. It's mostly for "does it work or not" kind of work.

So...any of you got an F-100 with four switches and know all that they do?

BTW: Isn't this thing beautiful though?



Tom

The only other F-100 with 4 switches that I have seen is the one shown in the 1980 G&L Catalog on Page 4. Unfortunately, the photos in the Gallery are very low res.
I cannot tell definitvely, but your guitar may posssibly be the one used for the catalog photo.

Does anyone have a copy of the 1980 G&L catalog and would be willing to make a hi-res copy of Page 4 and post it here, so we can do a side by side comparison?

Wow, I believe that is the same guitar. It certainly has some grain patterns that are quite the same. As you can see there is no G&L logo on the bridge in the photo too.

Good eye Craig, hopefully someone has a better picture but it would make sense that this is the one.

Tom

Lets see if I can help:

A higher resolution p4 of the 1980 Catalog:


Here is the Instruction sheet that would come with a 1980 F-100, i.e. non-E:

This sheet is still talking about the pickup selector switch (large black), phase switch (small black switch), and splitter switch (red switch). For an F-100E, one would add the active/passive switch for the preamp, giving you a total of 4 switches.

The phase switch seems to have disappeared when comparing it to a later spec sheet for the F-100E, from 1983 this time:


Although, I have another spec sheet which I have dated to 1983 (but that might be wrong), which seems to be a nicer font version of the sheet above, but with Phase switch still mentioned.


BTW, the above dating is based on the info provided with the same sheets printed in white paper found in the Gallery.

Hope this helps,

- Jos

Wonderful information Jos. Thank you. I had suspected that the switches acted the same as the first document with the addition of the active/passive switch. I wonder why they changed the circuit because it looks to me that the Non E version has splitting and phase and the E version eventually got rid of the phase switch, but due to using three position switches still give some of the bass and treble boost. It's funny cause now I have to find my CAR F-100 and see what combo of switches are on it. Well, I know it has two black and a red and assume they are three position switches like in the instructions.

Oh, and now there is no doubt that the guitar in the catalog is mine. Thanks for the pic. I will have to get back to my new friend Geoff and show him the news. He will be very excited.

Great work as usual Jos and Craig for helping me know a little bit more about a most unique treasure that I stumbled across. I knew it was something special the moment I saw it and grabbed it up as soon as I could. Had to pick up another Broadcaster to get the price down...poor me right?

Thanks again,

Tom

My 1980 F-100 has no treble control in the lead position (as the sheets Jos posted indicate). However, my other two F-100's from 1981-1983 have the treble control that is adjustable in the lead position. So, at some point it appears they made this change as well. The two that have an adjustable treble in the lead both have hex pole pickups instead of the slot pole. The older of the two is body dated 1981 and neck dated 2-1-83 with the word repair written in marker in the neck pocket of the body. I speculate that it got a neck replacement under warranty with the new bi-cut neck.

Interestingly, your prototype has the hex pole pickups (which I've only seen on later F-100's). Does your treble control work in the lead position? Or is it deactivated as the instructions suggest?

My 1980 F-100 has no treble control in the lead position (as the sheets Jos posted indicate). However, my other two F-100's from 1981-1983 have the treble control that is adjustable in the lead position. So, at some point it appears they made this change as well. The two that have an adjustable treble in the lead both have hex pole pickups instead of the slot pole. The older of the two is body dated 1981 and neck dated 2-1-83 with the word repair written in marker in the neck pocket of the body. I speculate that it got a neck replacement under warranty with the new bi-cut neck.

Interestingly, your prototype has the hex pole pickups (which I've only seen on later F-100's). Does your treble control work in the lead position? Or is it deactivated as the instructions suggest?

I will check that next time I have it out but I am pretty sure it disables the control as mentioned.

About those pole pieces, They are indeed hex which is correct for the time. I thought this was funky too but a very reliable expert who built these very pickups told me that most of the hardware, screws, nuts, bolts etc, were items that were picked up at the local hardware stores back then. So according to him if they had hex that's what they used, if they had slotted they used those. This was a quite interesting bit of knowledge to gain and I wonder how many early F-100s have hex pole pieces and the owner thinks they have been changed out because I, like you, always heard that they only used slotted poles back in the beginning but you can clearly see in the catalog photo that these are hex. Pretty cool stuff.

Tom