Fender/Lawrence SCN's

rraawwrr

New member
For you guys who have this pickup or know about it, each pickup has three lead wires coming out of it: One green, one black, and one red, yellow or white (depending on the pickup). The green is definately the ground, but what do the black and other colored wire do? It probably has to do with the diesign of the pickup itself, which I don't know either. The S-1 system (now out) was so complicated I couldn't figure out what the wires were. Right now, I have the colored wires connected to a normal 5-way switch, and the signal is very weak (the black wires are grounded). Are the black wires hot, or do they need to be soldered together with their corresponding colored wire? I know this is a long shot, but getting this right will save my GAS (at least for now) for the new Stack Pluses :D

Thanks,
Eric
 
Re: Fender/Lawrence SCN's

I don't know if this will help, but my S-1 diagram uses black for ground. Then white = neck hot, yellow = middle hot, and red = bridge hot. The pups in my diagram don't have three wires. Perhaps those are for "tapping".

You might try wiring it like above, and leave the other wires taped off and see how that sounds.
 
Re: Fender/Lawrence SCN's

btw - Which Strat version is this in? I may be able to look at the wiring diagram and give you a better answer.
 
Re: Fender/Lawrence SCN's

Hey Artie -

The guitar is a Fender 50th Anniversary Am. Dlx. (the one with the gold hardware). I looked up on Fender's website, and they had two different diagrams. One diagram showed pickups with two wires, but those were for a different series of guitars. The fender schematic for my guitar is here (pdf). I removed the S-1 pot and switch, and replaced them with a 500k pot and a standard 5 way switch. I am also doing the 50's mod as well using the no-load tone pot. This way, I'm hoping for the broadest range of sounds possible.
 
Re: Fender/Lawrence SCN's

try running green to grounds, then just joinig the other two together as ONE HOT wire for each puppy... then follow a regular Strat -- schematic
 
Re: Fender/Lawrence SCN's

Rev, that's one of the things I had in mind, but I haven't done it yet. I'll get to soldering right now, and report back ASAP.
 
Re: Fender/Lawrence SCN's

That diagram is hard to read, but it looks to me like the green wire serves the function of the red/white on a Duncan. I'd still use black for ground, and the other colors for hot.

Do you have a meter? Place the red lead on the non-green/black wire, and see which of the green or black reads the higher resistance. Then use that for ground.

Edit: That last sentence may not have been clear. Place the red meter lead on the white for the neck, and measure to the green or black. Do the same with the yellow and red for the other two pups. You're looking for the path of most resistance.
 
Re: Fender/Lawrence SCN's

Here's whats weird: The green wire of the neck and bridge, and the black wire of the middle, are permanently wired to ground. The Rev may be right, but it sure would be nice to "meter" it. ;)
 
Re: Fender/Lawrence SCN's

I'm used to the schematics'' had to cross referance lace pups into the S-1 switching a few times..

The Greens are all grounds, the two color wires are phase reversal.

The thing I think to do is Ground the ones on the right with the green ground and run the one on the left to hot.. this is while looking down at the pups bottom like shown on the PDF File.

The Lace has two hot leads for phase reversal and one for a common ground -- but ya have to use two wires to ground to make it work.
 
Re: Fender/Lawrence SCN's

Yeah, there's a couple things that were messing with my head. They're BL pups, so I assumed they were stacked humbuckers. Also, the PDF diagram designates the neck and middle (S-1 on) as A/SC + B. (A=neck, B=middle) So I thought that might mean A/single-coil. + B. Then, the middle and bridge are designated C/SC + B.

This is where a meter comes in handy. ;)
 
Re: Fender/Lawrence SCN's

Alright guys, I'm back. Good news, there's sound, and it is at a normal level. Bad news is the sound is a grounding issue somewhere in the circuit. I'm going to try to take a quick picture of the whole mess because frankly, I don't really understand what the Rev is saying. Artie, my meter is somewhere, but I have a feeling it won't be necessary... If need be, I'll track it down.

I'll post shortly with a picture.
 
Re: Fender/Lawrence SCN's

rraawwrr said:
I'll post shortly with a picture.

Great. btw - I just noticed, at the bottom of the PDF, that "SC" stands for "specials capacitor". That will make it a little easier to figure out that diagram, and it also re-inforces that the Rev is correct.

I believe he's saying to tie black to red, black to yellow, etc, and use that as the "hots".
 
Re: Fender/Lawrence SCN's

P1030006.jpg

Sorry about the blur on this one, but I think you'll be able to see what you need to see.

You can get more very shoddy pictures here.


ArtieToo said:
I believe he's saying to tie black to red, black to yellow, etc, and use that as the "hots".

This is what I believe I have done.
 
Re: Fender/Lawrence SCN's

I have a record of soldering the hot to the ground terminal and the ground to the hot terminal of the output jack. Just to clarify, hot goes to the tip, and ground is the ring right? (That doesn't sound right...)
 
Re: Fender/Lawrence SCN's

rraawwrr said:
I have a record of soldering the hot to the ground terminal and the ground to the hot terminal of the output jack. Just to clarify, hot goes to the tip, and ground is the ring right? (That doesn't sound right...)

Yeah, thats correct. Although, technically, on a mono jack, its usually called the "sleeve" rather than the ring. Not a biggie.

Everything looks ok, if what the Rev says is true. What kind of grounding issue are you having? And, are you wanting to use both tone controls. It looks like only one is connected, in the 50's mod.
 
Re: Fender/Lawrence SCN's

Yes, I am only using the No-Load tone pot in the circuit for the 50's mod. With the tone down all the way the hum is gone, and with it wide open, the hum is big. The hum goes away when I touch the output jack, the pickup selector, the screw claw, and all the polepieces except the G polepiece of the bridge pickup. That is a strange phenomenon.

Anyways, I did the touch-things-to-stop-hum test without a bridge, springs or strings on. I don't know if thats a cause but I don't think it would be.

I'll break out that multimeter and be back soon.
 
Re: Fender/Lawrence SCN's

good luck,

pretty sure however that on each pup ya got three wires ( Right)

these 3 wires come off of three rivit's (solder points) on the bottom of each pup..

looking down at the bottom of the pup like your picture--

Take the green over to the wire to the right of it, and solder them both to ground-
the wire that come from the solder joint on the left ( out of 3 solder joints ) - IS HOT take it to the 5-way switch

do this on all three pups-- I'm using the 3 solder joints as refrance-- cause I do not know the color cde but I'll look at the PDF file and see if I can tell ya how to do it with colors..

forget adding the two together as Hot and green as ground it ain't going to make a sound like that.
 
Last edited:
Re: Fender/Lawrence SCN's

Rev, are you saying that the greens and the black should be grounded together, while the other white/yellow/red is hot alone?


Artie, using a 15-range radioshack multimeter, I was able to get readings between the black and white/yellow/red wires, but nothing with the green at all. I got readings ranging from .2 to about 2.6, but averaging in the 1.7 area. The mode was a 200 ohm setting. I don't think you meant for me to measure the resistance of the pickups. Sorry for my lack of knowledge in this area, and thank you for your patience.
 
Re: Fender/Lawrence SCN's

you got it I just looked all green and blacks together and grounded-- then you have your hots yellow/yellow/red right..

this looks to be the case-- and it makes sence-- cause the S1 switching just
 
Last edited:
Back
Top