Newbie Question - PRS SE Custom 24 pickup swap

S

Sylaar76

New member
Hi All,

I am swapping out my stock pickups (G&B) from my PRS and swapping them for a SD JB and Jazz humbuckers. They have arrived and I've watched quite a few videos on swapping pickups. I'm quite good with a soldering iron so thats not bad for me.

I've taken photos of the pickups and wiring before I took the old ones out. Now they're out and I'm looking to put the new ones in, the wiring diagram doesn't correlate with what I'm seeing in my guitar cavity. I know where to solder the white and red writes on the tone pot for coil splitting and I know to solder the green and braided wires to the back of the volume pit to earth but I have no idea where to wire the two black wires on the pickup selector as per the diagram. Below is the wiring diagram from SD.

View attachment 97564

And below is what I see, it's before I took out the original pickups

IMG_20190419_021719.jpg

I am new to this so it's probably a really noob question to ask but I don't want to mess it up.

Your help is greatly appreciated.2H_3B_1V_1TppSPL.jpg
 
Last edited:
Re: Newbie Question - PRS SE Custom 24 pickup swap

welcome to the forum!

6 contacts on that switch? hard to tell from the pic
 
Re: Newbie Question - PRS SE Custom 24 pickup swap

There's 8 contacts on that photo, 8 in a row and 2 terminals on the opposite side on the casing of the selector switch. Thanks for the welcome !
 
Re: Newbie Question - PRS SE Custom 24 pickup swap

Hi, import switches on HH guitars are commonly wired with the 2 center lugs joined (the 'commons' on this switch) going out to the volume instead of coming off the outer lugs (as in your diagram).

Here is how the switch in my Hellraiser (with EMG 81tw and 89r actives) was wired, it doesn't matter if the pickups are active or not for this switch wiring:
20141029_111549.jpg

The switch is diagrammed like this:
3way_lever_switch_cross_refrence.jpg

Notice that the Yellow wire on the switch is connected to lugs B2+B1 (neck pickup input), the Red wire is on lugs B0+A0 (signal output to vol/tone), and the White wire is connected to lugs A2+A3 (bridge pickup input). This is how yours should be wired, I hope that helps!
 
Last edited:
Re: Newbie Question - PRS SE Custom 24 pickup swap

Hi,

Yea that helped a lot, I did solder the wrong pickup wire to the wrong terminal on the switch, when I did the screwdriver test and tapped the pickups the sound came from the wrong pickup selected so I will just swaped them around. It really just gave me the confidence to know which 2 terminals to solder to. Thanks for your help and taking the time to respond to my question
 
Re: Newbie Question - PRS SE Custom 24 pickup swap

Hi,

So everything installed, plug my guitar in and it seems to work fine . . . . . volume and tone pots work fine including coil split however, when I select between bridge and neck pickups there is very little or no change in tone or anything of that matter.
Any idea what could be causing this ? Could it be my amp, my playing or what ? Surely I should hear a difference.
 
Re: Newbie Question - PRS SE Custom 24 pickup swap

Can you verify which coils are working in each of the pickup positions? Do this by tapping on the coils with a screwdriver (lightly).
 
Re: Newbie Question - PRS SE Custom 24 pickup swap

In all pickup selector positions only the bridge pickup has any output. Nothing from the neck pickup what so ever. I decided to do some investigative work, opened the guitar cavity and the ground wire had come loose from the volume pot.
I can only assume this is the culprit ?
 
Re: Newbie Question - PRS SE Custom 24 pickup swap

Does the bridge have output in all positions or just the one it is supposed to? A ground wire coming loose will cause hum, but usually won't cut off the entire signal.
 
Re: Newbie Question - PRS SE Custom 24 pickup swap

So I soldered the ground wire back and the bridge pickup has output in all positions and the neck has output in only the positions its supposed to, not sure whats going on there then . . .

So just to be clear . . The Black "hot" outputs from each Pickup are soldered to either end of the selector terminals as per the thread above by Downrazor11. The red and white wires are twisted together and soldered to 1 terminal on the tone pot which is also the coil split pot. Green and bare are twisted together and wired to the back of the volume pot. This is per Seymour Duncan wiring Diagram for 2 humbuckers, 1 vol pot, 1 tone pot (Coil Split)
 
Last edited:
Newbie Question - PRS SE Custom 24 pickup swap

Do you have the wires “jumpered” over the span of two lugs each?
IOW, disregard the two outermost lugs (one in each side)
Neck pickup wire spans the gap between the next two lugs (connected to both) the next 2 lugs are spanned by the wire that goes to the volume pot.
And the other pickup spans the next 2 lugs on the switch.

Look closely at this picture...see how each wire in the switch is soldered to two lugs each?
d097769e644c6530e03df21b51a6f91d.jpg
 
Re: Newbie Question - PRS SE Custom 24 pickup swap

In the above pic, the white and yellow wires are the pickups and the red wire goes to the pot.
 
Re: Newbie Question - PRS SE Custom 24 pickup swap

If the Bridge pickup is on in all 3 switch pos, but the neck is only in the 2 positions it is supposed to be in, that means the problem is isolated to the bridge side of the switch, otherwise both pickups would be on all the time. If it were me, I would disconnect the bridge pickup and check to make sure things are normal with the neck pickup, then I would swap the neck pickup over to the bridge lugs and see if I had neck on in all positions.

It looks like it is wired correctly, perhaps the bridge black wire is somehow contacting the outermost lug? Also, what is connected to the side-facing lug on the switch body (underneath the bridge lugs)?
 
Re: Newbie Question - PRS SE Custom 24 pickup swap

Downrazor11 said:
If the Bridge pickup is on in all 3 switch pos, but the neck is only in the 2 positions it is supposed to be in, that means the problem is isolated to the bridge side of the switch, otherwise both pickups would be on all the time. If it were me, I would disconnect the bridge pickup and check to make sure things are normal with the neck pickup, then I would swap the neck pickup over to the bridge lugs and see if I had neck on in all positions.

It looks like it is wired correctly, perhaps the bridge black wire is somehow contacting the outermost lug? Also, what is connected to the side-facing lug on the switch body (underneath the bridge lugs)?
Click to expand...

It looks like it’s grounded to the switch...which it doesn’t need to be.
I just rewired a guitar that was like that. I followed the SD diagram which just grounded them to the pot and it worked perfect.
But I understand that the switch is acceptable as well.
 
Re: Newbie Question - PRS SE Custom 24 pickup swap

I'm assuming you mean where the is a clump of solder on the switch body opposite to where the red and bare wires are connected. I've had a look at the photo I took before is removed the original pickups and from what I can see there was a black wire connected from either pickup. I de soldered them to remove the old pickups.
The photo is on my very first post of this thread. The thick grey wire is the neck pickup and the thick black wire is the bridge pickup.
 
Re: Newbie Question - PRS SE Custom 24 pickup swap

Am I right in thinking that's it's grounded on the switch body at the bridge side ?
 
Re: Newbie Question - PRS SE Custom 24 pickup swap

Sylaar76 said:
Am I right in thinking that's it's grounded on the switch body at the bridge side ?
Click to expand...

As long as the switch is ultimately connected to the ground wire that goes to the output jack, yes. As it is now, in your most recent pic, you have the stranded bare wire soldered to the switch via the side-facing lug on the right side, that stranded wire is also soldered to the back of the vol pot in the first pic, so it appears to be. The side-facing lug on the left side isn't connected to anything, correct? (Anything going to ground could go on that left-side lug, but nothing is required to go there as long as the other side goes to ground.)

I would still try to disconnect the bridge and check the neck output in all 3 switch positions, and then swap the pickup connection sides to double-check the switch as the point where the signal is crossing through where it is not supposed to. If you do the swap and it works fine you might be able to unscrew the switch and turn it around (if it fits) so the lever action matches pickup position (down is bridge)..
 
Last edited:
Re: Newbie Question - PRS SE Custom 24 pickup swap

The red and bare wire you mentioned have been left there, they were from when the original pickups installed.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top