PRS wiring - confused, need help.

S

SJ318

New member
Hello, I love my Zach M. semi hollow, but -
I searched where I could, but I don't understand how to swap a Duncan 4 wire or standard Gibson like wire. Should I cut the old wire (PRS) in the pot cavity, leave the "tap" wires alone, and just solder my Duncan hot wire to the hot wire of the PRS wire? Ground to the obvious ground wires? Same with Gibson 2 wire system?
I'd like to go Jazz neck and Seth bridge. Anyone care to give me advice. The pots as they are now are wired in a way I have never seen before, probably for coil tapping I think. PRS has two small wires taped together like a Duncan 4 wire. The wiring schemes I got from the web are varied and say different things. Even confuse the color issue.
Thank you,
Steve Buffington
 
Re: PRS wiring - confused, need help.

Gregory.
That does not help me. As I said, the pictures I find don't match each other, nor does the written word match about color. I am asking for help, not sarcasm.
Is my question understandable? I am asking for help, not a dismissive sentence. I am unable to post. Have no one I know to help me in the city I live in. I am a shut in with worse spinal complications as the years go by.
Maybe someone else who knows I am not a lazy person will help me? Mincer? Maybe tell me where to go for pictures. I am stuck at home, no car, and need this forum to help me, or I am stuck just guessing on how to proceed. I made my question as clear as I could. I don't understand no one even trying to help me.
Steve Buffington.
 
Re: PRS wiring - confused, need help.

I'm truly sorry to hear about your health.

I intended no sarcasm. I'm interested in pictures of the wiring in your guitar. I know very little about it from your post as you mention coil tapping. I am not aware of any such wiring scheme in a PRS ZM.

I'm also not sure what you plan on putting in there. You mention two Duncans but also a Gibson pickup.

Help us help you.
 
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Re: PRS wiring - confused, need help.

I am a little confused as to what you are asking. What does the current wiring in that guitar model do, are they some sort of push/pull coil split things? Let me know how it currently works...and what pickups you want to put in...what you want the switch(es) to do, and then I or someone else here can certainly help you get where you want to go.
 
Re: PRS wiring - confused, need help.

I'm certainly not the demon people make me out to be around here. I'll gladly help by putting up a diagram to demonstrate otherwise.

My gut tells me this has to do with Duncan not having a diagram showing how to wire a 4-conductor and a single-conductor (+braided shield) in the same guitar. This seems to come up every so often. I have such a wiring diagram on hand but it has two volumes an a master tone with the single conductor pickup in the neck position. One of the controls has a push/pull to split the bridge.
 
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Re: PRS wiring - confused, need help.

Fair enough.
The wiring in the cavity is very confusing, there are 3 white leads going to several pots, there at a time. The so called positive and negative I can guess by the fact they are not touching any grounded pots or other grounded wiring. They are four conducter main wires for each pick up. I can see that the pick up wiring ends (I assume for tapping) in the cavity (2 each) are taped together, again, like a Duncan. But there is so much other stuff going on with the pots that I can only think they are there IF someone wanted to coil tap. I only know Duncan and Gibson and Fender wiring my whole life. I'm 65 and never seen any thing else, never coil tapped, or anything beyond hot and ground.
The taped ends from the PRS wires are visible in the cavity, but I think they go into the pickup (again, guessing). So I am asking, If I leave everything alone, and put in a Duncan 4 wire pickup,4 piece wiring and tape the extra wires together, a Jazz for the neck, and a Duncan Seth Lover in the bridge (that has a 2-pice wiring cable like a gibson) - and here the question again, If I just tape the extra wires, like I have always done, on the 4 piece Duncan, and make a very educated guess as to where to put ground and hot, also on the gibson-like wire from the Seth, may I ignore all the odd wiring I see in the PRS cavity?
Does that not make sense? Right now I am only using the hot and ground from the PRS and am guessing I can just leave all the odd (to me) extra soldering alone? I ask as desoldering what I don't need to could lead me in a dark hole where I have to basically start over and wire it like a Les Paul. Lot of work for me at this point. All the wiring that goes to the pickup selector switch is different than a LP also. Do you see any danger in just removing the PRS pu'ps - leaving all else alone - and just using the hot and ground from both Duncan pu'ps?
I hope that is more clear.
SJB
 
Re: PRS wiring - confused, need help.

Based on the PRS description of the guitar, it should just be a standard Les Paul wiring scheme. If the PRS 245 pickups happen to be 4-conductor, they aren't using them for tapping or anything more. So you should be able to just connect the Duncan Jazz positive/ground to the neck controls where the PRS neck goes now, and solder/tape off the red/white series wires on the Jazz, and then wire the conductor/shield of the Seth to the bridge positive/ground where the PRS bridge pickup is connected now.

If that doesn't get you going in the right direction, then if you have a cell phone or a digital camera and could take a photo of your PRS wiring cavity and post it here so we can see what you are describing, maybe someone might spot whatever is causing the confusion.
 
Re: PRS wiring - confused, need help.

Yes,
I will try that. The whole reason I didn't (or ever) post on this or any other page is I don't have the right cords, don't know how to do it. Have never done it. I know how to text a picture to someone's phone and did just that to someone here who posted it for me to prove I point that I could fix a SG neck drop with a small mod. No one believed me. They did after that. So if it comes to that it is the only way I know. maybe through private messaging a cell phone number I could send it to. I am about 66 and very computer illiterate, coming to computers after being on the road for 20 years, then working for 20 years where computers in our office only had one program. four keystrokes did it all.
I will go with what I described, and you seem to understand me.
Thanks,
Steve. I'll get back in a day or two.
 
Re: PRS wiring - confused, need help.

Hey Steve, I'll PM you my cell number. Feel free to "text" me some photos, and I'll look them over also. The more the better. ;)

P.S. That's a gorgeous guitar.
 
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Re: PRS wiring - confused, need help.

Thanks Artie.
Since my SG made it into the picture, can you see on the SG the higher strap placement to keep gravity neutral and stop neck drop? Anyway, I tried to keep the 2 main wires labeled and pull the whole mess to the side. Hope it makes sense to you. The tone pots are obvious and seem normal.
Thanks again.
Steve
 
Re: PRS wiring - confused, need help.

Beaubrummels-
There are so many more ground and positive and color schemes it looks like Pickett's charge at the end of the charge.
I do believe the "idea" is the same but looks nothing like my LP Custom. It is set up like an SG, vol and pot wise, but there are too many white connections on the vol pots along with diff color wires, well, you heard this before, I did send photos to Artie, hope it looks easy to you. You and Artie can be my PRS Whisperers.
 
Re: PRS wiring - confused, need help.

Hey Steve; Here's the quik-'n-dirty answer 'til I can do a full diagram. (I'm thinking this should cover it, however. It's basic LP wiring.)

The red wire/red arrow, is the hot output of your present pup. Solder the black wire of the Duncan here. And to make it easy, if it were me, I'd just clip the red wire off, close to the terminal. Tin the end of the black wire, reheat the lug, and slip the black wire in.

The white wire/yellow arrow, is simply the co-axial cable that goes to the tone control. Leave it alone.
The white wire/blue arrow, is the output to the 3-way. Leave it alone also.
Twist the green and bare together, tin them, form a little "hook", and solder them to the ground wire, (green arrow).

Repeat and rinse for the other pickup/pot. Don't forget to solder the red/white wires of the Duncan together, and insulate.

Make sense?

SJ318.jpg

Artie

P.S. The red wire will go back to another co-axial wire. It's shield will come down and probably connect to the back of the pot. I'd just clip it off too, as close as possible to the pot. No need to bother with reheating the whole pot.
 
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Re: PRS wiring - confused, need help.

One more thing; In this pic, that red thing looks like a tie-wrap. I'd cut that, to give you easier access to the wiring. Don't cut the wires. Now, if you reference the pic in my previous post, the red wire goes into that gray cable. The bridge hot wire will go into that black cable. Look at it closely. It may not be red, but will be easy to distinguish from the shield. Just be sure to clip the proper wire on the bridge. I can't really make it out in your pics, but you should be able to easily identify it when you cut that tie-wrap.

SJ318b.jpg
 
Re: PRS wiring - confused, need help.

Wow, Thanks Artie.
What you say makes good sense. I knew the red plastic was to keep it all together, but didn't cut as I was concerned it would all go flying. what you said about clipping red/hot wire makes sense but the whole thing about another co-axial, and the shield coming down make no sense to me. If I don't need to know what that means, then I don't care at this point. l Appreciate your wash and repeat line. Do Gibson LP's, etc, use all three tabs on their volume pots? My memory (rusty at my age) says it is a little simpler than the PRS wiring scheme, even if it does the same thing.
Thank you, man,
Steve B.
 
Re: PRS wiring - confused, need help.

No prob Steve. I'll clarify in another post. Tomorrow. My cold medicine might be clouding my mind. I wish you didn't live on the other side of the world. :D
 
Re: PRS wiring - confused, need help.

Artie,
It's OK, getting sick again, after a BAD November flu bug and flu shot. Now I am getting a rotten cold. Yeah, 65 years old is full of surprises. You need any more shots with the plastic tag removed?
Steve
 
Re: PRS wiring - confused, need help.

I turn 65 later this year. I know what you mean. :sad:

All volume controls use all three lugs. One lug is input, one is ground, and the middle is output. It's tone controls that are often two lug. I use all three but it's electrically the same. A little later I'll post a diagram to clarify the "co-axial" thang. (Still on my first cup 'o coffee.)

One more pic of the bridge volume would help. Especially if it was after you clip that tie-wrap off. :)
 
Re: PRS wiring - confused, need help.

SJ318 said:
. . . but the whole thing about another co-axial, and the shield coming down make no sense to me.
Click to expand...

Hey Steve. Coaxial just means that on a 2-conductor cable, the ground conductor is a braided "shield" that surrounds the center "hot" conductor. Like this:

RG213.jpg

For your bridge pup, again, clip the red wire/red arrow, where it attaches at the blue arrow. Solder the new Duncan pup black wire to the blue arrow terminal and the green/bare to the green arrow.

SJ318c.jpg

Let me know if that helps clarify things.
 
Re: PRS wiring - confused, need help.

Artie -
I can't thank you enough. I looked at my old LP Custom, and all the tabs ARE used on the vol pots. But in a simpler way, like a tab soldered to the back of the pot, rather than extra wires on all tabs. So, Just make it simple, it looks like all I need to do is cut those wires, and pull the grey 4 conductor right out. All I need is a hot and ground, whether coaxial or "4 wire" type. Heck, I bet I could cut the grey wire(4 conductor) right up in the pick up chamber and just use the hot and ground up there, Right? I bet that would work too, looking at the wires you have marked and judging by your explanation.
Again, thanks for your help, you have really saved my butt from some real aggravating incorrect guesses on my part, and your explanation is VERY SIMPLE for me to follow. I wish I could pay you for your time.
In you debt,
Steve Buffinfton
 
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