59/09 pickups in a FMT Telecaster

[ReadbeardPete]

Sorry if sacrilege, , but I bought this guitar with the PRS pickups in it for what I thought was a deal. Whomever installed them had no idea what they were doing, all the split coil tones were out of phase sounding, they definitely had the white/red wires backward of what they should have been.

I've diagrammed the wiring to share, but looks like there is no way to upload it without a link, so I guess I'll post 3 posts...

 

[ReadbeardPete]

Here's what I know/don't know/know I don't know:

-don't know farad value of the vol and tone caps, their polarity
-don't know how PRS bypasses the "other" coil, in this guitar it is a shunt to ground
-don't know resistance of my tone pot (can, will measure if in question)
-don't know what kind of strings are on it, will seek some new ones.
-I haven't set the pickup height exactly, what is the recommended string height for these?
-I (think) I know I currently have the neck pickup backward and have S-S polarity in the middle position
-the way I wired it, I am using the slugs for the single coil mode (white-red wires)

 

[ReadbeardPete]

Here's my wiring. This is basically a direct drop-in of the PRS pickups from SD pickups.
https://goo.gl/photos/wtMgYdAMX2RgUn3A6

Here's an overview look at the goods

https://goo.gl/photos/oSGvHYnSo3XVVtjs9

Here's the guitar

https://goo.gl/photos/8WK9L5jcH5ai41PNA

(tried to attach pics but did not work)

 

[ReadbeardPete]

I've reviewed the PRS schematics but am utterly confused by them because I can't make out one thing they're diagramming, and it's showing multiple views like a mechanical drawing... not good (and I'm a mech engineer)... and they don't show everything connected in one view, just have notes for what's connected where. In summary, confusing diagrams.

*updated: I've raised the pickups a bit and wow what a difference, still really hollow in the middle switch position, so I'm wondering if my wiring is correct.

original: My problem is the middle switch position sounds very thin, like it's out of phase, but I've tried rotating the neck pickup and it sounds the same.

Thanks for reading, thanks for your help!

 

[Ironwolf]

I've reviewed the PRS schematics but am utterly confused by them because I can't make out one thing they're diagramming, and it's showing multiple views like a mechanical drawing... not good (and I'm a mech engineer)... and they don't show everything connected in one view, just have notes for what's connected where. In summary, confusing diagrams.

*updated: I've raised the pickups a bit and wow what a difference, still really hollow in the middle switch position, so I'm wondering if my wiring is correct.

original: My problem is the middle switch position sounds very thin, like it's out of phase, but I've tried rotating the neck pickup and it sounds the same.

Thanks for reading, thanks for your help!

I think you have to remember some fundamentals first. You're basically dealing with 4 single coil pickups. But PRS wires the finish and the start together for each pair so that they're automatically in series thus only 3 wires . Here's a quick refresher review. there's a lot of teaching out there but it takes some time to get through.
http://www.haloguitars.com/store/guitar-wiring-series-vs-parallel-explained.
I would assume that the middle position puts the 2 humbucking pickups in parallel. Which is a slightly thinner tone.
And many people prefer that. So rotating the pickup would not change that at all.

 

[Johan Allard]

One thing I would recommend is to simply start over, figure everything out and then put it back together again.

So first, get a compass and make sure that you have indeed south-north and north-south, or wise versa. Sometimes (like when using a PRS rotary switch) you want to run the inner, or outer, coils at the same time and for that to work well you need to place the pickups north-south, north-south (or wise versa). But in this case you want to make sure you place both the north or both the south coils (typically the north) in the middle.

Next is to electrically measure everything, so that would be to remove all the wires so you can see which wires goes where. With the PRS 3 wires, you have one wire at the start, one at the end, and one in the middle (i.e. the equivalent if soldering the green and white wires together using Bare Knuckle pickups). With these three wires, if you leave the middle disconnected, both pickups are connected in series (humbucker mode), and between either the middle and start or middle and end you have either of the coils. So if you connect a multi-meter checking resistance between two wires and gently tap either the slug or screw coil with a screwdriver, you can see a reading of either the coils or both, depending on between which wires you are measuring.

After that I would basically just get whatever wiring diagram you want and change the diagram to matching your wires. I would also get some wires with crocodile clips in the end and just connect everything using these crocodile clips so you can see everything sounds the way you expect them to without soldering anything.

 

[ReadbeardPete]

Thanks for the input, guys, much appreciated. You're right, rotating the pickup will only affect noise cancelling and perhaps slight tone variation using the coil tap due to slight position change, I wasn't thinking right. Yes, the middle position puts them in parallel. How do I ensure they are in phase? I'm sure that's a simple concept I just need to do a quick search for...

crocodile clips , how do I tell them apart from alligator clips?

Why do you say to put both north coils in the middle? (urious and would like to learn)
Anyone know the pot and cap values that PRS uses?
Anyone have a complete diagram for a 3-way switch PRS setup since PRS doesn't seem to know how to make one?

I understand how the pickup wires work, I fixed the mess the previous guy did and used PRS recommendation to use the slugs for the single coil tap for better tone.

 

[Johan Allard]

Hey, I live in Australia, we have crocs here, not alligators

I don't think it matters if you run both south in the middle or both north in the middle. I tend to look at Bare Knuckle for 3rd party pickups and also wiring diagrams. If you look at: https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/ma...rs/humbucker_colour_code_conversion_chart.pdf you can see that all pickups they list have south screw coils and north slug coils. Since slug coils are almost always in the middle, that would typically make the magnetics with north in the middle (bridge: south-north || north-south:neck).

Here's a 3 way switch PRS diagram: https://www.prsguitars.com/csc/schematics/schem08/custom3waytoggle.pdf

Typically PRS uses 0.22uF caps and sometimes 0.33uF. All pots I've seen are 500k pots. Maybe there's 250k pots in some old PRS studio with single-coils. Haven't owned one so don't know. Pretty much all diagrams are available here: https://www.prsguitars.com/csc/schematics.html

 

[Boogie]

Ceramic and old PIO capacitors don't have polarity. Tantalum and electrolytic caps do, but are not used in this application. Get your feet wet with standard parts first, then bend the rules. Those PRS schematics are the perfect way to start.

 

[Ironwolf]

Thanks for the input, guys, much appreciated. You're right, rotating the pickup will only affect noise cancelling and perhaps slight tone variation using the coil tap due to slight position change, I wasn't thinking right. Yes, the middle position puts them in parallel. How do I ensure they are in phase? I'm sure that's a simple concept I just need to do a quick search for...

crocodile clips , how do I tell them apart from alligator clips?

Why do you say to put both north coils in the middle? (urious and would like to learn)
Anyone know the pot and cap values that PRS uses?
Anyone have a complete diagram for a 3-way switch PRS setup since PRS doesn't seem to know how to make one?

I understand how the pickup wires work, I fixed the mess the previous guy did and used PRS recommendation to use the slugs for the single coil tap for better tone.

Well how's it going did you manage to PRS the telecaster.
I actually think that will probably be an awesome tone when you get it finished.
I've always had my eye on those FMT's
Did you figure out what the exact model of pickup is in their