Ever get no reading on a 59-09 PU?

[Jmango]

So i have an c250 that I absolutely love, but I don't care for the pickups. I bought a brand new set of squabbin 59-09 PU's to swap them out with.

So I get my trusty soldering iron, look up the wiring schematic and go to it... I get them physically installed and start testing.... Neck PU, no problem. Sounds great. Bridge PU has little to a slight faint washed sound that has almost no output whatsoever. Hmmmm... What gives? Time for the multimeter...

The 5909 neck PU clocks in at 8.3 and if hit the split coil wire, it drops to 4.1. Exactly as I expect. The bridge 5909 registers nothing. Zip, zilch. infinity. Neither lead work on the bridge pu.

Just for the hell of it, I test the c250 PU's and the bridge clocks in at 15.3 and the neck at 8.1 - again, as expected.

Did I just get a bad pickup? Is that even possible? I have never heard of this.

Any ideas?

 

[cjmwrx]

Sounds like you might have gotten a bad pickup. Where did you get it from?

 

[Jmango]

Bought it from an authorized PRS dealer brand spankin new! Grrrrr...

Ironically, this is why I avoided used - to cut the BS...

 

[cjmwrx]

Take it back to the dealer. The should replace it without question.

 

[Jmango]

Agreed. I just wanted to be sure I wasn't mucking something up, but it (according to the multimeter) is as dead as a doornail... I have just never seen that before.

Is there anything I am missing or something else I can try? Frustrating as **** because I thought I got the wiring wrong and spent a couple of wasted hours chasing this crap down...

 

[markintime]

Sometimes, just sometimes, sh!t happens... . Oh well... .

 

[DHW]

You realize that the neck and pickup + and - wires are reversed between the neck and bridge right?

 

[Jmango]

You realize that the neck and pickup + and - wires are reversed between the neck and bridge right?

Not really following what you're saying here. But to point out, I get no reading off of any of the leads. It's like I touch the two leads from the multimeter together... Completely void of any resistance no matter which lead on the bridge PU I test against the ground.

 

[DHW]

Not really following what you're saying here. But to point out, I get no reading off of any of the leads. It's like I touch the two leads from the multimeter together... Completely void of any resistance no matter which lead on the bridge PU I test against the ground.

You are testing this against the pickup when it was totally disconnected right? What I was saying above is that the same color wire is on the slug coil and the screw coil on both pickups so the white wire is hot on the bridge and the black wire is hot on the neck. If you are getting a reading the same as touching both probes together(0) or infinity on the bridge pickup when it is wired up but when disconnected it reads fine then you have it wired wrong. I am not sure how it could be screwed up to the point that you would get a truly zero reading when it was disconnected but if that is the case then most definitely return it. Where I am not following is that a reading of infinity and a reading of zero are two very different things. A reading of infinity means there is a break somewhere and no path from the hot wire to the ground wire. A reading of zero means there is a short. Both of those cases would warrant a defective humbucker but if it is soldered up when you put the meter on it they can be caused by two very different problems that a new pickup won't resolve.

 

[Jmango]

You are testing this against the pickup when it was totally disconnected right? What I was saying above is that the same color wire is on the slug coil and the screw coil on both pickups so the white wire is hot on the bridge and the black wire is hot on the neck. If you are getting a reading the same as touching both probes together(0) or infinity on the bridge pickup when it is wired up but when disconnected it reads fine then you have it wired wrong. I am not sure how it could be screwed up to the point that you would get a truly zero reading when it was disconnected but if that is the case then most definitely return it. Where I am not following is that a reading of infinity and a reading of zero are two very different things. A reading of infinity means there is a break somewhere and no path from the hot wire to the ground wire. A reading of zero means there is a short. Both of those cases would warrant a defective humbucker but if it is soldered up when you put the meter on it they can be caused by two very different problems that a new pickup won't resolve.

Ahhh... I get you now. I am clearly mixing up terminology here - to clarify, on the bridge pickup, when disconnected and going from the ground to either the white, black or red (I assume split coil lead) I get OL as the reading on the MM. When measuring the neck or SC250 pickups that were removed from the guitar in the same manner, I get the expected resistance values for the given pickups.

Does that make more sense?

 

[DHW]

Ahhh... I get you now. I am clearly mixing up terminology here - to clarify, on the bridge pickup, when disconnected and going from the ground to either the white, black or red (I assume split coil lead) I get OL as the reading on the MM. When measuring the neck or SC250 pickups that were removed from the guitar in the same manner, I get the expected resistance values for the given pickups.

Does that make more sense?

When it is disconnected take your resistance reading from black to white rather than to ground. You want to measure the resistance through the coils. On the bridge pickup white to red to measure the resistance to the tap. As you are doing it now you are just seeing that it has no path to ground which would be correct when it is disconnected.

 

[Jmango]

When it is disconnected take your resistance reading from black to white rather than to ground. You want to measure the resistance through the coils. On the bridge pickup white to red to measure the resistance to the tap. As you are doing it now you are just seeing that it has no path to ground which would be correct when it is disconnected.

I believe I actually did that as in my frustration, I measured every possible combination of leads to see if I could get anything. I will double check when I get home this evening just to be sure and report back.

 

[DHW]

I believe I actually did that as in my frustration, I measured every possible combination of leads to see if I could get anything. I will double check when I get home this evening just to be sure and report back.

If it shows infinity there then there is a break in the coil or a bad solder point on one of the lead wires where it connects to the coil and should be returned and exchanged.

 

[shinksma]

The bridge 5909 registers nothing. Zip, zilch. infinity.

If you could clarify: Zip = zilch = zero in common lingo. Infinity is quite the opposite value.

The meter reads "OL" (infinity)? Or does it read "0.0" (zero - i.e. continuity)?

Anyway, check the pickups again wire to wire, not to ground, and check them when not installed - desolder them first. White to red, red to black, white to black. Measuring while installed adds the added complication of Something Went Wrong at installation.

EDIT: and yeah, pickup wire is fragile, and could have been damaged post-manufacturing, or even as you installed it.

 

[Jmango]

Confirmed: Tested all leads in all possible combinations and get nothing but OL (Open loop /outer limit). Opposite of touching the MM leads together which reads 0.0.

 

[Jmango]

Hey All,

Just posting an update to close off this thread (because it's lame when someone has an issue, gets tons of forum help from others and then disappears...)

I shipped the bad bridge 59/09 back to the dealer (Coral Sky Music in FL) and the power Frank went above and beyond to call PRS and get a new bridge 59/09 shipped to me. It arrived yesterday and sure enough, on the multimeter, I got 9.2k resistance and 4.3k resistance on the black and red leads - exactly what I expected. Having learned, I measured the resistance BEFORE installation this time...

Anyhow, soldered everything in, cleaned up and gave a quick plugin to the amp to test and all checked out perfectly. On the surface I am happy, I just need to get new strings on it and a neck adjustment and then I will play the bejesus out of it today... In other news, I just scored an unmolested set of 85/15's that I am thinking about putting into a CE-24.... That will be another thread...

Either way, thanks for everyone's help here... Really appreciate it.