Hollowbody wiring conundrum

[Slick51]

Hi. First post, so here goes...

I bought a Hollowbody. It came with 57/08s according to the hangtag. Someone pulled those and installed a set of the metal (\m/) pickups before I got it. I bought a pair of 57/08s to bring it back into spec, and pulled the 3-way switch out of the F-hole to see the current wiring. There's a red wire from each pickup that goes back into the guitar (I suppose the mini-toggle, or piezo board?), and a white one from each that seems to be grounded. The rest is typical, hot and ground to the three-way.

The mystery? The 57/08s are two-conductor (braid and hot) with the white coil tap (apparently) wire. The metals are 4 conductor.

There are no applicable schematics on the PRS website that I can find, so my question?

Put the white wire where the red now goes, and the hot wires to the three way, as well as the ground? There are no coil taps on this guitar, and I'm unsure of the tap function (white wire) as it applies to the piezo/mini-toggle. I don't want to remove the metal pickups until I know what's going on. Any help is much appreciated. I'm an old hand with a soldering gun, just need guidance.

Thanks in advance. Hope this makes sense...

S51

 

[jak3af3r]

I would email customer service or PTC about that. I saw a video where a guy replaced pickups on a P22 to other PRS pickups and he had to flip the magnets because the stock wiring was out of phase with the piezo. Not entirely related to the original question but hopefully some insightful information.

 

[Callan]

Hi. First post, so here goes...

I bought a Hollowbody. It came with 57/08s according to the hangtag. Someone pulled those and installed a set of the metal (\m/) pickups before I got it. I bought a pair of 57/08s to bring it back into spec, and pulled the 3-way switch out of the F-hole to see the current wiring. There's a red wire from each pickup that goes back into the guitar (I suppose the mini-toggle, or piezo board?), and a white one from each that seems to be grounded. The rest is typical, hot and ground to the three-way.

The mystery? The 57/08s are two-conductor (braid and hot) with the white coil tap (apparently) wire. The metals are 4 conductor.

There are no applicable schematics on the PRS website that I can find, so my question?

Put the white wire where the red now goes, and the hot wires to the three way, as well as the ground? There are no coil taps on this guitar, and I'm unsure of the tap function (white wire) as it applies to the piezo/mini-toggle. I don't want to remove the metal pickups until I know what's going on. Any help is much appreciated. I'm an old hand with a soldering gun, just need guidance.

Thanks in advance. Hope this makes sense...

S51

The original HBii wiring can't do splits, so you just leave the white wire unconnected (my HB came with 57/08 pickups, but no white wire. On my sc245 the white wire was secured in the pickup cavity but unused)

If you want to split the coils, connect the white to ground (via a switch).

I had some photos here somewhere when I changed out the pickups, I can find them if you like?

 

[Callan]

I would email customer service or PTC about that. I saw a video where a guy replaced pickups on a P22 to other PRS pickups and he had to flip the magnets because the stock wiring was out of phase with the piezo. Not entirely related to the original question but hopefully some insightful information.

Oh yes, this too. If you want magnetic+piezo blend you need to consider this (personally don't care for blends this way)

 

[Herr Squid]

I looked over the available schematics on the PRS site and yeah, none of them seem to be what you want. There used to be some more helpful ones out there, I think.

If your guitar is piezo equipped, that mini-toggle is on a circuit board and dedicated to switching between piezo and magnetic pickups. In the incarnations I remember, those guitars in stock form don't feature coil-splitting, i.e. the humbucker is a humbucker is a humbucker. You would ignore the white wire and tape it off, and hook up the hot and ground in the usual way.

If you installed extra switches, you could do something with the white wire.


(Keep in mind, this advice is worth more or less what you paid for it, and although I'm thinking hard about it, I'm about 4 strong beers into the night...)

 

[Geo408]

Check with the Wonderful Wizard of Wiring....Garrett? Garett can ya lend a hand?

 

[Slick51]

Thanks everyone. I don't want coil tap, just the original blendability function as OEM. I read here on another post that the white and black leads are reversed as to their functions between the neck and bridge (ex. White is hot on one, black on the other) so the white wire problem (going to ground, but I only saw one) is apparently solved.

The two red wires are the ones that confuse me. I wonder (and ask) if the white wire might serve the same function as the red (whatever that might be).

I understand the difference in the three wire and four wire configurations; in the three wire, the two coils are connected inside the pickup, sending one wire out from this connection, instead of two (both ends of each coil).

Push come to shove, I'll pull the \m/ pickups out and replace them with the 57/08s, put the white wires in the red's place and see how it goes. I'm confused why someone would put the metals in a Hollowbody, and just assume they were keeping the 57/08s, instead of trying to turn it into a metal machine. You never know, though.

Thanks as always, all.

S51

 

[Slick51]

And I will go to the PTC if needed. I know there's a ton of prior experience here, and thought I'd do due diligence first...lol

S51

 

[Slick51]

After some thought and a cursory net search, it seems that the pickups are essentially wired the same... the two conductor 57/08s have a hot, a braided shield and a tap wire (white), whereas the \m/ pickups have a hot, ground, tap (red), and a braided shield. The only difference is the extra ground, apparently, and the wiring is the same except for the color of the tap wire. I'll wire it up and see, at least, and report back.