Pickup wiring nomenclature

[Cbouty]

I just bought a set of 57/08. I found the wires colors for the neck pickup to be listed as:

NECK
White (+)
Black (-)
Red (split)
Braided shield (split)

I’ve always just used diagrams that referred to wiring as north/south start/finish. Am I correct in thinking that for the neck pickup above, the white (+) is the north start, the black (-) is the south start, and the red (split) is the north finish/south finish already twisted together?

Thanks for any help

Chad

 

[pipthepilot]

Hi Chad,

The simple answer is you are sort of correct

PRS pickup use white for the screw side, black for the slug side and red is the connection between the two. On the Neck pickup, White is Hot and Black is Ground but on the Bridge pickup this is reversed so Black is the Hot and white is ground.

Technically, the convention is to have the screw side South and slugs North which means the PRS pickups are as follows.

Neck
White (Hot) = South start
Red (Split) = South Finish/North start
Black (Gnd) = North Finish

Bridge
Black (hot) = North start
Red (Split) = North Finish/South start
White (Gnd) = South finish