PRS SE Custom 24 Wiring Upgrade

Will_Chen

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Joined
May 19, 2017
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Thought I'd post here for all interested. I love my Zebra PRS SE Custom 24 but felt like I was missing out on the switching differences between it and the US Custom 24. I decided to rewire...but I hate soldering, just not good at it and everything I've ever soldered has eventually failed over time. So after contacting several vendors I settled with a Mad Hatter Terminator kit (SVST-IBZ) as they were willing to customize the switch to the my choices: bridge, bridge & neck split, bridge and neck, bridge split & neck split hum cancelling, and neck at no additional charge.

1. Dealing with them was awesome, they answered all my questions quickly and turn around was quick.

2. All the parts appears to be high quality (much better looking than a GFS kit I bought long ago), the instructions were clear even for someone color blind like myself and wiring was a breeze, took me a little less than an hour. They provide dual pots for volume and tone allowing custom wiring to route single coils to 250K pots, and hums to 500K, or creating a 750K "super" pot.

3. Now the "gotchas"...the switch isn't a perfect fit for the PRS SE route, the screw hles are just a touch short. I was able to get it to set, but I had to screw in and out each side until I got it settled into a happy medium (the back screw is at a slight angle but can't be seen and it's snug). And...the PRS SE knobs don't fit right (too shallow), not sure if I want to slightly route out the knobs or get some new ones.

The 2 new positions add quick access to brighter tones which are a nice complement to the stock humbucking tones. Caveat...I think the stock PRS SE wiring has something unique going on in the middle position, I'll have to take a long long look at my old harness, as it had a kinda subtle strat 2/4 vibe happening which I'm missing with the new wiring. Position 4 is now hum-cancelling where in the old wiring when coils were split the middle was not hum cancelling, likely something here different than the stock middle wiring. With screw in terminals, easy to experiment though, hopefully I'll get that figured out. The kit didn't come with a treble bleed like the stock wiring so I just cut the cap out of the stock wiring and inserted it into the current but it's a bit too aggressive now so will need to experiment with some different values.

So...was it worth it? Absolutely IMHO.
 
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