PRS SE with toggle switch - CE Wiring

[solidsteak]

I have a 2011 SE Custom 24 with a 3 way toggle switch that I'm trying to upgrade with USA HFS and Vintage Bass pickups from the stock SE pickups with 2 wires. The USA pickups come with 3 wires (red, white and black) and shield. From my understanding, the seller took them from a Custom 24 with a 5 way blade switch and from the documents I've read, the neck pickup is reversed polarity so that it works with the 5 way rotary.

I bought a new volume pot and a push-pull pot to wire it up like the CE24 with resistors. My question, should I wire it up with black being hot for the bridge and white being hot for the neck with the red being the coil split? Or should I just follow the diagram and have black as hot for neck with reds being coil split?

I can't post links yet, but I just wanted to be sure. I've read about phasing issues when both pickups are selected and push-pull pushed down. The diagram for the Navarro looks like what I should do, but I'm not too sure at the point.

 

[garrett]

Wire the first way. They'll be out of phase otherwise.

Note that if you send both splits to ground, one pickup will split to screw and the other to slug. You can easily adjust that by splitting one to ground and one to hot.

 

[solidsteak]

Awesome! Thanks @garrett! So there'd be no hum cancelling if both go to ground in split operation then. So I should wire the other end of the resistor for the neck to hot? Essentially this:

 

[solidsteak]

@garrett Is there a reason why the diagram from here: http://www.prsguitars.com/documents/custom3waytoggle.pdf couldn't be modified to have the resistors in series with the red wires and the lug they connect to on the push-pull pot? You'd still end up with need to send one of the splits to hot if I'm looking at the correctly.

Edit: I drew the diagram incorrectly. Updated.

 

[solidsteak]

Leaving this here for someone else who will find it useful:

The pickups with 3 conductor wire (HFS, Vintage Bass, Dragon & Artist) are magnetically flipped, so their wiring is a little different. Bridge hot is the black wire, neck hot is the white wire. From documents above, PRS recommends wiring the red wire to hot for the bridge and ground for the neck. This results in the slugs being active in single coil mode. To get the screws active in single coil mode, run the red for the bridge to ground and the red for the neck to hot.

 

[garrett]

Awesome! Thanks @garrett! So there'd be no hum cancelling if both go to ground in split operation then. So I should wire the other end of the resistor for the neck to hot? Essentially this:

Yeah, you got it.

@garrett Is there a reason why the diagram from here: http://www.prsguitars.com/documents/custom3waytoggle.pdf couldn't be modified to have the resistors in series with the red wires and the lug they connect to on the push-pull pot? You'd still end up with need to send one of the splits to hot if I'm looking at the correctly.

Edit: I drew the diagram incorrectly. Updated.

I don't know why you would. Just run the resistors from the switch to ground or hot. You can insulate the legs to prevent shorts.

 

[garrett]

Leaving this here for someone else who will find it useful:

The pickups with 3 conductor wire (HFS, Vintage Bass, Dragon & Artist) are magnetically flipped, so their wiring is a little different. Bridge hot is the black wire, neck hot is the white wire. From documents above, PRS recommends wiring the red wire to hot for the bridge and ground for the neck. This results in the slugs being active in single coil mode. To get the screws active in single coil mode, run the red for the bridge to ground and the red for the neck to hot.

On my 85/15 set, bridge split to hot is screw coil, which I think is what they mean in that old doc by "moving the hot". Regardless, it is not hard at all to switch depending on your preferences and results.

 

[solidsteak]

Great! Thanks @garrett !

 

[solidsteak]

Not the cleanest job, but everything works perfectly. I ended using electrical tap to insulate the ground wires and the hot wire to the pot for the toggle switch. Those wires making contact with the body will cause output issues.