Splitting a PRS HFS (low resistance on single)

[Dr Excess]

Hey,

After learning a lot about PRS pickups and splitting (and being schooled by @garrett and @Malloc ) I'm back again, puzzled.

Previous thread: https://forums.prsguitars.com/threa...wire-from-the-08-to-get-the-proper-tap.41234/

So, I've bought a HFS for the bridge of my guitar (a 15.7k pickup) but this time it's a 2 wire + 1 ground setup. So ground is ground, red is live and white is coil split usually.

The resistance when checking red to ground is c.8k, I was expecting it to be the full resistance as the white isn't grounded...

Now, when I split it (by sending white to ground) the red to ground is reduced down to single coil. I expected this to be half, but it's actually much lower (c.4k)

If I measure between white and ground with red floating I get the full 15.7k...

So that's the confusing bit, should I be using white as my 15.7k and splitting with red (which appears to remove 8k)?

This to me says that white is my actual pickup live wire (15.7k) without sending the other wire to ground, 8k on white when sending red to ground.

That seems to go against the usual colour codes but is also backed up by the red being taped to the the ground when I received it).

 

[garrett]

Yeah you got it. The older pickups used black and white as start/finish and red for tap.

Bare to ground always
Red - send nowhere for humbucker, and to ground or to hot to activate one bobbin or the other
Black and White - one to hot and one to ground, whichever way is in phase with the other pickup(s)

 

[Dr Excess]

Yeah you got it. The older pickups used black and white as start/finish and red for tap.

Bare to ground always
Red - send nowhere for humbucker, and to ground or to hot to activate one bobbin or the other
Black and White - one to hot and one to ground, whichever way is in phase with the other pickup(s)

I don't think there is a black here so just send white to hot, red to my coil split (ground) and the ground to ground.

As I have your ear, lets say hypothetically I wanted my split pickup to be just a little hotter (like 10k), If I added a 2k resistor to my coil split circuit I'm assuming that would stop 2k of the pickup bleeding out to ground and so the 8k would become 10k?

This would still leave untapped (white) as the full 15.7k and then tapped as 10k (8k + 2k resistor).

Thanks.

 

[garrett]

I don't think there is a black here so just send white to hot, red to my coil split (ground) and the ground to ground.

If you just have a bare, white, and red: the bare one will be the black wire and I'd bet the insulation has been removed all the way back to the bigger sleeve.

As I have your ear, lets say hypothetically I wanted my split pickup to be just a little hotter (like 10k), If I added a 2k resistor to my coil split circuit I'm assuming that would stop 2k of the pickup bleeding out to ground and so the 8k would become 10k?

Something like that. I haven't experimented with it much.

 

[Malloc]

I don't think there is a black here so just send white to hot, red to my coil split (ground) and the ground to ground.

As I have your ear, lets say hypothetically I wanted my split pickup to be just a little hotter (like 10k), If I added a 2k resistor to my coil split circuit I'm assuming that would stop 2k of the pickup bleeding out to ground and so the 8k would become 10k?

This would still leave untapped (white) as the full 15.7k and then tapped as 10k (8k + 2k resistor).

Thanks.

Yes you'd see 10k resistance because the coil and resistor and in series.

For what it's worth, PRS usually uses 2.2k on a bridge tap.