Tremonti pickup wiring assistance

[kes7u]

Sorry. Also posted this in the Electric Instruments section. Didn't really know where it belonged.

To start with, please don't scold me or judge me!!

I have a PRS McCarty Singlecut Private Stock. Absolutely love the way it feels. I play harder music, and wanted to hear it with higher output pickups.

I bought a new set of Tremonti Treble and Bass pickups.

I've never installed pickups before, but I did a lot of research and felt it was something I could do. I completed the job today, and it didn't work! When I plug my guitar into the amp, if I turn the volume on the guitar all the way up (which would typically be VERY loud through the amp) I can barely hear it.

When I first looked at the wiring, it was most like this diagram:
http://www.prsguitars.com/csc/schema.../singlecut.pdf

Each 57/08s had a black wire soldered to the 'hot' volume tab with a braided surround soldered to the top of the volume pot. There was a white wire taped off.

The Tremonti treble has the following wires: black, white, red, green, and braided. I soldered the black to the 'hot' tab where the 57/08 had been. I soldered the red and green together and taped them off. I soldered the white and braided to the top of the volume pot.

The Tremonti bass has a black wire with a braided surround. I soldered the black to the 'hot' tab where the 57/08 had been. I soldered the braided surround to the top of the volume pot.

Neither pickup is functioning correctly.

Any possible ideas? I suppose my next step is sending to PTC....

Thanks for any help.
Kevin
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[rugerpc]

This is the right place....

 

[gush]

There are a lot of guys on here that are more qualified than me to help you but what I do is go to PRS site and go to schematics section. Find the diagram that best fits what you are doing, like how many wires the new pickup has and what switching your guitar has.tThe info is there just need to think your wsy through it. The site has bailed me out a couple of times. Good luck.

 

[Raven17]

First off I'd like to commend you on the King size balls it took to make this particular guitar your pickup swap cherry. Secondly, you're gonna LOVE the Tremonti pups in that guitar. Best of luck brother, I can't wait to see this one once completed..

 

[JustRob]

Do you have an ohm meter? You could first check if the circuit looks like a short (0 ohms) across the output jack, or an open (OL on many meters). If you disconnect the pickups and still read resistance across them they're probably still good, it's something in the wiring. Some easy mistakes causing a short could be solder bridged between pot terminals, a cap lead touching somewhere it shouldn't, or a hot wire lead bridged to a grounded point.

Good luck, and if it gets too deep, the PTC has always got your back.

 

[kes7u]

Thanks for this! Laughed out loud for several minutes! Certainly helped in my current state of depression.

I was as careful as could be and figured, how bad could things get? It felt like everything went very well and I fully expected it to work perfectly. What a train wreck! Here's hoping I didn't do any lasting damage that PTC can't fix!

Will keep you updated!
Kevin

First off I'd like to commend you on the King size balls it took to make this particular guitar your pickup swap cherry. Secondly, you're gonna LOVE the Tremonti pups in that guitar. Best of luck brother, I can't wait to see this one once completed..

 

[kes7u]

Thanks for your input. Much appreciated.

I had a bit of difficulty soldering the very small lead wires to the volume terminal . Used more solder than I would have liked. Based on what you're describing, I would guess that some of this solder is either bridging between terminals, or bridging between the terminal and ground.

Overall, at the time, I felt that it went pretty well and fully expected it to work! At this point, I'm leaning towards sending it off to PTC to have a professional take a look. I'm sure they can fix whatever havoc I've wrought, and I'm hopeful they'll tell me where I went wrong.

Thanks again.
Kevin

Do you have an ohm meter? You could first check if the circuit looks like a short (0 ohms) across the output jack, or an open (OL on many meters). If you disconnect the pickups and still read resistance across them they're probably still good, it's something in the wiring. Some easy mistakes causing a short could be solder bridged between pot terminals, a cap lead touching somewhere it shouldn't, or a hot wire lead bridged to a grounded point.

Good luck, and if it gets too deep, the PTC has always got your back.

 

[wardog]

It sounds like u got it. On my first solder try I used too little and too much on connections. Another isssue is grounding. Make sure you leads are not touching grounded parts. And that all the parts that need to be grounded are. Like the pickups themselves. Grounding out the hot leads will kill volume but not output. Meaning your amp will make noise when u connect but no sound after.