Wiring diagram for 2015 Custom 24 mod?

Beargrylls21

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Hi everyone,

In order to get access to some additional single coil sounds on my 2015 custom 24, I’m interested in installing a push/pull tone pot along with the 5 way blade. This would give me the individual single coil bridge and neck sounds. I know PTC has done this mod in the past, but I can’t seem to find a wiring diagram for this mod. Does anyone have a diagram for this modification that they could share? I’m guessing it would mostly entail switching out the tone pot with a push/pull and changing a few wires to the blade, but I’m still very much a beginner at this and would like to be sure before I start. Thanks!
 
It should be pretty simple. Move the pickup coil split wire from the blade to the center lug on one side of the push/pull. On the bottom lug, run a jumper back to the switch where the coil split wire was. Connect the top lug to ground or hot, depending on which coil you want active. Repeat on the other row of lugs with the other pickup.

That will give you 7 positions: the regular 5, plus each pickup split. There are a few ways to get creative with it to end up with 8 different sounds, but I'll stop there for now.
 
It should be pretty simple. Move the pickup coil split wire from the blade to the center lug on one side of the push/pull. On the bottom lug, run a jumper back to the switch where the coil split wire was. Connect the top lug to ground or hot, depending on which coil you want active. Repeat on the other row of lugs with the other pickup.

That will give you 7 positions: the regular 5, plus each pickup split. There are a few ways to get creative with it to end up with 8 different sounds, but I'll stop there for now.
Thanks for the response, garret. I think this makes sense. A few other questions since I am still a noob at this.

1) what kind of wire should I use for the jumper?

2) do you know which coil PRS usually activates for the best single coil sounds?

3) can you remind me what the color codes for the wires are for the custom 24 wiring?

Much appreciated!
 
Thanks for the response, garret. I think this makes sense. A few other questions since I am still a noob at this.

1) what kind of wire should I use for the jumper?

2) do you know which coil PRS usually activates for the best single coil sounds?

3) can you remind me what the color codes for the wires are for the custom 24 wiring?

Much appreciated!

1. Whatever hookup wire. You can likely get it from the same place you get the push/pull. I have been using solid core copper wire from Radio Shack for a long time because it doesn't fray and it stays put. It's best to get a couple different colors to differentiate between hot and ground.

2. "Best" is subjective of course, but the stock PRS 5-way wiring goes to slug coil. The pickups are reverse polarity, so they connect the bridge split to ground and the neck split to hot. Reverse this to get screw coils. On guitars with their 3-way toggle wiring, they split to screw coil with 2.2k and 1.1k resistors on bridge and neck, respectively.

3. Red: split. White is hot for Bridge, ground for Neck. Black is ground for Bridge, hot for Neck. Bare is shield.
 
Thanks Garrett. This makes sense. Sounds like all I will need is the new pot along with a soldering iron and some extra wire. I’m surprised they don’t have a diagram for this on their website. Just to confirm, one side of the blade is for the neck pickup and the other side is for the bridge, so I’ll be doing the same mod twice on both sides of the blade. No other modifications to the wiring on the blade will be necessary?
 
Thanks Garrett. This makes sense. Sounds like all I will need is the new pot along with a soldering iron and some extra wire. I’m surprised they don’t have a diagram for this on their website. Just to confirm, one side of the blade is for the neck pickup and the other side is for the bridge, so I’ll be doing the same mod twice on both sides of the blade. No other modifications to the wiring on the blade will be necessary?

Don't forget solder, of course. If you're totally new to soldering, you may want to get something to experiment on first before diving into a PRS. You'll want to have the basics down.

PRS only post the stock wiring diagrams on their site, which makes sense to me. I doubt they want to open the can of worms that is modding and then have to support it. @ADP created an 8 way scheme that sounds really close to what you want, but Photobucket ruined the image link. Maybe he can share it elsewhere?
http://forums.prsguitars.com/threads/new-5-way-switch-mod-available-thru-ptc.1127/

I came up with an alternate 8-tone scheme that works great for me. ADP's has a more straightforward logic, while I based mine on the combos I use most.
https://imgur.com/jV17UOr

The blade is split into "Hot Side" and "Ground Side". Furthermore, it is split into quadrants for neck and bridge. So each pickup has half of hot side and half of ground side.

The push/pull works like so:

4000_07_dia12.gif


Each "stack" on the switch, left and right, is independent of the other, so one pickup connects to the left and the other to the right.
 
Thanks for the diagram. Looks like a pretty neat setup. I’m curious as to why you prefer the screw coils over the slug coils. Do you feel it gives a better true single coil sound than the other way around?

Yes, hopefully @ADP can resend his link. Thankfully the procedure doesn’t seem to invasive, but I will need to familiarize myself with the iron before diving in. Did you use the PRS brand push pull pots when you did yours or do you recommend another brand?
 
Thanks for the diagram. Looks like a pretty neat setup. I’m curious as to why you prefer the screw coils over the slug coils. Do you feel it gives a better true single coil sound than the other way around?

They're the farthest from each other, and bigger diff in sound?

The screw coils on bridge pup would be closest to bridge and twangiest.
 
Don't forget solder, of course. If you're totally new to soldering, you may want to get something to experiment on first before diving into a PRS. You'll want to have the basics down.

PRS only post the stock wiring diagrams on their site, which makes sense to me. I doubt they want to open the can of worms that is modding and then have to support it. @ADP created an 8 way scheme that sounds really close to what you want, but Photobucket ruined the image link. Maybe he can share it elsewhere?
http://forums.prsguitars.com/threads/new-5-way-switch-mod-available-thru-ptc.1127/

I came up with an alternate 8-tone scheme that works great for me. ADP's has a more straightforward logic, while I based mine on the combos I use most.
https://imgur.com/jV17UOr

The blade is split into "Hot Side" and "Ground Side". Furthermore, it is split into quadrants for neck and bridge. So each pickup has half of hot side and half of ground side.

The push/pull works like so:

4000_07_dia12.gif


Each "stack" on the switch, left and right, is independent of the other, so one pickup connects to the left and the other to the right.
Also, just peaked inside the guitar and noticed that the split, hot and ground are all connected to the blade. Will I need to run jumpers from the push pull pot to all three contractions for each pickup?
 
Thanks for the diagram. Looks like a pretty neat setup. I’m curious as to why you prefer the screw coils over the slug coils. Do you feel it gives a better true single coil sound than the other way around?

Yes, hopefully @ADP can resend his link. Thankfully the procedure doesn’t seem to invasive, but I will need to familiarize myself with the iron before diving in. Did you use the PRS brand push pull pots when you did yours or do you recommend another brand?

On screw vs. slug, I just trusted my ears and chose what sounded best.

I've used a few different push/pulls and they mostly seem about the same. I have used the CTS most recently and they feel solid enough, but they don't turn as easily as the mini pot versions.

Also, just peaked inside the guitar and noticed that the split, hot and ground are all connected to the blade. Will I need to run jumpers from the push pull pot to all three contractions for each pickup?

White and Black you can leave alone. We're just adding an option for how the coils are split. Right now the blade controls coil splitting. Think of it like train tracks. The red wires currently have direct routes to the blade switch. With the push/pull, we're adding junctions. Each red wire will go to a junction first and will then be directed in one of two ways. In the down position, it'll be sent to the blade. In the up position, the push/pull controls coil splitting and it will send the signal to ground or hot, ignoring the blade.
 
On screw vs. slug, I just trusted my ears and chose what sounded best.

I've used a few different push/pulls and they mostly seem about the same. I have used the CTS most recently and they feel solid enough, but they don't turn as easily as the mini pot versions.



White and Black you can leave alone. We're just adding an option for how the coils are split. Right now the blade controls coil splitting. Think of it like train tracks. The red wires currently have direct routes to the blade switch. With the push/pull, we're adding junctions. Each red wire will go to a junction first and will then be directed in one of two ways. In the down position, it'll be sent to the blade. In the up position, the push/pull controls coil splitting and it will send the signal to ground or hot, ignoring the blade.
Thanks Garrett. One more clarification question. For connecting the top lug to ground or hot, you are referring to positions on the blade or positions on the tone pot?

Sorry for noob questions but just want to be sure. Thanks
 
Thanks Garrett. One more clarification question. For connecting the top lug to ground or hot, you are referring to positions on the blade or positions on the tone pot?

Sorry for noob questions but just want to be sure. Thanks

On the push/pull switch. I'd love to do a diagram, but I don't have Visio anymore. :( I'd also love to try out ADP's switching layout, but I don't have a guitar I'm willing to experiment on. :(
 
On the push/pull switch. I'd love to do a diagram, but I don't have Visio anymore. :( I'd also love to try out ADP's switching layout, but I don't have a guitar I'm willing to experiment on. :(
Thanks Garrett. I think this makes sense. So I would solder the hot right on top of where the blade connects to the volume pot for both pickups. The ground I would solder to the casing of the tone pot where the shield is currently soldered?

No worries about the diagram. I think I am starting to get a feel for it. I’ll likely write up a procedure and send to you to double check before I get started. Thanks again.
 
Thanks Garrett. I think this makes sense. So I would solder the hot right on top of where the blade connects to the volume pot for both pickups. The ground I would solder to the casing of the tone pot where the shield is currently soldered?

No worries about the diagram. I think I am starting to get a feel for it. I’ll likely write up a procedure and send to you to double check before I get started. Thanks again.

If you run the split to hot, you need to connect from the push/pull to where the pickup hot connects to the blade. If you run it straight to the volume pot, the pickup would be on all the time when the push/pull is up.
 
On the push/pull switch. I'd love to do a diagram, but I don't have Visio anymore. :( I'd also love to try out ADP's switching layout, but I don't have a guitar I'm willing to experiment on. :(
Thanks Garrett. I think this makes sense. So I would solder the hot right on top of where

No worries about the diagram. I think I am starting to get a feel for it. I’ll likely write up a procedure and send to you to double check before I get started. Thanks again.
On the push/pull switch. I'd love to do a diagram, but I don't have Visio anymore. :( I'd also love to try out ADP's switching layout, but I don't have a guitar I'm willing to experiment on. :(

If you run the split to hot, you need to connect from the push/pull to where the pickup hot connects to the blade. If you run it straight to the volume pot, the pickup would be on all the time when the push/pull is up.

Thanks, I think I may have mis-spoke. I wanted to confirm the following:

For each pickup, reroute the red split wire to the center lug on the new push pull pot

On the bottom lug, run a wire back to the same position on the blade where the red split wires were originally connected.

For the top lug, would I run a wire directly to the volume pot or to a hot connection on the blade?

The current tone pot also has the two pickup shield wires soldered to the top as well as a wire soldered to the the back of both the tone and volume pots. I assume I would re-solder those connections to the new pot without any modifications?

Thanks again for helping me work through this.
 
For the top lug, would I run a wire directly to the volume pot or to a hot connection on the blade?

No. For neck pickup, connect it to ground (pot casing or side of switch) to split to screw coil. Or, to split to slug coil, connect to where the neck pickup hot connects to the blade. The opposite applies to the bridge pickup, since it is reverse polarity.


The current tone pot also has the two pickup shield wires soldered to the top as well as a wire soldered to the the back of both the tone and volume pots. I assume I would re-solder those connections to the new pot without any modifications?

Correct.
 
No. For neck pickup, connect it to ground (pot casing or side of switch) to split to screw coil. Or, to split to slug coil, connect to where the neck pickup hot connects to the blade. The opposite applies to the bridge pickup, since it is reverse polarity.




Correct.
Thanks for the clarification. This makes sense now. I’ll let you know if I have any other questions. Looking forward to trying this out.
 
No. For neck pickup, connect it to ground (pot casing or side of switch) to split to screw coil. Or, to split to slug coil, connect to where the neck pickup hot connects to the blade. The opposite applies to the bridge pickup, since it is reverse polarity.




Correct.
Hi @garrett ,

About to get ready to start this mod soon. Wanted to double check your advice before I got started. To activate the screw coils when the push pull is up, I will connect the top lug of the push pull pot to the hot wire on the blade for the bridge pickup and the ground wire on the blade for the neck pickup? So essentially, I will be running jumpers to the black wire of each pickup from the top lug?

Just wanted to make sure this was the correct configuration to activate the screw coils and not the slug coils before I got started. Thanks.
 
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