Members RedJamaX Posted June 20, 2013 Members Share Posted June 20, 2013 "Kind of new" because I just finished the upgrades I had planned for my PRS SE Santana. Sorry to the Mods if this doesn't qualify, let me know where to place this kind of post next time... 1. - Pickups - Replaced the 245's with Santana III's (Treble and Bass) 2. - Tuners - Locking Tuners by Jin-Ho, 19:1 ratio... not as smooth as the stock PRS, but they lock and stay in tune, so I am happy for the price. 3. - Strap Locks 4. - Varitone Control - started out as a simple cap selector switch and evolved into a 6 position Varitone switch. The speed knobs are still Master Volume and Master Tone, so at each position on the switch I can still roll off the tone very smoothly. positions are .022uf; .033uf; .047uf; .068uf; .1uf; .2uf 5. - Tone pot - removed the A500K and put in an A250K. I tested A250k, A500k, B250k and B500k pots from alpha and CTS, and the CTS A250K has the most controlled tone roll off of any of them. 6. - Variable Treble Bleed - this also began as a selector switch, then I found the V-Treb, but couldn't figure out how to get it set to access the pot control, so I built my own with a mini A500k and a .01uf cap. on the last three Varitone settings, this control gives a lot a mids and highs back into low volume settings and creates some really good tones for blues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RedJamaX Posted June 20, 2013 Author Members Share Posted June 20, 2013 here's a before pic... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Buttcrust Posted June 20, 2013 Members Share Posted June 20, 2013 Looks...green. I bet it sounds great. Where's the whammy bar ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RedJamaX Posted June 20, 2013 Author Members Share Posted June 20, 2013 Here is the wiring diagram for anybody who might be interested... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BG76 Posted June 20, 2013 Members Share Posted June 20, 2013 Looks cool. I would change the knobs to something more PRS-like but that's just me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members FrankenSteinberger Posted June 20, 2013 Members Share Posted June 20, 2013 RedJamaX wrote: I really like your neat wiring for such a complex circuit--mine always seems to get a bit out-of-hand. So I'm asking this for my own education purposes, and not to be critical: Regarding the grounding of the single conductors and shielded cables on the pot (far right), is it usually done that way? Because it seems like it would be easy to melt through the insulators of the conductors inside the shielding, and short them to ground. Also, thanks for making me aware of Jin-Ho hardware. And I like that Hamer-esque placement of the selector toggle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members newbuilder Posted June 20, 2013 Members Share Posted June 20, 2013 That looks like a fun guitar...I would love to play with it for a day and explore that varitone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RedJamaX Posted June 20, 2013 Author Members Share Posted June 20, 2013 FrankenSteinberger wrote: RedJamaX wrote: I really like your neat wiring for such a complex circuit--mine always seems to get a bit out-of-hand. So I'm asking this for my own education purposes, and not to be critical: Regarding the grounding of the single conductors and shielded cables on the pot (far right), is it usually done that way? Because it seems like it would be easy to melt through the insulators of the conductors inside the shielding, and short them to ground.Also, thanks for making me aware of Jin-Ho hardware. And I like that Hamer-esque placement of the selector toggle.Thanks!! I'm quite the novice, and this project took a few weekends to complete, partially because I'm anal about the "neat wiring" :I got the pickups on ebay and I could tell that the braided ground shield had been previously soldered directly to the back of the volume pot from the factory... And these are Original Santana III's so that's a USA PRS wiring techniuqe. The seller told me that his Santana was a 94' model, if that makes a differnece. I used a ground line instead of soldering them directly to the pot simply because the wires would have been in the way with the mods I wanted to implement. Just seemed to make more sense, even if it added an extra wire.More directed to your concern, when I soldered the ground to the shielding, I could smell some of the insulation burning a bit, and grounding the hot line was certainly a concern when I was done, but these pickups have really thick insulation so I think that's what saved me. That said, it may simply be my inexperience with soldering that put that situation at risk ni the first place. If I have to do it again, I'll be connecting the ground very close to the end... Could have been a real bad day if I'd shorted the hot line that far up the wire.Jin-Ho makes decent stuff, I replaced all my stock tuners with them. Like I said, they are not as smooth as PRS stock, or the more expensive Sperzels, Gohto's, or Planet Waves... but they are better than standard 18:1 Grovers (imo) and at $30 per set, it's absolutely worth it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RedJamaX Posted June 24, 2013 Author Members Share Posted June 24, 2013 FrankenSteinberger wrote: Regarding the grounding of the single conductors and shielded cables on the pot (far right), is it usually done that way? Because it seems like it would be easy to melt through the insulators of the conductors inside the shielding, and short them to ground. I recently received some information which makes sense... with cables that have a braided-ground exterior, the next layer is typically braided cloth, which is also true with these pickups. The cloth used will barely burn even when lit on fire, so there is no significant danger of shorting the cables by grounding the outter braided ground. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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