FYI about SBMM Ray5HH electronics

[hchoe741]

Hi! First time on this forum. Just thought I'd share some info about the electronics in the Sterling Ray5HH..

I recently purchased one with the intent of taking out the preamp, and rewiring it for passive operation with 2 volumes with push-pull pots for series/parallel wiring, and 1 master tone. In the process I recorded some info.

The 5 way switching configuration is kinda weird.
- bridge (series)
- bridge outer coil and neck (series)
- bridge (series) and neck (series)
- bridge inner coil and neck inner coil
- neck inner coil

The two pickups are identical with dc resistance of 7.15k ohms in series. The coils closer to the neck are south polarity, north polarity for the other coils.

The pickups have 4 conductor leads.
- green: north start
- white: north finish
- black: south finish
- red: south start

There's is black paint in the control cavity that I assumed was graphite shielding, but I found that it was not conductive when tested with a multimeter, so I added some copper shielding. The pickguard does have aluminum shielding in the control area.


I hope this info helps! I was looking around online for these kinds of details before purchasing, but couldn't find anything.

 

[strummer]

Good job, and thanks for documenting!
Did the bass benefit from the mod?

 

[hchoe741]

tbh I'm more of a guitarist than a bassist, I just bought the ray5 for recording. For my purposes the active preamp and the 5 way was unnecessary. I have it wired with a 3 way switch, individual volumes, push pull to select series/parallel, and a master tone, and I much prefer this configuration. Also, idk if it was the preamp or the lack of shielding, but it seems to buzz less than before.