10 years ago I purchased the referenced guitar from the The Guitar Center. I was not the original owner, and do not have an owners manual although I have been trying to locate one on-line. While I can't find a Stratocaster Plus guide on the Fender site for the electronics I assume that it should be similar to either the Buddy Guy or Eric Clapton models.

2 years ago the lace pickup nearest the bridge failed, and I had it replaced through a Sam Ash Service Center, but cannot get any reasonable volume out of the replaced pickup no matter how close I position it to the strings.

I note that looking on line there appear to be different kinds of lace pick-ups (Gold, Silver, Red and Blue). I assume that the color refers to the color of the embossed logo on the pickup. All of the lace sensors on my guitar are gold.

Is it possible that the service center installed the wrong pickup? Is there some other problem I should look for in the electronics.

Hi jmikec2011,

There are different single coil Gold Lace Sensors, like "Gold", "Hot Gold", and "Hot Bridge Gold". You could measure the resistance of each of your three pickups and compare. The regular Gold should be about 5.8K ohms, the Hot Gold is about 6K ohms, and the Hot Bridge is about 13.2K ohms. It is possible that your original bridge pickup was hotter than the replacement that was used (higher resistance = hotter/louder). There are many configurations that use a hotter bridge pickup standard.

Maybe contact consumer relations and give them the serial number from your Strat to get the info on your original pickups and guitar to see what type came with yours. I prefer calling them, but email works also, they've always been very helpful to me either way. Be sure to ask what the resistance should be for each pickup, and compare to what you have.

http://www.fender.com/support/articles/contact-consumer-relations

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---> "The amp should be SWITCHED OFF AND UNPLUGGED before you do this!" <---

Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.

Back then Fender used either 3 Gold logo Laces (which were all the same) or a combination of other Laces (Blue/Silver/Red on the Strat Plus Deluxe, Blue/Gold/Dual Red on the Ultra) on the models that had higher output bridge pickups.

To me it sounds like either Sam Ash installed a bad pickup or it was not properly installed. Hopefully Fender CS can tell you the output of the old Fender/Lace models so you can figure out which of the current Lace models is closest to the old ones. You could also try to find an old Gold label Fender/Lace somewhere - some dealers might still have some in stock.

Thanks, I'll do as you suggest. Let you know the outcome. I sincerely appreciate the advice.

Mike

Hello Mike...and welcome.
The Forum 'Karnak' on that series of guitars is Jeff. Go to http://www.xhefriguitars.com for a heads up. You can email him on his website. If you do, give him your Forum screen name as well, and the date of your post here. Presently there's been a loss in his family otherwise I would attempt to reach him privately and bring him on here. When Brad says that many of us interface off-screen he is not kidding.
Sit tight and wait awhile. Maybe we can get some serious help for you before long. Meanwhile, send me a PM reminder via the Forum and I'll memo it. I'd give it about a week unless he picks it up before hand.
Doc

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"Another day in paradise!"

Ummm, a Karnak? Isn't that a "a village in Egypt on the Nile River, now largely amalgamated with Luxor. It is the site of the northern complex of monuments of ancient Thebes, including the great temple of Amun???" I haven't even been close to there lately. I was in Nepal and India till the 22nd of Dec. Also, as as ZZ said, my mother-in-law is near death so we spent the holidays watching her fade away. Not a fun thing to come home too. Any day now it should be over..... so things were not the holiday cheer around here.....

Anyhow, sounds like you might have a bad Lace Sensor. It is a common problem where they will have only about 1/2 the output. I have sent back a number to Lace to have replaced. Seems if they get bumps really hard this will happen. So check the resistance. A Gold should run about 5.8k. I like the Red Lace Sensor in the bridge as it is much hotter and gives a bit more bite.

Look at page two of my website for more info and to know more about the "flavors" of the Lace Sensors look at http://www.lacemusic.com/electric_pickups/lace_sensor/lace_sensor_specs.php

Happy New year to you all......

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Xhefri's Guitars
www.xhefriguitars.com

Hi Jeff! Thanks for the brief review on ancient Egypt's magnificent temple. I know you understood that I was spinnng off Johnny Carson's mind-reading fool. Thanks for taking the time to respond to this in the light of the current situation. We are all with you and yours in this I am sure.
Doc.

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"Another day in paradise!"

I finally decided to take the guitar apart and see what I could find. What I discovered was that whoever did the repair was a little sloppy. Where the hot wires attach to the 5-way switch it looked like someone used a solder wick to remove the solder on the pin for the bridge pickup and at the same time took off all the solder for the middle pickup which is right next to it. The middle pickup hot wire was just sitting in the pin hole, amazing that it worked at all, and the bridge pickup pin had some solder on it but was a cold solder joint. By adding a little clean solder to both bins and heating them adequately everything worked great!

After re-assembly and adjusting the pickups a little closer to the strings everything sounds amazing.

All the pickups installed were official Fender Gold Lace pickups reading about 5.5 K ohms each (all I have is an analog multi-meter so it's not that precise) from hot to ground. I had ordered a 13.5 ohm bridge pickup, but haven't decided whether to install it yet. Thanks to everyone for their help.

Mike