2014-2016 Stratocaster Deluxe Plus

Get Ready for the HATERS!! (and the LOVERS) – Note the card links are at the top of the page.

The Stratocaster with Personality! This very unusual Fender Stratocaster has interchangeable personality cards. It was mocked, ridiculed and poo-pooed but yet loved by a few and praised by others. It was an idea way before it’s time and mostly implemented pretty well. This short production run guitar can be ultra fun. It’s not that it doesn’t play well, it’s awesome, born from the american farm. But that’s not the issue. It’s that non traditional concept of PREWIRED CARDS!! Arg! Blasphemy! But yet; switching cards quickly is incredibly educational and guess what?! FUN!! My only regret is the amount of closed mindedness about this guitar that like caused Fender to go, “whoops, they don’t like it! Let it expire, next PLUS please. quickly!” Like a new Egyptian ruler that wanted to remove the statues of it’s previous ruler, all traces must be gone! So it’s run was almost over before it started. Maybe if they called it “Wiring Cards” instead or “Hot Wire Cards”, the world would not have been so offended by it. Or, just maybe it was just a Massive Marketing failure on Fenders part. At any rate, it was dropped like a hot potato and now has a cult following like some Bad B Movies. PS: I own both models!

Ok, let’s get down to the business. It’s been a serious research project to find information about these cards and guitar since they are no longer in production and Fender only has the original brochure available so info on other cards it managed to sell are hard to find. So massive internet searching was in order. Original I had NO IDEA what other cards were available, but with luck and perseverance I figured it out.

Pickups

The pickups are N3 Noiseless or N3 or N3. Other solderless ones (Texas Specials) used to be available but are not anymore. Rarely they show up on guitar websites, but don’t let your tax return wait for that to happen.

However, good new, I do really like the pickups, other people don’t, but dealer choice I guess. I did a bunch of research and have not yet found the exact connector that this guitar uses. If you find it, let me know!!

Note: Solderless Pickups sets are no longer available from Fender either. They used to retail about $249

Different Card Sets

The card sets for the SSS guitar and HSS are different. That makes sense because one has a humbucker that you can split and do other things with. But it’s important to know that an SSS card is not designed to be used with an HSS Stratocaster. The picture on the card makes it obvious. At first this was confusing but hey, the card has a picture on it, AND the HSS cards are RED

SEE TOP MENU FOR DATA ON EACH CARD HSS or SSS

Parts Information

Bad News. There ARE no parts available for this model (either HSS or SSS) from Fender. No wiring diagrams or anything like this, No “other solder less pickup sets”. No cards for sale from Fender. Fender divorced this guitar. You can still find stuff occasionally on E-bay or Reverb.

DIY Warning

If you intend on swapping pickguards or working inside this guitar be VERY CAREFUL. Most of it is pretty solid but the ribbon cable is basically a fragile piece of crap. The clip breaks very easily, and it’s easy to twist and it is very short. So be forewarned, because this is NOT replaceable. Put on your kid gloves like this guitar is irreplaceable and not up gradable and you’ll be fine. The pickguard can be swapped out, but the same caveat applies, be careful!

Business side of pickguard

Notice the connectors for the pickups. There is a PCB that the pots are mounted on, and the switch is enclosed. They used to sell pickups that had the connectors on them so you could simply swap them out. If the switch went out, I have no clue as to how you would replace it, but the guitar will have a age a LOT for that to happen. The Pots have holes to go through the board and you could probably figure out how to solder the lugs to the circuit with little wires if they went bad. Pots almost never go bad.