Does this exist- pickup question

[Awesome Sauce]

.50mm is the size of the optic. My biggest concern would be the drill bit breaking.

Drilling a hole that small, that deep into a hard metal would be just about impossible without breaking the drill bit, at least for me it would be.

.50mm yes; but that's not leaving any room for adhesive- spindle run-out not withstanding. Bump the bit up to 1mm, and you've just effectively quadrupled your tool strength, while at the same time giving yourself enough space to flow epoxy or CA.

Rob
10001110101

 

[RobbieK]

Do the lights really have to be in line with the strings? A .5mm drill won't struggle with two layers of fibre board and a plastic pickup cover.

 

[delta7fred]

You could probably fix surface mount LEDs on top of standard pole pieces, or in/behind small holes drilled in the cover, and protect/secure them with CA or clear epoxy. The supply leads would run under the cover so no pole piece drilling required.

Don't forget current limiting resistors for the LEDs.

 

[Rip Topaz]

CA and fiber optics don't mix. The CA melts the fibers. Epoxy is used instead.

My fear is that by drilling into the pickup, I'll accidentally drill into the pickup wire and ruin the pickup.

 

[Awesome Sauce]

If you are using a press and a vise clamped or bolted to a plumb and level table, the chances of that happening are essentially nil. However, if you were going to hand drill....then yeah, probably a bad idea.

Rob
10001110101

 

[delta7fred]

CA and fiber optics don't mix. The CA melts the fibers. Epoxy is used instead.

Just re-read you first post properly, I missed the fibre optic part first time, doh.

If you used surface mount LEDs they are tiny, 0805 size is 1.25mm x 2.0mm x 0.5mm high. So tiny in fact that old gits like me have trouble seeing to solder them. You would of course need one per pole rather than a distributed fibre system.

http://www.futurlec.com/LED/Red_0805_SMD_LED.shtml

 

[Rip Topaz]

I've considered doing individual LEDs but if one breaks the neck is trashed. This is a neck through so the whole bass would be trashed.

With fiber optics, as soon as the installation is done, there's just a group of fibers to worry about. The fibers get run in a channel on the backside of the fretboard. After they're epoxied into place, there's a lot less chance of breakage.

 

[Rip Topaz]

Ok, I went searching through some old pix and found some great examples of how I do the fiber optic fretboard.

Here you can see the channel routed into the back of the fretboard.

When the fibers are all run to their markers, it looks like this, with each fiber install in the middle of each side dot. You wanna use the regular markers so there's a marker when the optics aren't turned on.

Now all the fibers are gathered together with heat shrink tubing. Very nervous here because if one of the fibers break or melt, you gotta redo the whole mess. This was my second attempt, by the way.

And here we have the finished product.

The process is very time-consuming but if you take your time, you get great results.

What I'm planning is to keep all the fibers in the body, so there's a lot less chance of failure. My first attempt at the fretboard shown here, I broke the fiber for the first fret marker, and had to redo the whole thing. I was less than amused.

 

[delta7fred]

I've considered doing individual LEDs but if one breaks the neck is trashed. This is a neck through so the whole bass would be trashed.

With fiber optics, as soon as the installation is done, there's just a group of fibers to worry about. The fibers get run in a channel on the backside of the fretboard. After they're epoxied into place, there's a lot less chance of breakage.

OK got it now, you want to use the same fibre bundle as for the neck.

It would be a bit messy having fibre for the neck and individual LEDs for the pups.

 

[Rip Topaz]

OK got it now, you want to use the same fibre bundle as for the neck.

It would be a bit messy having fibre for the neck and individual LEDs for the pups.

Yeah, but they're all hidden inside the bass so the mess doesn't show. Lol.

 

[gurensan]

Drill 1mm for the .5mm fiber. Use a press, don't do it by hand. Use the highest spindle speed you can muster, peck at it, and GO SLOW. Center or spot drill first to mark your locations and help guide the tip of the drill. Magnet materials are hard and will stick to the drill, so every little bit you'll have to pull it out and clean it off.

Or, find some threaded tubing that will fit, or use steel tubing that will fit instead. I'd like these much much better than trying to drill out those tiny pole pieces.

 

[Rip Topaz]

Drill 1mm for the .5mm fiber. Use a press, don't do it by hand. Use the highest spindle speed you can muster, peck at it, and GO SLOW. Center or spot drill first to mark your locations and help guide the tip of the drill. Magnet materials are hard and will stick to the drill, so every little bit you'll have to pull it out and clean it off.

Or, find some threaded tubing that will fit, or use steel tubing that will fit instead. I'd like these much much better than trying to drill out those tiny pole pieces.

That's awesome. Thanks so much, man.

I'm gonna rethink this idea and may light it in other ways.

Here's the layout so far:

 

[gurensan]

Nice wood!

 

[JustForSport]

Nice layout with the wood grain.
Yeah, magnetic mat'l can be very difficult to get a hole thru- that's why I suggested (steel) tubing, but that will only work if you use CS type pickups, with steel pole pieces replaced with tubing, and you'd still have to drill thru the ceramic magnet across the bottom. That could be done with a diamond bit, tho.
Also, would it be better to have the fibers between the strings, instead of under them? If so, then you could drill thru the bobbin (mentioned before) (between the magnets and inside the coils) eliminating trying to drill thru the hard stuff.

 

[line6man]

I still suggest a humbucker with screw-on pole pieces. You can avoid the hassle of drilling, and all you have to do is get the fiber epoxied in place.