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EB3 Pickups

J

Jhtjon

May 1, 2010
118
3
#1
I am really confused. I was measuring the pickups on my new/used EB3 and found that the Bridge was only 6.98K and the neck was 1.34K. Could this be correct? I checked a few resistors on hand to verify my meter and it is working correctly. I additionally checked my '57 P and found that it reads 10.4K, about what I expected. FYI the readings were taken on the PUP's not through the tone circuit.

Output wise the two basses are similar.
 
#2
Jhtjon said:
I am really confused. I was measuring the pickups on my new/used EB3 and found that the Bridge was only 6.98K and the neck was 1.34K. Could this be correct? I checked a few resistors on hand to verify my meter and it is working correctly. I additionally checked my '57 P and found that it reads 10.4K, about what I expected. FYI the readings were taken on the PUP's not through the tone circuit.

Output wise the two basses are similar.
Click to expand...

DC resistance has little to do with output.

I'm assuming that's an Epiphone EB-3? On a vintage Gibson EB-3 the neck pickup reads about 20K because it's wound with a lot of wire to give it a very dark tone. On the Epi version they would the same pickup with heavier gauge wire. The thinner the wire is, the higher the resistance per foot, so the Epi pickup reads 1.34K. I'm not sure why they wound it that way, but they seem to have wanted a brighter tone from it or something.

The Gibson SG bass also has an incorrect pickup that actually has fake pole pieces!

The P bass pickup is wound with 10,000 turns of 42 gauge wire on each coil which is why it reads around 11K.
 
#3
FYI I rewired my EB according to the series 1 schematics available. The difference is nothing short of amazing. much clearer and a slight bump in level. A worth while change.

BTW I did not include the Bass filter circuit.
 
#4
Jhtjon said:
I am really confused. I was measuring the pickups on my new/used EB3 and found that the Bridge was only 6.98K and the neck was 1.34K
Click to expand...


Your DMM needs to be set on the next scale higher than 20K to measure the neck pickup (if all is normal) since it should be around 30K. If you click it up a notch you might get a different reading.
 

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