Magnets & Copper Wire: A Pickup Building Thread

[slowburnaz]

Those are very clean and well thought out!

How do you terminate the black and red lead wires? Are they soldered into through holes on the PCBs? Any strain relief or anything?

Yeah, just soldered into through holes. I've been contemplating if I need strain relief, and how I could neatly achieve that.

I suppose I could solder some screw terminals to the PCB, and connect the leads to those instead.

 

[dwizum]

What about putting "spare" holes without traces next to your through holes, thread the wire through those holes and bend it over into the current holes? Then it doesn't involve any extra hardware.

 

[slowburnaz]

What about putting "spare" holes without traces next to your through holes, thread the wire through those holes and bend it over into the current holes? Then it doesn't involve any extra hardware.

That could certainly work.

I might even be able to just put a nice glob of hot glue on the underside of the brass baseplate and run the leads through that, making there's a little slack on the PCB side

 

[dwizum]

You guys have so many clean and well thought out details in your designs, it's very inspiring. Having mostly made guitar pickups in "standard" designs prior to this, I didn't have a good appreciation for the level of thought that needs to go in to the actual engineering, from an assembly and build process perspective. I took it for granted that when I'm building a PAF style guitar humbucker, the details are thought out for me ahead of time. I can slap together a PAF style pickup and tweak wire, turn count, magnets, etc to get whatever I want, without having to put effort into making it all come together. When I made the bass humbuckers I posted a few pages ago, I sort of just had a vague idea in my head and then worked on making them. They turned out great, but I'm trying to be more deliberate about the design and process this time around, instead of just focusing on having a working pickup as the final result. Honestly, I think "make a good sounding pickup" is actually the easy part, the hard part is "design a pickup making process that is reliable, repeatable, not fussy, and not overcomplicated."

So while I'm waiting on more parts to arrive, I'm drawing this new design out on paper and working on a few simple jigs so I can hit the ground running and I won't have to try to hold all the details in my brain. It's going to be a blade P-style humbucker. I've never really enjoyed P style pickups the way most bass players seem to, so I figure the best way to fall in love with them is to take some small creative liberties and build my own version. This will go in a wood BC soapbar shell the same as for the humbuckers I made, mostly out of simplicity since I've got the process down for building those shells already.

 

[Freekmagnet]

Having mostly made guitar pickups in "standard" designs prior to this, I didn't have a good appreciation for the level of thought that needs to go in to the actual engineering, from an assembly and build process perspective. I took it for granted that when I'm building a PAF style guitar humbucker, the details are thought out for me ahead of time. I can slap together a PAF style pickup and tweak wire, turn count, magnets, etc to get whatever I want, without having to put effort into making it all come together. When I made the bass humbuckers I posted a few pages ago, I sort of just had a vague idea in my head and then worked on making them. They turned out great, but I'm trying to be more deliberate about the design and process this time around, instead of just focusing on having a working pickup as the final result. Honestly, I think "make a good sounding pickup" is actually the easy part, the hard part is "design a pickup making process that is reliable, repeatable, not fussy, and not overcomplicated."

Welcome. You are now a member of The Resistance. (Yes, that’s a pickup-maker’s joke. I’ll refrain from calling this your new ohm away from ohm.)

You get better at doing that as you go. I’ve gotten so that I recycle similar parts and structures to make different designs. It makes the whole process faster. In fact, while you guys were posting back and forth, I designed parts for that sidewinder pickup I found and sent them off to the fabricator. Since I actually have some space to spare on this pickup, I’m going to take a cue from @slowburnaz and use PCB’s for my flatwork. And, I found a laser cutter in Utah that actually cuts nickel silver at a pretty OK price.

 

[Jon Clegg]

Welcome. You are now a member of the Resistance. (Yes, that’s a pickup-maker’s joke. I’ll refrain from calling this your new ohm away from ohm.)

Consider this your official inductance.

 

[Freekmagnet]

Consider this your official inductance.

 

[slowburnaz]

Welcome. You are now a member of the Resistance. (Yes, that’s a pickup-maker’s joke. I’ll refrain from calling this your new ohm away from ohm.)

Oh wow... lol.


What do you use the nickel silver for? You've made covers from that before, IIRC?

Also, is your laser cutter service Oshcut by any chance? I've used them, and they're pretty good.

 

[Freekmagnet]

Oh wow... lol.


What do you use the nickel silver for? You've made covers from that before, IIRC?

Also, is your laser cutter service Oshcut by any chance?

I know - feel like I should change the name of the thread to “The Resistance”. It’s a much better name.

I will use the nickel silver for the decorative EMF shield. I’ve used aluminum in past builds, which in those cases was fine. I wasn’t sure if aluminum would work the wanted on this pickup, so I wanted nickel silver.

Yes, it is OshCut. I was going to Ponoko before, but a) their turnaround is lagging and b) they don’t offer as many metals.

 

[dwizum]

You guys have definitely served to amplify my passion!

And I'm happy that we all have a high capacitance for humor.

Drawing on paper is fine for my own parts, but some day I need to deal with the fact that the only PC I have at home is a chromebook, which makes nifty things like drawing components for a third party to cut for me really challenging. I can do PCBs just fine but there aren't a lot of good options for general CAD.

I was trying to think up a catchy name for a P pickup. I even looked up Precision in the thesaurus... No luck so far.

 

[slowburnaz]

I know - feel like I should change the name of the thread to “The Resistance”. It’s a much better name.

I will use the nickel silver for the decorative EMF shield. I’ve used aluminum in past builds, which in those cases was fine. I wasn’t sure if aluminum would work the wanted on this pickup, so I wanted nickel silver.

Yes, it is OshCut. I was going to Ponoko before, but a) their turnaround is lagging and b) they don’t offer as many metals.

Right on. You might even wanna check out a place called SendCutSend... for some things, they've been a little cheaper. (EDIT: Meh... looks like they don't have nickel silver)


Also, I need to learn how to form nickel silver like you've done. Looks awesome, and it's certainly a cool skill to have in the arsenal.

 

[Freekmagnet]

Also, I need to learn how to form nickel silver like you've done. Looks awesome, and it's certainly a cool skill to have in the arsenal.

Because shaping metal used to be my day job, it's easy for me to say that working nickel silver is not that as hard as you'd think. But it is easy to cut, easy to shape, easy to finish and you can solder it with a soldering iron. Basically, you just get a form, bend the outside to shape, solder the cap on, trim the edges, sand and buff. It's time consuming, but it can be done if you're looking to do something special.

I'm gone the direction of putting just a cap on my cast pickups. It has it's own look that's really cool and it's a lot less work.

 

[slowburnaz]

Because shaping metal used to be my day job, it's easy for me to say that working nickel silver is not that as hard as you'd think. But it is easy to cut, easy to shape, easy to finish and you can solder it with a soldering iron. Basically, you just get a form, bend the outside to shape, solder the cap on, trim the edges, sand and buff. It's time consuming, but it can be done if you're looking to do something special.

I'm gone the direction of putting just a cap on my cast pickups. It has it's own look that's really cool and it's a lot less work.

View attachment 4145072

I dig the look of those. I could imagine even putting some sort of screen material under the cap, too.

Are you grounding those caps via the mounting screws?

 

[Freekmagnet]

I dig the look of those. I could imagine even putting some sort of screen material under the cap, too.

Are you grounding those caps via the mounting screws?

Thx! Yeah, there’s a lot of options with this kind of look. Air bubbles are a big issue when casting - they really like to gather in that little slot on the faceplate.

These aluminum plates are grounded with wire soldered to a piece of copper foil tape. The screws are not part of the circuit. The nickel silver plates will have an added bonus - I can solder the wire directly to them.

 

[slowburnaz]

That could certainly work.

I might even be able to just put a nice glob of hot glue on the underside of the brass baseplate and run the leads through that, making there's a little slack on the PCB side

So this is what I'm going with for now... just another hole in the baseplate, stuffed with a little rubber grommet. Seems to work great!

 

[Beej]

And looks really clean too

 

[wraub]

My recently acquired vintage P Bass pickups have the name of the pickups on top in a raised cursive script.
Visually distinctive up close, but from more than a foot or so away, soft black lumps.
They do sound good, though.

I keep tellin' ya: In the world of boutique pickups, visual appearance and marketing are the most important characteristics. Soft Black Lump brand pickups aren't going to sell, no matter how good they sound.

 

[Slidlow]

My recently acquired vintage P Bass pickups have the name of the pickups on top in a raised cursive script.
Visually distinctive up close, but from more than a foot or so away, soft black lumps.
They do sound good, though.

From a distance my P pickups look like black lumps too!

 

[wraub]

From a distance my P pickups look like black lumps too!View attachment 4148697

 

[Beej]

Velvet Hammer?

love it!