slowburnaz
Commercial User
Up to a certain point, yeah. Gotta watch out with the neos, though… you can easily get into a situation where the pull is enough to dampen the string vibration.
How shallow are you shooting for?
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Magnets & Copper Wire: A Pickup Building Thread
- Thread starter Freekmagnet
- Start date
Up to a certain point, yeah. Gotta watch out with the neos, though… you can easily get into a situation where the pull is enough to dampen the string vibration.
How shallow are you shooting for?
Honestly, not sure. Just bouncing ideas around.
I thought about mounting a pup from the rear. In that case, it wouldn't matter much because all the wood is removed.
Mounting from the top, a shallower pup could use a shallower rout, leaving more material and strength.
No real game plan, just chewing ideas.
slowburnaz
Commercial User
Gotcha. Well, I think a couple examples of really shallow pickups are things like gold foils and even some Thunderbird pickups (heck, I think Curtis Novak makes some surface mount TB pickups). IIRC, the TB pickups use ceramic mags, so it’s definitely doable.
@RichterScale here's what Slowburnaz is talking about. Interesting at least. bass and guitar version
slowburnaz
Commercial User
Here's another way to do thin pickups, I have a couple of their 4 string pickups and they sound great.
MGB Mini Box Bucker Pickup 8.0 | 6 String
MGB Mini Box Bucker Pickup 8.0 | 6 String
slowburnaz
Commercial User
slowburnaz
Commercial User
Yeah. According to Novak, it’s a replica of an old Kay Pancake pickup, although it looks kinda Thunderbird-ish.
ah. You said "TB" and meant thunderbird, whilst posting on "TB" (Talkbass).
Yay for acronyms.
slowburnaz
Commercial User
Not gonna lie, I had to scroll up and re-read to figure out what the heck was going on.
I got a question or 2 about some beginner, 101 stuff. Specifically about polarity, coil wrap direction, etc on a double coil pup. I guess a MM stingray pup would be the best sample for me.
1st, to make it as simple for my brain as possible, would this model work in theory?
As far as the coils go, can the coils be wrapped the exact same way, or would you need to wind them in opposite directions? And what do people mean by "opposite" when describing the coils? Are they literally wound in different directions, or is it a matter of choosing between the beginning or the end of the wind as the positive or negative? That part has always been a little confusing to me.
1st, to make it as simple for my brain as possible, would this model work in theory?
As far as the coils go, can the coils be wrapped the exact same way, or would you need to wind them in opposite directions? And what do people mean by "opposite" when describing the coils? Are they literally wound in different directions, or is it a matter of choosing between the beginning or the end of the wind as the positive or negative? That part has always been a little confusing to me.
I've been a little curious too whether, if one starts with a totally symmetrical bobbin and steel poles, one could wind two coils exactly the same way, and make a humbucker by flipping one of them over before attaching magnets.
Yes, flip it over, wind it the other way, reverse the leads... as long as you get electrons moving the opposite way with the magnetic polarity reversed you will get a RWRP pickup.
Whoa, hold yer horses. I have no idea how any of that applies or what it does.
So, for the coils: you wouldn't be able to flip the bobbin because the eyelets for terminating the wire would get flipped too, correct? Unless you could install them after winding. So, I guess that's not the bigger question for me. Scratch that. Could you simply wind them the same and then wire the ends opposite on each and that's enough?
Also, is this only necessary if you have 2 coils with the same polarity (ie; both with N pointing up?), or is it necessary to reverse both the direction of current AND the polarity of each coil?
Sorry, gotta go in baby steps with this chapter of pickups, for me
You can wind the coils the same way but you have to flip the polarity on one to cancel hum, because of that you have to flip the magnet polarity to get the signal you want back in phase.Whoa, hold yer horses. I have no idea how any of that applies or what it does.
So, for the coils: you wouldn't be able to flip the bobbin because the eyelets for terminating the wire would get flipped too, correct? Unless you could install them after winding. So, I guess that's not the bigger question for me. Scratch that. Could you simply wind them the same and then wire the ends opposite on each and that's enough?
Also, is this only necessary if you have 2 coils with the same polarity (ie; both with N pointing up?), or is it necessary to reverse both the direction of current AND the polarity of each coil?
Sorry, gotta go in baby steps with this chapter of pickups, for me
Okay, so one coil is north and one is south.
and you also need to reverse the direction of the current in the coil on one.
Can this be done by using the 1st lead (beginning of the coil wire) as positive and the 2nd lead (end of the coil wire) as negative and then simply reversing it on the other coil?
ANd I guess the next question is: does it matter which end of the coil is designated as pos or neg on either coil, or does it only matter that they are opposite each other?
Whoa, hold yer horses. I have no idea how any of that applies or what it does.
So, for the coils: you wouldn't be able to flip the bobbin because the eyelets for terminating the wire would get flipped too, correct? Unless you could install them after winding. So, I guess that's not the bigger question for me. Scratch that. Could you simply wind them the same and then wire the ends opposite on each and that's enough?
Also, is this only necessary if you have 2 coils with the same polarity (ie; both with N pointing up?), or is it necessary to reverse both the direction of current AND the polarity of each coil?
Sorry, gotta go in baby steps with this chapter of pickups, for me
Sorry, will slow down a bit. To answer your specific questions: yes, you can flip the coil over but, as you point out, you also need to keep track of which eyelet is start and which is finish, which would also be reversed if you flipped it upside down. Usually you can see that by inspection if you forget to mark it. Bottom line: you need to know which wire is which, but they don't need to be on any particular eyelets as long as you eventually hook up the coils correctly.
If you don't reverse the magnetic polarity (the "P" in Reverse Wound Reverse Polarity) then reversing the coil direction will just cause two out of phase single coils mounted beside each other. Basically no sound. It's the combination of reversing the magnetic polarity AND the winding of one of the coils that gives you twice the signal with none of the noise -- thus a humbucker.
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Awesome, thanks.
I don't want to get too far ahead because I won't retain the info. And looking it up all over the internet makes my brain hurt.
So I want to start with the very basics. I'm nowhere near building my own pups (no way to wind the coils), but I can do some basic experiments now, with junk I have laying around.
Again, not to get too far ahead, but I'm trying to visualize a 6 string pup design. Nothing crazy, just some slightly off dimensions.
I s'pose I could build it and send someone the bobbins to wind for me, if I get that far and can't wind. But for now I mostly want to make sure I understand the basics correctly.
I don't want to get too far ahead because I won't retain the info. And looking it up all over the internet makes my brain hurt.
So I want to start with the very basics. I'm nowhere near building my own pups (no way to wind the coils), but I can do some basic experiments now, with junk I have laying around.
Again, not to get too far ahead, but I'm trying to visualize a 6 string pup design. Nothing crazy, just some slightly off dimensions.
I s'pose I could build it and send someone the bobbins to wind for me, if I get that far and can't wind. But for now I mostly want to make sure I understand the basics correctly.
