hessodreamy Posted December 7, 2004 Report Share Posted December 7, 2004 I know this has been brught up many times, cos I've read all the posts and still could do with a little guidance. I've got some single coils I like the sound of, but for the sake of versatility and for just fannying about, wanted to incorporated them into a humbucker. I'm OK with the electronics side. They're in series and out of phase. There was a good post about using a voltmeter to check the phase of the pickup. I've got a few questions though. 1- I'm not sure if I need to be concerned with the magnets themselves. Someone suggested popping them through the pickup and turning the thing upside down. Is this necessary? 2- Does it matter which way round I place the pickups themselves? Or just feed the finish of coil 1 to the finish of coil 2? ie is there one end of the pickup which is the 'start' and one end which is the 'finish'? 3- If one of the pickups is reverse wound do I then need to put it in phase with the other? If a reverse-wound pickup is out of phase does it then become in-phase? Ok maybe i'm not ok with the elctronics side. oooh i'm so confused!! Any help, guys??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jehle Posted December 7, 2004 Report Share Posted December 7, 2004 To turn two single coils into a humbucker, you need to consider this: The 1st coil will be wound one direction with North pole magnets. the 2nd coil will be wound in the opposite direction with South pole magnets. You will need to reverse the magnets on one of the pickups to turn them into a humbucker. Flip the magnets in one of the pickups, and then wire that pickup out-of-phase. When you flip the magnets it inverts the signal, so you have to wire it backwards to invert the signal again. Oh, and I just wrote a tutorial on using a voltmeter to check the pickup phase. I just emailed it to Brian so it may take a bit to appear on the main site. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hessodreamy Posted December 8, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 8, 2004 (edited) OK OK OK. I've measured my pickups voltage output. Some of them give a positive from cold to hot, and some give negative output. The negative ones would be the reverse-wound middle pickup, right? So if I use these reverse-wound pickups (as 1 of the coils, the other being normal wound) do I still have to flip the magnets? Is it a question of popping the pole-pieces through and turning it upside down? And does it matter which way round I put the pickup itself? Im thinking it doesn't. Edited December 8, 2004 by hessodreamy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jehle Posted December 8, 2004 Report Share Posted December 8, 2004 I've measured my pickups voltage output. Some of them give a positive from cold to hot, and some give negative output. The negative ones would be the reverse-wound middle pickup, right? So if I use these reverse-wound pickups do I still have to flip the magnets? Is it a question of popping the pole-pieces through and turning it upside down? And does it matter which way round I put the pickup itself? Im thinking it doesn't. I would put the tops of the two pickups together and see if they attract or repel first. If they attract, you wont have to flip the magnets because they already are. If they repel, you will need to flip the magnets in one of them. Get that sorted and then move to the next step. Ignore the color of the wires. You need to find which direction makes them both have a positive output when you test them. Once you have that, put a little tape around the identified hot lead for each pickup (this will make it easier to spot them later). Now to make a series bucker from them, just connect one hot wire to the others ground wire. That will leave you one hot wire and one ground wire left. Hook those babies up and get ready to rumble. <edit> No, it doesn't matter how they are situated. I presume that each single coil has an ear where the wires come out. You can just smack the two pickups together with ears on the outside and it'll work just fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hessodreamy Posted December 8, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 8, 2004 Thanks that makes it loads clearer. Check the magnets and get them in line. Test the direction of the coils. Then wire them up. Got it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jehle Posted December 8, 2004 Report Share Posted December 8, 2004 I want to hear this puppy when you get it fixed up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hessodreamy Posted December 8, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 8, 2004 (edited) Sure thing. I'll crank it up good for ya! Just to be clear - it's the magnet at the bottom of the pickup that I have to flip, right? Someone suggested pushing the pole pieces through, and turning the pickup upside-down, but that doesn't seem to affect the attract/repel relationship with another pickup. Or do I do both??? Just confused at the prospect of flipping the magent itself (rather than the pole peices) as a normal humbucker only has the 1 magnet. Edited December 9, 2004 by hessodreamy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jehle Posted December 9, 2004 Report Share Posted December 9, 2004 Hmmm... If you have a bar magnet at the bottom on the pickup then the pole pieces are probably just metal to focus the magnetic field. Flipping them wont make any difference. I assumed that, like most other single coil pickups, the poles were the magnets and that you didn't have a magnet slapped on the bottom. I would think you could just flip that bar magnet over and glue it back on there (because it's probably just glued on there now). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle Cavanaugh Posted December 12, 2004 Report Share Posted December 12, 2004 (edited) What are you going to use for a baseplate? I'd think it'd be pretty cool to use steel so it acts like a magnetic reflector like on the tele bridge pup! I assembled a bucker from two cheap ceramic single coils and a brass baseplate some time ago and put it in the neck position. Even in parallel, it was signifigantly louder than the bridge pup which was a normal bucker even though I had adjusted the height properly. The bar magnets were actually in the coil with slugs directly above it and they rated 8K a piece and were wound as much as possible (43 AWG?), so that might explain it. It did sound pretty decent, but probably would've worked better as a bridge pup. I did switch back to the stock pup. Edited December 12, 2004 by Kyle Cavanaugh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hessodreamy Posted December 16, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 16, 2004 hmmm... Done it now and am pleased to report... it just sounds like a cheap pickup. Maybe I had to high hopes for those coils. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jehle Posted December 16, 2004 Report Share Posted December 16, 2004 Well, at least you got it to work! I've always wondered about doing this same project, just to see what it would sound like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovekraft Posted December 16, 2004 Report Share Posted December 16, 2004 ...it just sounds like a cheap pickup... Which is why we pay Larry, Seymour and the rest of those guys all that cash! Seriously, now all you have to do is figure out what kind of coil sounds good both alone and as half of a humbucker - you're halfway home, don't quit now! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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