Single Coil Polarity

[TeiscosRock]

Is it possible to change the polarity of a single coil pickup, so that when it is pair with another single coil (with the original, now opposite polarity) to make some type of noise-cancelling combo?

[frank falbo]

Only if the coil isn't directly wound around the magnets. If there's a bobbin that encases the magnets (pole pieces) then you can just rotate each one carefully and you'll have a reverse polarity. If it was already hooked up in phase then you'll need to reverse the + and - wires too.

If it has a bar magnet across the bottom of it, and the poles aren't magnetized, you could break that free and rotate that too.

If the coil is wound around the magnets directly you will never succeed. The only way then would be to re-magnetize the poles, if you can find someone who can do that.

[JohnH]

[i thought of this recently. I am upgrading a solid but boring old Hondo Strat to kick-ass series/parallel phased wiring. The original had a 3-way switch which could select only each single coil, but no combinations. Hence I did not expect any attention had been paid to pickup polarity.

Im sure someone has done this and can advise definatively. I opened up the pups and it looked like if I turned the (ceramic) magnets upside down, and then used the coil wires in reverse (no need to actually amend the coil), I wouild end up with reverse phase, reverse polarity, which is what you want. So it would depend on the extent to which you can take your pups to pieces without wrecking them.

I didnt do it, tapping tests and probes with another magnet coninced me that my bridge pup was in fact RWRP, for no good reason relative to the original design. In fact, by balancing the switch, you could get the usual Strat 2 and 4 BM and MN combos, but they hummed like mad. So I swapped the bridge and middle pups and all was OK.

John

[TeiscosRock]

I'm just looking for things to do to this old MIJ i got.. its just sortof sitting there, waiting for me to turn it into something beautiful, but so far its still looking suspiciously like the bride-of-freaking-frankenstein. I was thinking "hmm.. ghetto-ass humbucker, anyone?"

[edit]

Okay, got a picture of the innards of this thing... and might I say it IS rather ghetto.

Sorry about the fuzziness.

Yeah.. those two black things are the magnets... look like a couple of fridge magnets...

They aren't even centered right.

Edited September 18, 2005 by TeiscosRock