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Pickups Work?!


verhoevenc

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Hi, I have a problem. I have a set of strat pickups. Two with white and black cables, and one with yellow and black. When i wire up the black adn white ones to a jack and hold them over an acoustic they pickup just like a pickup should. However, with the yellow and black one it does not pick anything up. HOWEVER if I hit the strings with the magnets THAT creates a scratching sound... but no picking up string movement.

Any idea what's going on here? What to try?

Thanks,

Chris

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Measure the pickup resistance and verify if its correct. The coil could be slightly shorted.

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The one with the yellow and black wires is the middle pickup and is reverse wound and polarity. It could have a short in it, but holding a pickup over an acoustic isn't the most accurate way of testing it.

Does it pick up sound when tapping it with a screwdriver?

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While we're on the subject of this however... what ARE the differences between all three strat pickups? And most inportantly, what would you have to do to the neck and bridge ones in order to make them use-able as a middle pickup? (I bought these essentially to just throw in between two humbuckers in future builds).

Chris

Edit: to Mickguard below: I think polarity becomes the issue though. Like he said, the middle is reverse wound...

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While we're on the subject of this however... what ARE the differences between all three strat pickups? And most inportantly, what would you have to do to the neck and bridge ones in order to make them use-able as a middle pickup? (I bought these essentially to just throw in between two humbuckers in future builds).

Chris

I always thought they were mix and match, since you can fully adjust the height/distance from the strings on them.

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Everything below is assuming that you would like to combine two HB and one SC in the Super-strat way, giving bridge HB-in between strat style-middle SC- in between strat style-neck HB sounds with a 5-way switch.

If they come from a set they are most likely two “normal” pickups and one Reverse Wound Reverse Polarity (RWRP). Then the *different” pickup (the one with one yellow cable in your case) is the RWRP. That pickup is both MAGNETICALLY and ELECTRICAL out of phase with the other two. Now magnetic polarity is hard to change, but the electrical polarity is as easy as use the black instead of the yellow as hot.

“HOLD ON A SEC NOW! The middle pickup is REVERSE WOUND. You cannot just flip the cables around and call it a non-reverse wound pickup.”

Well, actually you can. The direction of the winding have nothing to do with it. The main thing is which end is ground and which is hot. Or as Jason Lolar called it “the path to ground”. If you wind a pickup set and ground the start lead on two of them and ground the end lead on the third that one is actually going to be “reverse wound” even thou it is wound in the same direction.

Ok so electrically you will have no problem with combining your SC with a HB. But magnetically? Well if you have 4-wire HBs you will not have any problem. One coil in the HB is always south and one is north. You *only* have to find the right leads to the magnetic “partner” of the SC (use a cheep compass to determine magnetic polarity), match a north SC with the south coil of the HB or vice verse and combine them. Sound is crappy? Probably electrically out of phase. Flip the two wires from the SC and try again.

Only two wires from the HB? You will probably be fine anyway. A HB and a SC will most of the time sound nice combined. Just run the hot wires in parallel (you can also try series) through the switch and listen if you like the sound. Try screwing the pickups on a piece of scrap at the positions you are thinking of and hold it against a (electric) guitar and listen for the sound.

Oh, and your pickup. Most likely a short in the coil. Try a cheap meter like sumphead says.

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Actually, the idea I'm playing with is a very ala PRS Swamp ash style thing. Where you throw a switch and it taps both humbuckers and turns on the middle single coil. Thus you can have the normal LP style humbucker choices, or you can have the two strat "hmbucking" 2 and 4 positions, as well as all 3 single coils... or maybe I'll just put it on an on/off switch so you can just add it in whenever you feel like it....

Chris

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