Singlecoils Wired As Humbucker

[Akula]

Ok, so I have a whole load of cheap strat-style singlecoil pickups lying around. I was wondering if I could wire these up in pairs, to act as humbuckers?

[Keegan]

Yes, if some are RWRP. You can take two pretty closely matched coils, one RWRP, one normal, wire them in series(hot of one coil to the ground of the other, then the remaining hot and ground to the controls), and you have a humbucker. The tone out of it probably isn't going to be as good as a real humbucker, and it won't mount in a humbucker route, but it'll be more powerful and will buck hum(maybe, if they're spec'd close enough). Try to use lower output coils too, otherwise it'll be excessively muddy.

[Akula]

Alright, cool cool, thanks... So, how could I test if they're reverse wound? For polarity, im guessing a simple test to see whether the pickups repel or attract each other would work?

[j. pierce]

If the magnetic polarity is opposite (up is north on one pickup, south is up on the other) you can simply wire them as a humbucker, and if you get a thin out of phase sound, simply reverse the leads of one half. That would make your "start" of the wind go to the inside of the coil instead of the outside (or vice versa) essentially creating a reverse wind for our purposes.

Also, if you have the kind of single coils with a magnet at the bottom and steel slugs rather than individual slugs that are magnets, you can simply remove and flip the magnet to reverse the magnetic polarity.

[Akula]

Also, if you have the kind of single coils with a magnet at the bottom and steel slugs rather than individual slugs that are magnets, you can simply remove and flip the magnet to reverse the magnetic polarity.

Thats exactly what I have. Thanks!

[StormLeader]

I'm wondering, do the PU's have to be right next to each other? Or could you mount them like a Strat's and still get the Humbucking effect?

-Stormy

[Keegan]

I don't think so, well, at least not as well as right up next to each other. From what I understand it happens because of the way the magnetic fields interact, and the field would be way weaker that far away.

That's not to say it isn't still useful, because of the extra output. The most common switching mod for a Tele is to put the bridge and neck in series in the 4th position of a 4-way switch.

[SwedishLuthier]

I'm wondering, do the PU's have to be right next to each other? Or could you mount them like a Strat's and still get the Humbucking effect?

-Stormy

They will be humcancelling regardless of distance. Read up on how HB work.

[StormLeader]

Not to be rude, but maybe you need to go read up on how they work.

I did quite a bit of googling, and like Keegan said, it cancels to hum due to the two magentic fields.

Which brings me to the conclusion that it probaley wound't cancel very much hum, as the pickups on a Strat are what, 2-3" apart?

Like I said, I'm not trying to be rude, just pointing something out.

-Stormy

[Prostheta]

If you induce a signal into two individual pickup coils, combining the signals with reversed polarities cancel out that added signal. If X was the hum, and the signal induced in the pickups by the strings were P1 and P2 then you could say you have:

S1 = P1 + X

S2 = P2 + X

So, by combining these signals by reversing it's polarity (S1 for arguments sake):

-S1x + S2 = P2 - P1

So you can see how you are making X (induced hum) a redundant factor.

Pickup signals are complex and vary hugely depending on where the pickup is along the vibrating string length and hum is a consistent low frequency. The induced string sound doesn't cancel itself out (well, it cancels and reinforces itself at the same time at various frequencies) whereas the hum does. That is if the pickups have the hum induced at similar levels. Either way, the hum will be reduced massively as it'll pretty much be within less than a 100th of a degree of phase seeing as 60Hz hum has a wavelength of 5000km or whatever.

This probably doesn't make much sense, so i'll go now. Bye.

[SwedishLuthier]

Not to be rude, but maybe you need to go read up on how they work.

I did quite a bit of googling, and like Keegan said, it cancels to hum due to the two magentic fields.

Which brings me to the conclusion that it probaley wound't cancel very much hum, as the pickups on a Strat are what, 2-3" apart?

Like I said, I'm not trying to be rude, just pointing something out.

-Stormy

Sorry man, but that goes in your direction. You need to read once again. And that is also not to be rude. Being rude is not my nature...

Hum cancelling have nothing to do with the actual *distance* between the two coils (as asked by yourself earlier in this thread). The hum is induced into every coil on the guitar. Regardless of position. There will be slight differences in the induced current between the different coils but to the human ear the difference will not be noticeable. If you have two coils with one being reversed magnetic field *and* reversed electrical polarity (RWRP) the musical signal (string vibration being picked up) from that coil will be in phase with a standard coil as the signal from the RWRP coil are phase shifted twice ( - - = + from the old math book). The musical signal is thus added when the coils are combined (whether in series or in parallel). However the hum will not be phase shifted by the reversed magnetic field as the hum gets induced into a coil totally without magnets! (look up “dummy coil”) What happens now is that we have hum from one coil that is "normal" and hum from a coil that is phase shifted. As these signals (the hum) are out of phase with each other they get cancelled ( + - - = 0 from that same old math book). So there is no interaction at all between the two magnetic fields of a humbucker. It is a pure electrical phenomenon that cancels the hum. Period. It has nothing to do with the magnets. So you see that separating the coils with a bit of distance ala the pickups of a strat makes no difference.

Using a RWRP (reversed wind reversed polarity) in the middle position in a strat is standard procedure and eliminates hum in position 2 and 4 on the pickup selector.

The Suhr system have a dummy coil on the *back* of the guitar body and that also cancel the hum.

I know a thing or two about pickups as I have been winding them for the last five years...

[Prostheta]

You say it so much better than I can Peter - tack! :-D

[ToneMonkey]

I've done this on my Cigar Box Guitar http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/inde...p?topic=13066.0 <--- about half way down the page.

I checked a diagram of a HB and wired it to that, after a few minutes of headscratching it was fairly staright forward. Duct taped them together and slung them in. Actually sounds quite good

[StormLeader]

Ah, Ok!

It makes alot of sense the way you explain it.

Thanks for the correction.

-Stormy

[Keegan]

Interesting. Thanks for the teaching =P

[dugg]

The swede is right, the kind of hum that's being cancelled travels at the speed of light. It hit's both coils at virtually the same time, even if they're a good distance away.

On the threads topic, I've done quite a bit of 'wiring two SC's together as a humbucker' lately, and I'm pretty stoked about it. It just plain sounds great. On my Coyote Dancer strat, I moved the middle coil down next to the bridge so that both are side by side.

http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images0...3d5c658de15.jpg

The sound of two SC's together by the bridge is much fuller than one SC, without losing any of the pick sensitivity and 'chime' of the SC. Like the best of both worlds. There is at least one commercial axe, the Jon Jorgenson model Tele with a setup like mine;

And, Rio Grande makes those Twangbuckers, but they're way expensive and might not sound as good as two low impedence stock strat coils.

Also, SD makes the Stagmag, a HBer with magnetic polepieces. To my ear, it sounds almost as good as my two strat coils next to each other. Almost.

Here's my friend playing Red House on my Coyote Dancer with the 'slantbucker' (coils in series)

In fact, I like two single coils down by the bridge so much, I built this axe (the body) for the friend who's playing Red House; http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images0...fea65b9af9a.jpg

Those are a GFS fatbody Tele and an Alnico 5, 5.35k Strat coil wired to a 4 way. The tone control has a 3 way switch that chooses one, the other, or both caps in the circuit.