My Sustainer Build/guitar Rework Thread

[conor1148]

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Edited November 25, 2019 by conor1148

[conor1148]

the guitar

here it is covered with tape, so i can mark my ideas for pots and switches and such

here is the construction of my bobbin

just a regular single coil bobbin, a plastic spacer thing made (horribly) from hobby styrene then hot glued.

..now that i think about it, lets NOT tell my old model car building buddies how bad i butchered that spacer thing

[psw]

Hey Conner...looks like a winner project and you seem to have the arts and crafty side of things down that many come unstuck on for making a driver.

Quicte a few have been made with this kind of construction and it has shown to be the best chance for success. Here is one made by Banika, the developer of DIY Layout Creator that might give you some inspirations...

http://diy-fever.com/misc/diy-sustainer/

You may be familiar with him from the Aron's DIY stompbox forums.

So, I've found that 3mm space to wind the bobbin is plenty of room to wind to the 8ohm resistance you are shooting for.

The magnets in the old pickup will be perfect so you have all you need for the bobbin and the magnets to make something that looks professional.

copy the process in this tutorial...pictoral of sustainer driver winding...and you could have the job finished in half an hour.

The key is to be prepared...You do need to pot the thing well, I used PVA or white wood glue as this is water based, safe, easy to clean, and reversible (should you want to strip it off and wind a new one on the same bobbin and magnets. I'd avoid superglue and other suggestions. Although it does not set solid like epoxy, it has it's advantages and will adequately dampen any internal vibration that might occur.

On your particular bobbin...I would be winding tape over the poles in the winding space...this will help stray wires not get pushed between the magnet poles, protect them more against corrosion, etc and keep the glue potting in the wires and not pushed into the centre of the structure.

I'd also block the bottom a bit more solidly...perhaps some cardboard spacers. The reason is that there is a lot of pressure in a well wound coil and this will deflect the spacing bobbin you have made if not secure...glue is typically not enough. See in the pictorial I had to use clamps and such to hole everything in place on that one due to thin bobbins and a lot of pressure. Again, I was prepared for it in advance and everything was cool.

Also, have the multimeter and wire stripping things handy, paper towels for the glue, have PVC tape all ready (I cut some in 3mm strips ready to bind the driver tight when finished winding). Get some Popsicle sticks or something ready to push in the sides which tend to bulge and perhaps something to clamp the sides in while it sets at the end.

For extra "bling" points...indicator LED's can be mounted between the magent poles should you desire...perhaps leave that for a future mod once successful.

The F/R can do with some mods. I've posted them a few times. I personally like the sound and had best balance on most guitars by using a 100uF output cap. Also, a 10uF in series between pins 1-8 of the LM386 helps stabilize potential oscillation in the circuit. I also have used a 10uF from 7 to ground instead of the small cap shown.

These are the main mods, if wanting an indicator LED you might want to add the resistor to power it onto the board as well.

I have not used the F/R...generally though I've seen circuits like this use a 10K pot for the "volume" and most would use this as the "intensity" control. The "gain" can simply be a 1K trimmer and adjusted to suit the guitar and overall effect desired. I trim my circuits to just below the squealing point' so that I have the widest dynamic range.

For the installation...I have shown 4pdt toggle switch wiring for multi pickup guitars. If there is only a bridge pickup, you only need to turn the power on with any switch. The harmonic switch is a dpdt phase switch to reverse the driver wires to the driver. This could be accomplished with a push pull pot or a basic toggle.

Your guitar seems ideal for space...fairly big and accessible for the battery and circuit and controls I'd say in there. Access to the battery is important, but that looks like it should be fine.

...

So, it looks like you are all set and definitely on the right track. Hopefully you will be able to demonstrate that with a little care and attention to detail it can work out well and be an inspiration to others.

This project can get you hooked, but getting something that works in a basic design can really help before going off on 'tangents' however valid. You will get to see why this works and maybe reach for something better. With stompbox experience you may improve circuitry, you may choose to do a more elaborate driver, may wish to do some kind of pickup and driver combo...one cool thing is that if you have a working driver, you could just replace the circuit say, or a working circuit, just the driver...so experiment in a modular fashion.

There is no "can't" but there are limitations to what can be done. Building something that works will certaibnly help as too often people start with their own ideas to find that they hit some of these walls or start blaming the instrument of the design rather than seeing why some things really don't work so well.

Looking forward to seeing your progress...looks like a winner!

[conor1148]

thanks! i will definitely get back to work on that bobbin, i think i have some resin stuff that i can use to seal off that bottom bit so the plastic doesnt move.

im a tad confused, you mentioned covering the pole pieces. should i just use some thin electrical tape?

the general setup of this guitar is going to be insane, i prepared my switch order today and i think it was 10 spdt, 4 dpdt, 2 3pdt, and 2 4dpt toggles. and i got it all under $20! i love having connections. obviously not all of those switches will be used in this, but a good many will!

Also, ive kinda been doodling out some ideas for a completely self contained system that would require no more space in a guitar than completely replacing the neck humbucker, and adding a space for a 9v in the control cavity. i think i may be onto something here..

[conor1148]

routed the single coil out today

[psw]

Oh no....the sustainer driver will not work in the middle like that...way too close to the source/bridge pickup...or are you just adding a middle pickup as on a strat?

It helps to know the complete project to give advice as middle position sustainers ahve been an ongoing and not achieved goal for quite a while...certainly it will not work with the simple design...but the last I tried was a single coil siz, dual coil and heavily magnetically shielded and all i could do to stop EMI...even did another bi-lateral design...but still not satisfactory.

I did also get enough of a tast to know that I was not that keen of the results that might come of it.

On a twin HB guitar, if might be best to adapt a HB or install an compact HB or SC next to your driver up in the neck position...

For switching on multi pickup guitars...I use a 4pdt but if you get to adventurous with the wiring of the standard guitar, it can be tricky. I have one that I will be getting back into...an HSS strat with lots of fancy wiring and the wafer coil driver pickup design...but I have put it aside because of the complexity of getting this kind of switching right.

With multiple pickup guitars, you tend to need to completely disconnect both ends of all pickups, switch in the bridge and turn on the circuit. The easiest way is to take out the whole selector. It is likely possible with a real super switch (4p5t) to have the sustainer on in one of the positions as a discrete option...then perhaps a push pull for the harmonic switch on one of the pots.

A lot of people also liked the idea of a set and forget internal trim pot arrangement...with the basic circuits this can be the best way to go perhaps...I certainly favoured it for quite a while.

...

Also, ive kinda been doodling out some ideas for a completely self contained system that would require no more space in a guitar than completely replacing the neck humbucker, and adding a space for a 9v in the control cavity. i think i may be onto something here..

I'm not sure where you are thinking with this, but an awlful lot of this kind of thing has been discussed and tried...for quite a while I hoped for a 'sustainer box' that sat behind the bridge with everything inside but the driver...so extremely low mod...and there were prototypes made.

Conceivably you can make the driver and circuit into an HB cavity. My tele has the circuit under the HB in the bridge and even fitted the battery and controls into a completely unmodified tele cavity...perhaps the smallest of any guitar....but it was tight.

You may be underestimating the amount of mods required...but for sure it is kind of a neat idea. I had plans drawn up for a driver so small as to fit into an HB pickup ring!!! These things do tend to stretch the DIY component of the project and the design stuff...plus once that far, you would need to be looking at something a little more sophisticated than a F/R. Still, this does tend to be the nature of the project.

I always advise to build things and test them before modifying any guitar though. Generally you want a working guitar, hook up the driver and circuit, hold the driver above the fretboard well away from all pickups...and be sure that it works...a good installation is important but only possible if the thing works anyway. Trouble shooting on a complete installation is a nightmare, especially if not done these things before...I still test mine before going too far...you can never be too sure.

But otherwise, as I said previously, the driver plans look very good...from those switches, you should be fine...my original with two toggles was the easiest to operate in many ways and with the basic circuit rarely if ever used the intensity control. My tele circuit is a little different so that control has a slightly different function and is invaluable...but with basic stuff, you can get by without it.

I may of course not quite got the jist of what you are attempting, so forget that if the SC in the middle is a pickup and not a driver...that pickup will still need to be dealt with in the installation...very much like a strat and I ahve a wiring diagram somewhere that can handle it!

[conor1148]

Idea now is to get it running as HSH. Then once the sustainer is done I'll put it in the neck position either with a plastic single coil cover to fill the extra space or just cover the whole cavity with one of those humbucker cover things that look like EMGs.

[psw]

Idea now is to get it running as HSH. Then once the sustainer is done I'll put it in the neck position either with a plastic single coil cover to fill the extra space or just cover the whole cavity with one of those humbucker cover things that look like EMGs.

Ok...excellent plan...

Having the guitar working, with an eye to the sustainer thing and able to test the thing on the working guitar helps a lot and the best way to proceed

Potentially you could fit the sustainer in the neck and another single coil or compact HB beside it like sustainiac advocate. If you were to make a single coil pickup driver, you could even put another single coil beside it potentially...plenty of options. Room to build HB style drivers like FF and Col use down the track as well...so all good!

Just remember with these extra pickups on the guitar you will need something like a 4pdt switch to take them out of circuit when the sustainer is on. You can test the device though holding the driver far away from the pickups generally...

[conor1148]

got it, i will be making the system with all of the pickups/driver having a quick disconnect system so i can test out many different combination much easier.

for the neck pickup and driver, i want to maybe try to stuff them both into something like this. i will also do that to the bridge pickup so everything looks a little more uniform and not like 5 different makes of pickups

as far as switches go, i placed my order today for 10 spdt, 4 dpdt, 2 3dpt, and 3 4dpt. i think im covered!

[conor1148]

check out the build log#1 on youtube, just kinda a quick demo of what's going on.

please ignore my asperger-influenced/slightly country talking.

[psw]

That looks good...but I'd like to see some testing and more pre-planning...there are quite a few assumptions and you are working a fair way ahead of things with some undisclosed stuff...a piezo as well, phase switches and such....

Reminds me of this...

psw's nightmare strat

You don't know the meaning of birds nest . Even with a plan and all the materials plus tested components...this guitar is still waiting to be finished up...

I think it is important to get the guitar into a playable condition and start testing things. With multiple pickup guitars and multi-powered systems like piezos, there can be a whole lot of problems and difficult to troubleshoot these things. There generally are a lot of compromises that need to be made with custom switching systems and may even be going into uncharted waters.

Generally I have taken the approach with multi-pickup guitars to switch out the entire selector hot and ground and all that are connected to it and then reconnect the bridge pickup when the sustainer and power is switched on. Some custom switching can interfere with the simplicity of things.

Anyway...before the guitar turns into a birds nest, introduce each system at a time, perhaps not even drilling or placing switches till you are sure that things work.

Don't even get to carried away with pickup covers. Generally you need the sustainer driver as close as possible to the strings...adding a cover does prevent this and sustainiac and fernandes can't do it. I have used SC's with covers, but the poles do stick through...it may well work ok with plastic covers...but a different plan may be required. For instance, two sc next to each other can look like an HB and mount in a similar way...you can cut of the dogg ears and mount them both on a plate and mount as per the original HB as a single unit.

Otherwise, nothing yet that can't work.

I'm looking forward to seeing the circuit built and the driver tested. You might want to test the system on a different guitar that's all wired up...just take a line from the HB and hold the driver above the strings up the neck.

Also, good idea to test the circuit with a small 8ohm speaker to ensure it is working as an amp and reasonably quiet and clean...with a driver of course you should hear nothing, so it is good to know the thing works!

[conor1148]

got it, im going to test everything seperate. first ill set it up like a "normal" guitar, then ill do both my piezo and sustainer seperately but at the same time. that way i can build upon each other's build and once i get frustrated with one side, move to the other. everything seperate.

about the circuit, i may be able to order my components soon for all my builds and 3 customer builds (feels so good to have customers! ) so i need to start coming to a close on my main design.

progress may become slow, because as of tonight im officially an Eagle Scout! so i gotta finish up my stuff for that.

[conor1148]

so i got my order in today for my switches! im really excited to get started!!

my order consists of i think..

-10 spdt

-4 dpdt

-2 3pdt

-2 on-on 4pdt

-1 on-off-on 4pdt

got it all for $17 i think ;D

[MikeD]

so i got my order in today for my switches! im really excited to get started!!

my order consists of i think..

-10 spdt

-4 dpdt

-2 3pdt

-2 on-on 4pdt

-1 on-off-on 4pdt

got it all for $17 i think ;D

Wow. Where did you get them?

This project is looking great so far. I'll be really interested to see how it turns out.

[conor1148]

so i got my order in today for my switches! im really excited to get started!!

my order consists of i think..

-10 spdt

-4 dpdt

-2 3pdt

-2 on-on 4pdt

-1 on-off-on 4pdt

got it all for $17 i think ;D

Wow. Where did you get them?

This project is looking great so far. I'll be really interested to see how it turns out.

a special hookup unfortunately :0 ill get some pictures of the switches up soon if i remember to. ive been too busy drawing up my final schematics and diagrams.

this is gonna get crazy pretty quick..

[conor1148]

alright, i got my wire, and im ready to rewire my guitar as a standard guitar.

does anyone have a wiring diagram for how to wire the sustainer in the circuit of a regular guitar? i understand you hookup the pickup outputs into the input of the amp, and the driver into the output of the amp. but where is the output of the whole guitar?

[psw]

ok...I'll see what I can find...there may be stuff in the tutorial on my guitars...check out my tele also for some compact wiring much as I do now...

Here's a bolck diagram of the original "sustainer strat"...with some extras I had in mind. This guitar was used for ages to try out all kinds of mods and wiring things plus the sustainer...

It's worth doing a more complete plan like this...but still, again...build and test the thing before getting to carried away with installation and such...

The harmonic switch is obvious...any phase switches on the bridge pickup can have the same effect, so on my tele there is a phase switch on the neck pickup, on the sustainer strat there were phase switches on all pickups...but all of this wiring was bypassed with the sustainer on/off switch below...

This is still pretty much the way I tend to wire things up on a guitar with more than one pickup...or simply completely disconnect the selector and all pickups with such a switch.

So...to the left the first two sets of poles work to "lift" the ground and hot of the middle and neck pickups and short them together with the wire bridge at in the top poles. The third set of poles disconnects the bridge hot from the selector (connected to the middle and lower poles) and connects it to the controls and the circuit...effectively the bridge pickup can be hard wired to the sustainer circuit, it will have no effect till it is powered up. The last set of poles simply connects the battery power. More recently I have tended to switch the ground of the battery (-) rather than the positive (+) as you can also use this spare pole as a ground lift.

There are quite a few variations that you can come up with, however the basic functions need to be attended to. Lift the pickups and pretty much all the selector and things out of the circuit...that means grounds and hots, not just deselecting the hots like a selector would. Connect the bridge pickup to the controls...it needs to be auto selected regardless of selector position...when turned off the guitar will return to whatever position the selector is in. The signal to the circuit needs to before any controls.

With a guitar with only a bridge pickup, which seems to be popular with sustainer people...col, FF, etc...all you need do is hard wire the circuit in, and all the switch needs to do is turn on the power...very easy.

Generally a 4pdt switch will work to turn the thing on and take out the pickups and stuff...but seriously weird wiring is going to take a bit of work...you need to lift the grounds and some guitars will have ground loops all over the place to the shielding and such. You don not want to lift the bridge ground or the shielding, but the pickup coils will need isolation...so often there will need to be troubleshooting required.

A plan like the one I drew up for the sustainer strat then is a must for just about any guitar and worth the effort in building it, and if modifying it later.

...

You may also want to think about ergonomics...you do not want to accidentally switch this on...on my tele the switch is protected back between the drive and sustain control knobs, the drive control has a push pull switch to activate the harmonics. On the sustainer strat I used two toggles below...

So, out of the way but easy to reach back and turn on or activate the harmonic switch. I tend to use a blue indicator light that is clear when off...lights are entirely optional...you do tend to know when the thing is on!

hope that makes sense and helps...pete

[conor1148]

what is that filter in the diagram where the pickup signal splits from the output jack and to the preamp?

[psw]

You know...I can't remember...a lot of stuff in this guitar wasn't tried completely....an awful lot was, the whole guitar was virtually hollowed out and there were a lot of various mods I tried in set up and such. The piezo thing was working in test mode but never built into it...eventually I wore the guitar out and had to get another testing guitar.

It may have been some kind of sustainer experiment by the look of it...but I really don't know, just realize it isn't in there.

I just found it as an example of a guitar with a few wiring twists...I actually had to compromise the original wiring to make it work...the mid pickup mix control had to come out as I recall...just not enough switching for the sustainer or something. Sometimes there has to be compromises, even with carefully laid plans...still better to have a plan...I even colour coded the wires as I recall.

The "sustainer strat" had a separate cavity routed into the back so I could tinker with it...all the sustainer stuff was kept clear of the guitars wiring, I even routed the driver leads through the trem cavity as these can put of EMI...also good to twist or braid these wires to limit the EMI potential...but maybe it was the cheap pickups...in the tele the circuit is hidden under the bridge HB and causes no problems.

Anyway, I'd just study the switch diagram and see if you can work out the functions as they might appl to your guitar...maybe post something to be sure. Remember though, test everything first before drilling and committing to things

[conor1148]

so.. you dont know how to split the pickup's signal for one to go to the output jack and one to go to the preamp?

[psw]

No...I do...just ignore the filter

Basically you can hard wire the pickup directly to the circuit, with the buffer on there, it will not load anything down when it has no power.

I can see this was not exactly clear in this switch diagram, so my apologies. I believe in more recent versions, I used the negative of the battery to switch the power and this allowed the use of the spare "pole" to switch out the circuit...it is essentially the same thing though.

So...take wires directly from the pickup's hot and ground so that when the selector is switched out and the bridge pickup reconnected, the circuit is still/remains connected also.

I can see the diagram is a bit confusing and the "poles" of the switch are in a different order.

See if you can draw a bit of a plan and we can trouble shoot it if you like...take the switch as the guide maybe

EDIT...

Note the "preamp" is just the fetzer part of the F/R circuit...on my older designs the preamps were separate from the power amp sections...none of the guitars signal to the output goes "through" any electronics or preamps...the idea is to be able to switch between the normal guitar, and bridge pickup only, lift the grounds on any other pickups, and reconnect the bridge pickup and turn the power to the circuit on...as long as it does this function, it does the job. If you want an LED, wiring it to the circuit will make it light when the circuit powers up.

Edited May 13, 2010 by psw

[Stringbreaker64]

I know this is an old thread. but I just came across this information when searching the big www for some sustainer information.

I have read alot of what PSW has done. Awesome work to say the least!

It was my understnding that placing the sustainer in the middle position didn't gain the best resaults.

I actually got reengerized in the subject when I saw a guy make a sustainer coil that he fitted and added to the 24th fret position on the neck of his guitar. The guy was super secretive about the makeup of the coil and wouldn't give up anything on the circuit he made to drive his sustainer. In fact in the videos he made on youtube he starts all his info with stating he won't give any info on his circuit.

I'm hoping to learn more through this forum so I can gbuild my own.

Kev

Edited May 18, 2013 by Stringbreaker64

[Stringbreaker64]

Awesome work PSW

Edited May 18, 2013 by Stringbreaker64