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Sustainer Ideas


psw

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Not much time to reply...but as fookgub says I did look into piezo pickups. You can use a sustainer on an electro acoustic for instance. Although you may be getting no EMI issues, you can not use conventional magnetic pickups with it because they connect magnetically.

I also did some work with the poopsite...piezo drivers! And piezo/magnetc drivers of my own device which I prossibly didn't reveal too much about... Usually I didn't talk about stuff that wasn't working out too well...the ideas are neat, but if they don't work...they don't work...doh!

Anyway, besides the oscillation, the sustainer is much more responsive. It actually works like a sustainer. I can hammer on a note anywhere on the neck and it will swell in volume quickly then reach a steady state with a good bit of sustain. Harmonic mode is still not working well. The oscillations aren't helping, and I think it needs a bit more gain still.

I see you caught a glimpse of what the thing can do... Remember, more gain is only going to increase the output of EMI...creating more oscillations. Think of it like a microphone and a PA...If it starts squeeling, you don't turn it up! No...maybe move position or place something between the speakers and the mic, tell the person to speak up and move back from the mic, that kind of thing... Exactly the same principle...

So try raising the bridge pickup and the driver to be very close to the strings...this can make a big difference. But combine this with less power...just as you would with a PA. Also consider that the oscillations while being coupled by magnetic fields are still as electric as if they were wired together...exactly like the two coils in a transformer. If you have coils of wire connected at all anywhere near the driver it will be magnetically, and so effectively electrically coupled.

Now...you may think that you can leave that big P90 there deselected right next to the driver, but one end of the coil is still connected to earth, a signal will still be generated in the coil and it may act as an areil in transmitting the drivers signal back into the circuitry and feedingback at resonant frequencies within the circuit.

Now...although any circuit will work in principle...not all in practice. We are talking about a simple amplifier here...but not too simple. A LM386 will work with a simple ouptput cap and power as described by Ansil in his Sustainer Mod project thingy...but, it will be prone to internal oscillation. For instance, the LM386 will have a gain of 20x as is. It will increase to 200x if you wire pins 1 and 8 together. You will notice however that I use a 10uF cap to wire them together. Eliminating the risk of DC voltages in the AC signal and greatly cutting back on potential oscillation in the chips internal feedback loop! Feedback is what makes amplifiers work, but it is the control of feedback that sets them apart from oscillating circuits (runaway feedback).

Although my amp is simple, it is not so basic as to ignore the fine line we are walking with this device. You can just wire pins 1 and 8 together and save cost and space and will work fine in a practice amp...but perhaps not in this application. If you are using a circuit designed for another purpose, perhaps they had less imperitive design criteria... :D

Anyway...must run... pete

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im sorry pete i just stated the poles as Negatives and Positives but it stands the same meaning of north and south. well, checking again, my ex-hum has a single magnet where it sits between the poles of the hum (not under the poles--->>N-S-N) as you can imagine. its magnet has the power twice that of a fender so i think it would work fine. now, i was able to magnetically stick the ordinary N-S magnet above the N-S-N magnet hoping that it would give much more power to the driver considering that it combines the power of those two magnets... i hope you get the idea...

Back to starry_night’s question, I assume "P" is supposed to mean south, but it doesn’t make any sense. As far as I know, you can’t have a magnet that is south in the middle and north on both ends. They are dipoles by nature. Also, the placement of the magnets is weird. They should be directly under the pole pieces and oriented so that one pole is towards the face of the guitar and the other pole is towards the back.

well i dont really know if i put on the polarities right, what i want to explain is that the magnet(N-P-N) actually absorbs metals on both sides of it(N) and the other one(N-P) absorbs only on one side and rejects on the other side so i assumed it as it is drawn... (this is experimanted on a magnet to magnet basis->>opposites attract so above the N of the below magnet is a P so they physically stick)... oh well, so much to learn, so much to understand... :D

P.S. hey everybody please visit this site.. and teachers wanted: here thanks...

Edited by starry_night
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Well, I found the cause of my microphonics problem. The lace design is interesting because the bobbin is completely separate from the rest of the pickup. It is just pressed into place. I found that the coil by itself was dead silent, but the entire driver, when assembled, would make noise. The entire coil + bobbin structure was vibrating! So I glued the bobbin in with titebond, and this solved the problem. Unfortunately, while I was testing it for microphonics, I broke the coil lead. D'oh! I can't seem to peel any lead off the coil, so I'm going to have to cut it apart and rewind it.... again. At least I'll get to take another crack at getting the resistance right. I didn't get a chance to hook my scope up and see if the coil was still oscillating, but I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and hope it wasn't. If nothing else, at least I'm not wasting valuable power in mechanical losses.

In the mean time, I'm working on a driver more like pete's combined pickup/driver. I took apart an old single coil and cut a slot for a blade polepiece. Now I just need to find a suitable piece of steel for the blade and make the top piece for the bobbin. I think I'm just going to use the top of the pickup coil as the bottom part of the sustainer bobbin. How tall is your driver bobbin, pete?

By the way, when I took my lace driver apart, I found that the titebond hadn't cured fully because, like my polyurethane experiment, the outer layer dried into an airtight seal preventing the inner layer from curing. It didn't seem to affect the performance, but it's something to think about.

starry,

I'm really not sure what's going on with your magnets, but I think you'd be better of going with a traditional structure. Try using two equally sized ceramic bar magnets, one for each coil. Refer back to pete's post on page 81 to see how it should go together.

Edited by fookgub
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Well, I found the cause of my microphonics problem.... I found that the coil by itself was dead silent, but the entire driver, when assembled, would make noise.

Great...this will not only have effected power but generated it's own EMI signals that would interfere in a few ways. Remember, if the thing is trying to vibrate the strings it will also be trying to vibrate any metal objects. Also, any vibrating metal objects will also be magnetised by nearby fields, so you will have vibrating magnets in effect!

The "glue" will have trouble curing, but given enough time...or maybe not...it will at least have an effective dampening effect. 2 part epoxy may work and Tim's bobbinless driver is probably as solid as a rock!

D'oh!
D'oh!...another reason not to use epoxy... :D

In the mean time, I'm working on a driver more like pete's combined pickup/driver.

OK :D

PD5.jpg

The driver coil is 3mm thick. I used 3mm ordinary steel from the hardware store. You could laminate thin steel too as we had discussed...just about anything really. The above picture was just before winding and the bobbin top piece was made with very thin plastic from a pocket folder. The top of the single coil bobbin made the bottom of the driver as you are suggesting. I used a solid piece taped to the top to hold that flexible plastic down while winding and clamped it while I let it "set". You will find that on the ends it tries to push up due to tension, and on the sides it will be a bit loose...keep pushing the sides back down with a stick as you wind and cover the thing tightly with tape when done to hold in place. You could use thin cardboard for the bobbin also...use glue and layers to stiffen it. I found the plastic will not stick to the coil (resists glue) while the cardboard of other drivers set with it. I am finding that my very thin plastic lifts now (a year later) and I have had to tape it down to avoid the high e catching on it occasionally.

I had some further improvements in mind, but didn't get around to it. What I would do for my next one is probably mould the driver in steel powder impregnated epoxy putty (kind of shield) around the edges...then perhaps (when I know it works) set the whole thing in epoxy...emg style!

Anyway...one thing at a time though...it's getting there... pete

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not sure if someone pointed it out but the ms2 doestn' use a 386 probally to its downfall lol jj psw. it actually uses one transitor a mps18 into a crude tone stack which goes into an Ic that is normally reserved for cassette players that has some sort of high freq cut and or compression to it. interesting chip none the less one i have been playing with for some time.

ciao

ed

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What would happen if I added a switch to run the normal pickup signal through the preamp, then out of the guitar, to the amplifier? could it function as a pickup booster too?

Also, is there any way to use the preamp circuitry for the sustainer as a piezo preamp too?

That might be complete crap, forgive my ignorance, I know little about impedence..etc. :-)

Thanks!

Or here is another idea...

From my limited understanding, and my reading of this thread, you need a pre-amp (to match the impedence or something?), then an amplifier...

So what about buying one of these premade preamps:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Module...preamp&doy=28m3

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Module...preamp&doy=28m3

then putting it before one of these pre-made amplifiers:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Module...lifier&doy=28m3

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Module...lifier&doy=28m3

If that would work, that would be fantastic, I'd definitely give it a try.

Thanks

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hey fookub and pete, i have a good news.. now i understand why my magnets behave like that.. the only simple reason is that they are cut or manufactured in two different ways like so:

2574115843440l.jpg as you can see the polarity of the magnet that i used for the driver was divided on its flat surface while the other one was divided on its sides.. thats the reason why the second magnet originally sticks BETWEEN the poles of the humbucker and NOT under the poles because it absorbs on both of it's sides.... whew! i hope you guys now can imagine waht i was trying to explain... :D

fookub, the magnets are exactly with the same size.. originally, i planned to use only the magnet i got from the hum for both the driver and the pickup but too late that my driver core was made shorter in height than the pickup poles and it wont reach the pickup's magnet so i have to extend another magnet for the driver but ironically it perfectly fitted exactly under the core and above the pickup's magnet...

now can anybody please tell me where i can find those blues saraceno tabs online? especially 'never look back'....

Edited by starry_night
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What would happen if I added a switch to run the normal pickup signal through the preamp, then out of the guitar, to the amplifier? could it function as a pickup booster too?

Also, is there any way to use the preamp circuitry for the sustainer as a piezo preamp too?

That might be complete crap, forgive my ignorance, I know little about impedence..etc. :-)

Short answer: it's not a good idea.

Long answer: My experience is that piezos don't usually need much in the way of gain... maybe just a voltage gain of 3 or so. The purpose of piezo preamps is so that the piezo 'sees' a high enough impedance as a load. A simple model of a piezo is just a voltage source in series with a capacitor, meaning that it will form a high-pass filter when connected to a simple resistive load. In order to avoid losing your low-end response, you need the load on the piezo to be of high real impedance.

There are a couple problems with using one of the common LM386 circuits. First, the 386 has a minimum internal gain of (IIRC) 20. In order to avoid clipping, you would need to pad the signal from the piezo down considerably before the 386. This raises the noise floor. Second, you would need to buffer the signal before padding it down because a voltage divider of suitably high impedance to be connected directly to the piezo would introduce a lot of thermal noise. Third, the LM386 is not a high-fidelity chip. It has higher distortion and higher noise than most common opamps.

Now, if you wanted to use the 386 as a simple booster for magnetic pickups, you probably could. The problems I mentioned about would still be there (especially with regard to the gain), but the impedance considerations are less important, and you could probably get away without buffering before the voltage divider.

By the way, the 386 can do a decent fuzz all by itself, so maybe it's worth checking into.

Someone else will have to help you with those preamp kits since I know nothing about them. You are probably correct in thinking that you'll need a preamp before the poweramp, as the power amps are apt to have a low-ish input impedance.

starry,

Glad to see you've got the magnets figured out. You could try using the original magnet with a piece of steel connecting it to your new bobbin. The steel will 'conduct' the magnetic field.

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Hi there Ben and welcome to PG and the Sustainer Thread...

The answer to most of your questions is yes...the preamp could be used for other purposes but also fookgub is correct...not a good idea!

The preamp should be optimised for it's purpose. If using something like the fetzer/ruby...the fetzer part of the circuit (before the LM386 power amp section) actually is a good preamp with a medium gain. It could also work well for piezos too I guess. My preamp has too much gain and the whole sustainer circuit has way too much and could damage an amp. Then there are the tone considerations!

As for those preamps...I have experimented with at least one of those products. I have used the preamp in front of the LM386 circuit and it works fine with the sustainer...well at least mine. The amps you have shown, and all that I have seen are way too powerful and would not run happily on batteries.

It is more expensive and larger than a DIY version BTW.

Starry...one magnet (the first one) is a typical HB pickup magnet. The other is typical of a single coil as I have on my driver/pickup. The combination is a little dodgy and may be better to simply extend the core of the driver. I was under the impression that you were modifying a humbucker as was previously discussed...stripping one of the HB coils and blocking the bottom half and winding the coil to that...

pickupdriver2.jpg

Your pickup would only put out half the power of an HB and less than a single coil so you will have no balance the bridge and neck pickups (you can't compensate by height) and poor tone, but it would work in it's own way I guess. Better yet, would be to set the driver on top of one coil and lift the other...but that would take more construction, particularly with the magnet arrangement I suspect.

Bear in mind that I have not done a lot of testing on HB guitars either.

What I would recomend is that people make a circuit and test driver. A small roll of wire is enough to make probably three drivers anyway at very little expense. This is effectively what I did, mad a 3mm driver...stuck it on top of the pickup, it worked so I replicated it built on the pickup, then set about installing everything into the guitar. It is easier to work out what went wrong this way (though mine worked well straight off) than to modify the guitar and have to keep taking it apart and change things that you have commited yourself too.

pete

Oh...as for Blues Sareceno...what ever happened to him, that was a great album. I don't think you will find that on the net though I do know the tab book was available, I even had a copy of it somewhere...not now, unfortunately!

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Hi... I'm still following the developments... unfortunately i understand less and less of all this technical jargon (especially since my English is very good but not my primary language).

I might have found someone interested in experimenting with the sustainer thingy...

I just need a sustainer wide enough to fit a 7 string guitar... *sigh*

Damn fernandes for making me addicted to 7 string sustainer guitars and then discontinuing them...

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Hi rOOky...

If only my personal life weren't turned upside down I really would make you one! I saw a really cool singlecoil seven string pickup just asking for conversion.

As I recall your bass player also used one, or would. I know sustainiac make one for bass. I tryed it on my frettless 4 string but because of my split presision style pickup it would only work properly on alternate pairs of strings...

It would be cool to have this thing on a gigging instrument. Keep looking for someone who may be able to do this for you...meanwhile, keep rocking your part of the world...

pete

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hey psw... fast reply!

I understand that personal problems go before some dutch guy who pretends he can play guitar :D

Our bass player doesn't use a sustainer but he would. Unfortunately sustainiac doesn't make 6 string bass sustainers (or 7 string guitar sustainers for that matter). Fernandes made a 4 string bass sustainer prototype for Peter Steele (of Type O Negative) and they used to make 7 string guitar sustainers, but they discontinued those. I even tried offering both companies a wad of cash but they both refused to make me one.

Good thing is that once I find someone, they can do all kinds of measurements on my Revolver Pro 7 (a guitar that's factory equipped with a 7 string sustainer) as long as it doesn't involve actually taking the sustainer apart (because it's irreplaceable at the moment). Plus I know how the factory made sustainers are supposed to work.

(as I said before, the difficulty to sustain in harmonic mode on the higher frets of the E string is NORMAL on the Fernandes sustainer. I read you kinda solved this problem, so you're actually ahead of Fernandes!)

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Any tips on making the top part of the driver bobbin, pete? I know you used some skinny plastic. Did you just cut a slit and push it onto your polepiece? I was thinking about machining something out of aluminium, but I'm starting to feel lazy about it. I've got some old project boxes made out of 1/16" ABS plastic that I could cut up, but that stuff tends to crack. I guess it doesn't make a difference either way, as I'll have to cut the slot for the polepiece on a mill.

Anyway, my driver is starting to take shape. I cut and shaped the polepiece last night. It's made out of 1/16" stainless steel, so it's a bit thinner than yours. I hope it works because I epoxied it into place (stubborn, huh? :D). I checked the magnetic field with a box of filings and it seemed plenty strong. I also made sure that it was RWRP with respect the P90 so that it humcancels when they are in parallel. The pickup by itself actually sounds better with the blade polepiece (it seems a little hotter), so I think I'm on the right track. I should have a new driver ready by Sunday if I get the bobbin top made after work tomorrow.

The Lace has been shelved while I've been working on this driver, and it may be in for a pretty long vacation in my parts bin if this new driver works out. Also, I'm going used sewing machine shopping this weekend for the coil winder I'm going to build. I'll post a few pics of that when it's done (probably a couple weeks from now).

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Anyway, my driver is starting to take shape. I cut and shaped the polepiece last night. It's made out of 1/16" stainless steel, so it's a bit thinner than yours. I hope it works because I epoxied it into place (stubborn, huh? ). I checked the magnetic field with a box of filings and it seemed plenty strong. I also made sure that it was RWRP with respect the P90 so that it humcancels when they are in parallel. The pickup by itself actually sounds better with the blade polepiece (it seems a little hotter), so I think I'm on the right track. I should have a new driver ready by Sunday if I get the bobbin top made after work tomorrow.

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Hmmm...are you sure that it really is stainless steel...stainless is actually non-magnetic...but maybe it's not...will a magnet "stick" to it? Thin is good...I haven't gone that thin yet but I am of the thin is better category, the jury is out on this concept still...there was some debate about it way back!

I don't think it will matter which way it is wound BTW...they are not wired together, the magnet polarity is the same and the harmonic switch will reverse it anyway...still no harm done.

Edited by fookgub
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Oh, one other thing: for those who are like me and like to buy broken junk out of curiosity and a desire to fix things: don't buy any Ebows. I made that mistake. It's such a simple device, I figured I could easily fix anything that could possibly be wrong with it. WRONG! The entire thing is potted in resin, including the PCB and all the electronic parts... just one solid block. I tried to chip some of the resin off and just ended up mangling the thing. I was able to salvage the coils and magnets, though, and since I have the casing I may build a new one from scratch...
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Wow...I want to know more about the coils in that thing...I have links and stuff to guys who have built their own, but no one has actually seen them...for the very reason that you mention!!! I thought it was kind of clever to set them like that...for the same reason...people like us try and reverse engineer them... :D

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Locktite...Maybe, never thought of that...it does get in!

Ebow..tricky...hmmm Reversing the power wouldn't reverse te signal. To get the harmonic effect you can reverse either the signal or the drive signal...same thing, but I'm not sure how they do that with one switch. I had suspected that they maybe had coils made that were a bit more standard than loose coils...more like a transformer. Is it posible to get a reading from them? Maybe a pic sometime...just curious...! The ferrite ring is interesting as it sounds like a sheild to keep the EMI signal at bay...so is there a core inside the coil that the coil is wrapped around?

Anyway...keep hacking away at it... pete

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I am very seriously considering making one of these for my guitar, but the knob and switch count on it is high enough already!

Could I use a spare position on my 4 pole rotory pickup selector switch to turn the bridge pup on, the neck one off and the battery on, and then use a push/pull pot for the sensitivity (gain?) control. Pulling it would switch to harmonic mode.

Thanks!

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Hi Ben...

The harmonic switch requires a DPDT switch...just like a phase switch (6lugs) which is typical of a push pull so no problem there.

The on/off switch is a lot more complicated. You got to turn the power on, bypass everything, connect the bridge...it's a few functions...I needed a 4pdt to do it. A rotary could do it, perhaps, it all depends on the number of poles and such available...typicall there are not enough. Electronic switching is the ultimate solution...but that's a whole lot more circuitry that no one's come up with yet! I have heard though that fender's neat S1 switches are 4pdt, if so that may work!

The sensitivity control I wouldn't use anymore. You could put a little trim pot inside to adjust to the guitar and playing style, maybe...I have one but I don't use it! Fernandes have ditched it on theirs now too!

The easiest is two simple switches in a good location...easy to reach but out of the way. Toggles have some advantage in that it is easy to see and feel the position of the switch. I also have an LED which I find useful...especially good for showing that the battery is dying as it visibly dims when you play and you can tell that it's on.

Installing can be tricky so it is good to think of these things in advance... pete

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Thanks Pete.

I have been doing plenty of thinking, I need to, the wiring on this guitar is insanely complex already!

If I ditch the sensitivity control, does that mean it will only have an on/off switch and a harmonic switch? just two switches? no pots? or have I missed something?

The switch I have is 4pole, 6way. As far as I can figure, I can use it to switch the power on, turn the bridge pup on, and the neck one off... I just cant do the bypass as well.

The other 5 positions are taken up by the "5 sounds from one humbucker" thing off guitarelectronics.com, : http://www.guitarelectronics.com/product/WDUH5R0001

Im using two RWRP singles instead of the humbucker.

The LED idea seems like a good one, what sort of batterry life do you get from the sustainer?

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Ok...before actually modifying anything with this project, I do suggest that people make a basic circuit and driver and see if they can get it to work to their satisfaction and then see how they can tackle the installation.

The ideal guitar would be a single bridge pickup with a bridge driver. It is likely though that the phasing could effect the drive mode of the device. Reversing the phase of the bridge pickup in sustain mode will effectively reverse the signal to the driver and have the same effect as the sustain switch.

Anyway...

If I ditch the sensitivity control, does that mean it will only have an on/off switch and a harmonic switch? just two switches? no pots?
YES... StratControls.jpg I have found that my two switches are really well placed...

close but out of the way. One is on/off the other harmonic/normal mode...the LED is between. That is all that is really needed as the effect can be controled by playing technique, and has to be really. Damping in very important (otherwise the guitar will simply play itself) but a light picking technique will reap the best rewards creating a kind of bloom to the sound...

The switch I have is 4pole, 6way. As far as I can figure, I can use it to switch the power on, turn the bridge pup on, and the neck one off... I just cant do the bypass as well.
Ok...this may be enogh, I think on the previous page I have shown how mine is wired. neck off, bridge on and power is what you want...but I also found that it was not enough to simply short out the neck pickup but to lift the ground also. That said, it took a while to get this solution, but this is the only guitar that I have done the full install on! There may be other ways, and I still have that pop on turn off that I still haven't solved...it needs some others to look for solutions and alternatives.

The LED idea seems like a good one, what sort of batterry life do you get from the sustainer?
It will go through batteries pretty quick. With not a lot of playing mine lasts for a week or two (it's not on all the time) but it does churn through batteries and is addictive, you do tend to use it when you play. I have used rechargable batteries but you will need very easy access to change it. The response does change though as the battery dies and when it really starts to go off the harmonic mode has a "tinny" sound.

My preferred embodiment would be remote power as we have discussed. This would mean probably a stereo lead to a powerbox on the floor or amp. What you would get though is more power, consistancy and no need to find room for the battery on the guitar so less mods to the instrument. It would be great to see this device evolve into a pickup replacement with a couple of switches, a tiny circuit, a change to the jack plug and an external powerbox and lead...could power other onboard electronics too like EMG's, preamps, active tones, variax stuff, synths...whatever floats your boat. But even with a basic outboard power box mod, the guitar would be able to be used without power as an ordinary passive guitar.

There really is a strong argument to actually put together a "sustainer guitar". The atributes of a sustainer guitar may well be different from that of a normal guitar. I found that a naturally sustaining guitar like my LP was less satisfying as it was such a long time before the "unnatural" sustain took over...whereas, my hollowed out cheapo strat with low natural sustain can provide a wide variety of sounds.

None of this is necessary to experiment with this project though. I really want a new guitar as the playability of this one leaves a lot to be desired in many ways...and I'm sure I will get around to it eventually. If you really want to convert this rotary switch (which is not a bad idea and I'm really interested) perhaps post a wiring proposal and see if it doesn't in effect have the same function as mine...it may well do...good luck... pete

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Thanks loads, Pete! you deserve some sort of award for what you have contributed to this thread, 516 posts!, so much information here, its great!

I will make and test it externally before I fit it, as you suggest.

I also may just go with the two mini-toggles like you have, if the rotory switch thing doesnt work out, they look very compact and convenient.

you will need very easy access to change it

Ill use one of those flip-out battery boxes then.

There really is a strong argument to actually put together a "sustainer guitar"

I have thought about that for my next guitar, this one is pretty complex already. I think I'll have a mess around with it on this guitar, and if I can get it to work well, I might make a dedicated sustainer guitar. (with a clear acrylic body!) next.

I will draw a wiring diagram for the switch and post it here, glad your interested!

Thanks again!

Edited by Ben
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OK, drawn up some ideas.

Good luck understanding these!! they are pretty crude, I drew them all on paint, and theres quite a few wires!

Sustainer switching drawings

My favourite is "another solution", which uses a 3 way 4 pole rotary switch (readily available) and has the 3 positions wired as

1. Normal; hot to vol/tone, power off, bypasses sustainer stuff,

2. Fundamental Sustain; hot to fetzer/ruby thing, power on.

3. Harmonic Sustain; same as position 2 with driver wires flipped.

The only downside is that the pickup selector switch MUST be in position 4

I'm no electronics expert, all I know has been absorbed whilst reading this forum and other forums, so there may be mistakes in there

The "stuff to play" pic is just everything layed out, ready to be connected.

What do you think? :D

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pete, you can try the remote power thing really easily. Simply take the battery out of your guitar and short the + and - terminals of the battery connector together. Now build a box with a stereo and a mono jack. The stereo jack connects to the guitar side and the mono jack connects to the amp side. Wire the tips and gounds of both jacks together and connect your 9V to the ring of the stereo jack (referencing it to ground, of course). Connect your guitar with a stereo cable, and that's it... you've basically 'shifted' the location of the battery. This assumes, of couse, that you're using the standard 'negative battery lead to ring' trick for your power switching. If you've got a switched jack and you need the ring for a signal, then you'll have to use phantom power. Not much more complicated, but it would involve some trickery to get it to act like a normal passive guitar when plugged in with a mono cable.

By the way, what do all those extra knobs on your guitar do? I assume one is sensitivity for the sustainer... what about the rest?

About that pop, are you simply opening the ground connections for the other two pickups when you engage the sustainer? Have you tried grounding them through, say, a 100k resistor. This would prevent any significant ground current from flowing, but would also protect you against developing a DC offset. Just a thought...

I've decided to take your advice on lifting the grounds, but I'm going to use a resistor as I described above. Also, my pickup switch has two poles, so I'm going to do it there instead of using the automatic selection circuitry that you've got. This puts me back to the combined on/off/phase switch. I'll just have to see if on/off transients are a problem... I'm hoping they won't be, as I'd rather stick with a single switch.

I tried potting my old coil in Loctite tonight. I'll let it cure until tomorrow before I try it out, but it did wick nicely all the way into the coil. Taping it up was a bit of a messy job, though. Anyway, I'll keep you posted on that. No ebow updates for now. I'm fixing up my fretless in order to sell it, and that's got top priority tonight. I'll try to get some pictures of the coils soon... maybe tomorrow night, but don't hold your breath.

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