Avalon

Hello everyone, just been reading through some of the last few pages here after a long absence from the thread, its great to see plenty of ppl still experiementing, building and developing, I've not really done anything on my sustaining work since i was last here unfortunately, alot of things going on in other areas of life. On the plus side of things, my original fullsize humbucker driver is still in my Blue Floyd rose, still working well, maybe later in the year when things hopefully start returning to normality i'll be able to pickup where i left off. In the meantime happy sustaining everyone, and i hope you're all well

Hello everyone, just thought i'd stop by and say hi again, got a few things going on atm, and not alot of time to do much in, but once i do i'll be back on the development, and my brother has just bought an Ibanez S series (22Fret HSH format) which im hoping i can twist his arm into Sustaining up lol, once i get the time anyhow. Hope you're all doing well and happy sustaining

Hiya everyone, sorry i've not been about, not getting anything done atm, its one of those months, but i've been reading everything thats going on and great to see it still progressing nicely, great stuff When i get a minute im going to skip straight to Cols circuit and test it on my installed driver to see how that works, i'll let you know how that go's as and when it happens. Also Happy 200 pages, its testiment to an excellent thread, project and developers, everyone who's taken part give yourself a good pat on the back, some amazing work has been done here

It looks excellent mate, keep up the great work

My only concern with the fins would be them being steel, screening is usually done with non-ferris metal, Aluminum or Copper for instance, im no expert in most thing electrical, but i would be more inclined to use Aluminum fins. Thats not to say the blades won't work well as shielding though, like i said, im no expert lol. No...these are not proposed to cut RF signals and interferance of an electro radio / noise type (this is not a sensor) rather, they are "Magnetic Shields", that is metal placed so that stray magnetic forces will use these to pass through from one pole to another, rather than through the core of the coil which is creating a magnetic signal...our EMI... Perhaps I am giving in to my tendancy to over complicate, because I can... It's hard to K.I.S.S!! As for the aluminium covering strip on the top of the coils...hmmm I am just testing the two blades to see if there is an electrical connection...interesting...there is a resistance of over 20 ohms...touching the alloy strip itself has no resistance. The blades are insulated from the strip by a thin layer of epoxy and are joined magnetically (but not electrically) by the ceramic magnets below...very interesting...perhaps this is the kind of effect exploited by Lace's aliminitone, coiless pickups from similar materials...hmmm I did reason...though I must say the final reasoning was largely aesthetic and structual...that had I used alnico magnets, the blades would be connected through the magnets so is there really any difference in me doing this...plus it looks cool and makes the thing very strong and robust? I am starting to waver against the fins...I don't know... Hehe, thats why i'm not the brains behind any of this lol Im starting to get ichy fingers myself again, i might wind a new DR over the weekend to get the ball rolling again, and then start on Cols board design.

My only concern with the fins would be them being steel, screening is usually done with non-ferris metal, Aluminum or Copper for instance, im no expert in most thing electrical, but i would be more inclined to use Aluminum fins. Thats not to say the blades won't work well as shielding though, like i said, im no expert lol.

Well i use Steel cores, i bought a strip of flat 2mm x 12mm x 1 meter piece of steel from B&Q (local hardware store) and i cut of a piece as and when i need it, then attach an external magnet to the steel.

Hard to say if im honest mate, i've only had the fullsize hum installed, and that is working excellent, the dual rail is the prototype of that really, and worked very well in testing, but its very hard to compair them in performence without testing them both fixed in the guitar. Outside of the guitar they were pretty even though, with 0.2 wire, i'd be tempted to go for a 13.5 coil, mainly based on the size, but if you're confident in getting them nice and slim, 16ohms will work well too. I honestly can't say one is better then the other at this stage though.

Then mine and yours will be the first ones.... uh boy, pressure -- better get it right then. -MRJSTUDIOS The Fullsize Humbucker is 2mm high made with 0.16 guage (SWG38), 2x16ohm coils, in parallel. My Dual Rail driver is 3mm high, made with 0.20 (SWG36), 2x13.5ohm coils in parallel. My next DR will probably be 3mm high but with the 0.16, should make a very compact driver. Good to see alot of things happening too, keep up the good work guys

Well there are two problems with this guage of wire mate, obviously its thicker, so it takes up a good bit more space to start with, but thicker wire has less Ohms per foot, here's a little example. 100 feet of 0.20 guage (AWG32/SWG36) is 17 ohms 100 feet of 0.16 guage (AWG34/SWG38 which is used on my full size humbucker) is 27 ohms 100 feet of 0.25 guage (AWG30/SWG33) is 11 ohms So you would need half as much wire again over the 32 guage, and about 2.5 times more then the SWG38, then add the fact that its thicker too. While we are on the subject of guages, my Fullsize Humbucker is made from 0.16mm wire (SWG38), not 0.18mm as i've stated previous, this is what happens when you try thinking with the flu lol, and one of the reasons i've not been working on it much (im mistake prone with the flu).

Well my Dual Rail has just the one magnet, 1 pole on the top core, 1 on the bottom, my fullsize humbucker has two magnets though, but still both cores on opposite poles, which is quite important, i tested them on the same pole, and they're not as effective.

Yes, here another pic of my dual rail next to a 9v battery (which i should have had in the pic in the first place lol): This was made with 2mm cores, and 0.20mm wire (SWG 36, AWG 32), it doesn't quite fit in my single coil cover, but its more then small enough to actually fit in a single coil size hole on a guitar. My next version is going to be bobbinless, on 2mm cores, with 0.18 guage wire (SWG 38, not sure what AWG that is), but the 0.18mm wire reduces the mass of the coil, and lowers the amount of turns needed, which together saves alot of space and has already been fully tested on my fullsize humbucker, that is working brilliantly. You can see from the pic its already quite compact, and that one is a bit of a butchers job, the mark 2 will be far neater, smaller, and as effective, the real trick will be getting it to work in my AV-1 guitar mid position, which may as yet prove near impossible, but on a strat type guitar, i think its a good design. Edit:Should also just add that my dual rail is 2x13.5ohm (3mm high)coils wired in parallel, where as my fullsize humbucker driver, is 2x16ohm (2mm high) coils wired in parallel, and that the Fullsize humbucker coils are still smaller then the DR.

Well the dual rail has always been in my mind as the mid driver, and the parallel designs seem far quieter then the serials, all my single coil size drivers have been tested in the mid position of my test guitar too, the parallel designs are the ones of mine that drove the strings and got anywhere near the bridge pickup at the same time. As for the dual rails construction, my first attempt was wound with 36 guage, but my full size humbucker is working great on the 38 guage, so im almost certainly going to use this on my dual rail, the difference in size alone is big, and so far it seems to be performing as well too. The biggest shame for me now is, to do any futher testing i have to open my test guitar back up, but i don't think i'll be touching the newly installed parts from now, i might even mod it slightly so i can test new designs without even opening it up, maybe add a stereo jack, make a special guitar lead up especially for sustainer & guitar signal output, might be an idea. Anyway, hopefully i can get a few things done this week too, im starting to feel back in my right mind again these last couple of days after a bad bit of flu, so time permiting, a few things to be doing

Great stuff mate, it looks beautiful, is it built from scratch? or a repaint?, either way stella work though, looks awesome

Well i had abit of trouble with a small speaker on my board, i think it was impedence related, so i switched to headphones, earphones and computer speakers, which it worked perfectly with, so that might be worth a shot if you have any of the above. As for the pots, i know what you mean, half a milimeter in the middle seems to account for 2v, which isn't that handy, but for basic testing (especially as a pre-amp) the voltage isn't quite as important, in the ball park will do until its driver time, it just added/reduced some of the gain added to my guitar signal. Hopefully it will come to life for you before much longer, i'll keep my fingers crossed for you