onelastgoodbye

You don't think a humbucking driver in a configuration like your last diagram (decoupled humbuckers) would minimize interference, now? I'm planning a humbucking driver, but haven't quite found a way to build one without the magnet getting in the way... I've always wondered what would happen if you'd wind two wires at the same time onto the same bobbin in opposite directions; effectively creating two coils in one? Guess with one magnet their signals would just cancel out, but isn't there any way to have one coil see the south pole and the other the north pole?

Great guitar and wonderful craftmanship, though I can't help but think it would have looked that much better without the pickup rings. You seem to have a very 'stealthy' thing going with this one, trying to keep everything as clean as possible with the hidden controls and all, but the section between fretboard and bridge is too clogged up in my opinion...the exposed polepieces and the big logo on the floating pickup play a factor in that as well I guess. I really like what you did with the controls and that walnut is killer! Tim

Damn..just lost a whole reply..who shut off the internet? Anyways, PSW, have you ever built a humbucking driver? Not like sustainiac makes 'em, but rather in the vein of hotrails. I guess a stacked driver would work to, if there's a way to fit the (internal?) magnet so the upper and lower coil have a different polarity. I'd like to experiment with this, but I fear making the package small enough will prove problematic. In my opinion, the magnets (or the core material, for that matter) have always been the biggest concern in the whole sustainer-saga, not the coil, as we've pretty much established that 'll work as long as it's 0.2mm wire and really close to the strings. I'm starting to wonder if the actual dimensions of the core and coil really matter. My driver works perfectly fine with a wide core (7mm), as does yours (PSW's) with the 3mm one. Quite a few others have built succesful drivers with varying core-magnet configurations, but they all seemed to share the 0.2mm wire @ 8 ohms. So it's a good thing this thread seems to start focusing on where the current driver still needs some serious improvement; EMI and low impact on the guitar (both visual and functional-wise) That said I'd like to look into humbucker drivers for the EMI part. It has worked pretty darn well for pickups, why couldn't drivers benefit from this. Problem is I'm out of magnets... i'll have to start chopping up my old drivers. And that epoxy ain't gonna help . So psw, if you're thinking of selling parts worldwide don't forget about the magnets. I find they're harder to source than coil wire (at least in the sizes we need) The lo-profile part..your pickup-driver combination is a really nice example of an 'integrated solution'. Don't know if that's an official term, I just like to call it that . Basically, in today's industrial product design one tries to combine all the different sub-solutions for the sub-problems into one package, whereas in the past all those solutions were stacked one upon the other as individual features (think of a stereo with 1 scroll button versus one with 34 separate buttons, one for each function) your pickup-driver combo solves the placement problem, the magnet placement problem, the visual interference problem, etc..all in one go! Then again, my driver has the advantage of being a standalone unit. It could ultimately be made into something like a 10 x 5 x 60 mm package, so probably small enough to put on any guitar. Now if only I could grind that @#!*8! magnet down without breaking it; the fact your driver doesn't need one again proves it's ingenuity. If you were to sell these, the solution might be to make a 'standard' driver (coil + enclosure) where you could interchange the cores,being either a bar magnet for standalone applications or a laminated iron core for pickup-driver combo's Maybe I'm too keen on making this thing commercially viable, guess that's my background talking On a different note, we were given a new school assignment this week: the design of a complete injection mould for a plastic part of our own choice. "the box" immediately came to mind, but seeing as it probably won't be used anyway (a good thing, in light of the 'minimal visual impact') I'd rather build something that could be of some use, maybe a driver enclosure or the guitar-strap-battery-box-thingie is a better idea? I realise there would have to be some MAAAJOR interest in this thing to warrant the cost of actually manufacturing a mould for it, so this is for the fun of it, really , but I'd rather draw something that peaks my interest rather than say..a spoon or something. Besides, always a good idea to have the CAD drawings handy if this thing really lifts off If anybody has any great guitar-related plastic-part ideas, just shoot... ta Tim

Yeah i know it's 10 watts...I just figured one might be able to tone it down some (well a lot). The thing is they're either smd and around 1 watt or your regular op-amp size and 10- 25 watts. you'd might be able to use the smd ones be reflowing a pre-manufactured pcb (I was checking expresspcb If they'd allow such finnicky details and it seems possible). Not exactly your everyday diy stuff though on a more realistic note, I've been working on an enclosure for the driver, something that would mount on the pickup ring mounting screws and it 'd be fairly 'one size fits all' at it. It might be even better to go for your driver-pickup combination though. How do you suppose the pickup sound would change if you'd put my driver with the internal magnet on top of a single coil? Say there weren't any weird side effects to the magnetic field... you'd have a design that could work as a standalone driver for one-pickup-guitars, or as a pickup-mounted driver for multi-pickup-guitars. There's some more ideas to come, have to hit the sack now, Tim

Have you seen these yet? class d opamp They require something like 10- 14 v though; actually most class d circuits seem to be around the 15v mark. (probably why fernandes uses 2 9v batteries??) The external battery idea is pretty cool, I've always liked the idea of having a battery "pack" to power piezo's, emg's, fretlights, sustainer etc... so If you need a box for it, lemme know anyway, I'm still checking this thread, I'll be back with more once I finish my @*#! exams Tim

So I guess say....a jcm 900 isn't a "real" tube amp then. Lots of amps have opamps in the preamps section. That doesn't make them ss. IMO, a tube amp derives it's gain from a tube stage, which is sometimes spiced up a little by transistors (the marshall jmp1 for example); while an ss amp gets it's gain from transistor stages. I'll stick to my guns and say the ADA mp1's overdrive channel does not get it's gain from those opamps. The 'pile of opamps' is most likely the ss channel.

Check your facts... the mp-1 is most certainly NOT a solidstate preamp. It's a tube preamp. Agreed, there is an SS voicing for clean sounds, somewhat similar to roland jc120, but the distortion channel is a completely analog tube stage. In fact, the "tube breakaway section" is about the whole amp in itself. The main pcb contains an input buffer, power regulation, the whole midi thing , supports for the fancy front panel leds, etc.. but it has nothing to do with the signal processing itself. If you want to tweak the sound, the small tube breakaway pcb is where it's at. That's why adadepot sells the separate drop-in tube boards: mod mk4, mod 3.1, 3tm,... you replace the stock board, et voila! A whole "new" amp.

Now you know the box aint gonna look right if you leave out the drive pot . Not a bad idea at all actually, if you looked at the sustainer as a 'natural' extension of the guitar, you'd be expecting to control it's intensity with well..the volume pot. Which is exactly what you can do if the sustainer's output is trimmed to equal the stock pickup's output. We're venturing into cognitive ergonomics (basically the relationship between the product and the human way of (sub-conscious) thinking) here,really. Ideally, a sustainer guitar should be just as easy to use as a non-sustainer one. So you can do that by grouping the functions that intuitively go together, and if possible control them by just one knob (or pot, or switch,or...). Why would an amp need a gain knob if you could control it's gain by the amount of slamming it's input stage (ergo controlling the guitar's output). Anyway enough industrial designer-speak from me, If you can leave out a knob, I'm all for it. Technically you could even combine the on-off switch with the harmonics switch. Say... a three way switch: fundamental on -- off -- harmonics on. Or a sort of push -push (blend)pot, where you'd have fundamental mode on one end, harmonics on the other, and push it for on and off. just some thoughts, Tim

+1 on the rockmaster and I'll throw in the ADA mp-1

mmmm KT88's Not to sound mean, but what you're basically asking is "I want to build a guitar tell me what parts numbers I need". And that question is actually a lot easier to answer than what you're asking now. I'd suggest you start by finding out which bands' sound you like, then find out what equipment they use, then *try* to find schematics for that particular amp (or 'genre' of amps); and then your friend can work around that. Now if he's really good you can just tell him 'I want that *insert death metal band here* sound' ; and he'll build a custom amp for you....but those people are pretty rare, and usually veeeery expensive . You'll want a pretty high-gain amp, so here's a shortlist of some well-respected metal amps(and places where you can hear soundclips) - Peavey 5150 (one of the most popular and imo best amps in metal) - Engl Powerball, Savage,... (lots of great clips on www.rocksolidamps.com) - Framus Cobra - VHT Ultralead - Diezel Herbert, VH4 (there used to be clips at www.tonemerchants.com) - Bogner Uberschall - Mesa Boogie Mark IV, III, rectifier, etc.. - Marshall jcm 800, 900, 2000, etc.. there's loads of clips of all these amps at the harmony-central amp forum you have to be a member to be allowed to search though (WARNING if you didn't know yet: people can get very 'rowdy' there but there's an incredible amount of info if you can look past that) I guess you have a little research ahead of you! greetz, Tim

@ FoneBone: Yes that's what I meant. The thing i don't know is how the circuit will react when it 'sees' the guitar output instead of the adapterspule...it might create problems, or it might not. You'll just have to try and see I guess. Anyway, if it doesn't work, don't be too afraid too solder your own circuit (the Ruby) it's really not that hard. @ Mathlefan: Yeah, it's exactly like in the schematic, though the iron plates are bigger than that. They are about about 1 cm bigger than the core on all sides, so the coil wire can't slipp off while winding. Just don't overtighten the wire and make sure the plates don't slide off of the core. I'm a bit worried that you won't get good results with the 0.6 mm wire, though. You'll have a really big coil if you want to wind it to 8 ohms ( a coil of 0.3 mm @ 4 ohms is about 50 % larger than a coil of 0.2 mm @ 8 ohms). @ theblueark: I'm not sure yet, I think it might be best to shape them on a grinding wheel, as sanding them really doesn't take anything off and if you try to file them you tear these little pieces out. It's a very brittle material so be careful not to break them. Also watch out for your fingers. Tim

This one is a bit more elegant, but I still don't like it

woo lots of questions.. @ mathlefan: all "succesfull" sustainers that various people have built throughout this thread used 0,2 mm wire. I'v experimented with 0,3 mm, others with 1,5 mm, 1 mm,...etc; and we've pretty much established that 0,2 diameter wire really is the most efficient. The core can be a steel rod, a ceramic magnet, little steel plates laminated together (think of the stuff they use for the core of transformers)...basically whatever you feel like using as long as it's magnetic. If you use a steel or iron core you still need a separate magnet of course. I've been using ceramic bar magnets (from old pickups) and simply wrapped the coil around that because it takes away the hassle of sanding and filing steel. I didn't really notice a big difference in performance vs a steel core; the steel core does seem to be a bit more "focused" (the magnetic field doesn't stray away as much). The core needs to be say.... 3-7 mm wide and as low as you can build it (something like 3-6 mm). about the circuits: - the ruby is a good all-round circuit, so that's your best bet - the feltzer valve circuit (schematic is on the first post of the link) has more gain, so use that if you have low output pickups - the little gem circuit doesn't have a preamp so you can (only) use that if you already have a built-in preamp, like with active pickups. They don't really need any special modifications. Keep in mind this isn't an exact science, so feel free to eperiment with other materials, makes, sizes. I've just tried to summarize what has worked best for various people. @ ansil: I believe RG alluded to using a transformer to change something (match impedance?) that would then change something something... . Also the very first sustainer patent thingy (was it Floyd Rose?) used a big transformer I believe. I think he was actually a standard pickup, but it had to be powered from the grid. At least it's worth exploring. @ Fonebone: You'd might have to make some adjustments to those circuits. Seems like the telephone amp uses a coil (Adapterspule) to pickup the sound from the telephone horn and amplify that. I *think* you basically have to remove that and connect your pickup there. The first circuit (preamp) might just be powerful enough on it's own (and probably easier to connect). I'm lousy with electronics though, so don't take my word for it! @ eightstring It's a lot of blind luck really.. we just take the bridge pickup signal, amplify it with an lm 368-based amp and send it through an 8 ohms coil made from 0,2 mm diameter enamel wire. And somehow everyone's experiments keep coming back to those values. I don't think you'd want to drive the strings with the pure fundamental; as a guitar string essentially vibrates at a mixture of it's fundamental and the corresponding harmonics. We're not just trying to vibrate the string, but to simulate the "natural" string behaviour and thus, feed it with it's own mixed harmonics sound. It might be worth exploring if the driver's ecfficiency would benefit from leaving out certain nth order harmonics or if it could be employed to improve the string separation of the hex designs. The hex drivers (separate drivers for each string) had a lot of problems with their magnetic fields influencing the adjacent strings...but that's a whole other can of worms, really. I was intrigued when you said the coils can only push, not pull...can you elaborate on this? @everybody this is my latest prototype: I just put it on top of the strings so you get an idea of the size. The core is a 5 x 5 x 60 mm ceramic bar magnet with 2 pieces of 1mm thick steel sheet glued to the sides of it; so the whole core is about 7mm wide.The steel is there to direct the magnetic field a bit more upward (well that's the theory). I actually wanted to make it a lot more narrow, but that magnet is a b*tch to shape . The clever part of the design is this: I doesn't need any bobbins! Since the core is magnetic I just stuck a small iron plate on top of it, and an identical plate on the bottom (I wrapped them in cellophane/ kitchen foil first); and wound the coil in between that, while adding epoxy onto the windings. If you're a bit careful you can just take off both plates after the epoxy has hardened, because kitchen foil is PE and epoxy doesn't stick to that! et voila...a bobbinless pickup. The performance is excellent, and the only thing I want to try now is to make a smaller version, but other than that I think it's a keeper. Anyway good to see this topic catching on again, and I hope psw returns soon, because I'm really lousy at long posts Tim

Didn't cost much, the raw materials are maybe 5-10 $ at most. It's a lot of sanding and fitting though As for making a fortune, it's up to PSW to decide where he wants to take this as it is sort of his project, I'm just trying to help out. There's others here who know this stuff better than me (LK?) but anyway IMO they both seem useable; the second looks a bit excessive (complicated) although it does use the same opamp we've been using here for some time now. Could you post links to the exact items on conrad.de? On another note, I've built a working sustainer! Prototype nr 4 covers all the notes from the low e up to the high e (!!), it doesn't squeel, it's really small and very easy to build ( no bobbins needed). plus i've developed this theory on why we've all been having so much trouble with the squeeling too. Pics and info 'll be here shortly, gotta sleep now... Tim

A whooping 36 grams!

Allright people, pics: Excuse my crappy photographic skills.. left front right back back_left circuit_compartment battery_compartment support_ribs cowl_supports this_might_be_handy The exterior is ready for final black paint, inside it's still a bit messy (gobs of paint, CA and sanding filler). The different parts fit together very well (a lot better than what it looks like from the pics) and the box is quite sturdy considering the shell's thickness is never over 1 mm. Only thing I'm not satisfied with is the "drive" knob, I'm thinking of moving it back and having it protrude from the side and top so you can roll it with the palm of the hand. Anyway, not bad for a first prototype. Tim

Aw.. sorry to hear that psw Well, I'm still here and have FINALLY scored some 0.2 wire. Experimentations and research into infinite tone 'll recommence soon in the northern hemisphere Prototype of "the box" is also finished and should be fully reproducable with silicone moulds.. so if you ever feel like making these in limited series lemme know ( I doubt if it's of any use without the hex drivers, though) . pics 'll be up ASAP (this thread needs new pics if we want to make it to page 100!! ). Tim

It should work fine (probably). The humbucker's sound might change somewhat, but as long as you keep to the correct 'recipe' for the driver (as in flat coil, 0.2 mm wire, ...etc.) it 'll be ok. I believe PSW tested it on his Les Paul and the sustain effect was less prominent than with single coils because of the paul's inherent massive sustain. Tim

They were probably drawn in mm while your system is set to inches (something like that)

An acrylic cover would be nice...or maybe carbon, driskill-style So is there gonna be one of those massive-flip-up-safety-nuclear missile-launch-switches?

any voltage 'll do, really. you're not using high voltages in your guitar (9v battery, remember) so there's no risk of damaging the capacitor.

I think you've made a good choice going for wood instead of epoxy

Ok...something to cheer you up psw now you know what this is, huh? It's coming along nicely, but still a lot of work (support ribs etc) Tim

I wouldn't worry to much about the epoxy shrinking, it's more of a problem with polyester I believe. Epoxy takes about 24 hours to dry completely anyway, so your coils would settle very slowly, so there's really no risk of damaging them. You have already potted the coils separately, right(or are you potting it alltogether in the casing)? If you haven't, keep in mind though that it's better to pot them while your winding (when using epoxy, that is) if that's in any way feasable. Epoxy is usually pretty thick and it won'tcreep in between the windings that easily, meaning there's a chance of loose windings in the center of the coil. Also remember that epoxy is very sticky so you need to use some sort of mold release wax to keep it from sticking to your mold (you'll need to make a mold to cast everything, so I'm not sure if a wooden cover is 'more' work).

It's possible, no one here has tried it yet though, so you'll have to experiment a little. Take a look here That's sort of the condensed version of the sustainer ideas thread. If you scroll down some you'll see the "latest" driver psw made. It's basically a driver on top of a single coil pickup. I think you could do the same thing, and then put your (original?) pickup cover over it. The driver in itself is only 3.5 mm thick, so if your lucky, it'll just fit underneath the strings, otherwise, you'll have to lower the pickup some. Here's the tricky parts: a: the driver uses a blade instead of separate pole pieces, so you'd might have to adjust the size and shape of the hole in the cover. b: the driver needs to be as close as possible to the strings. As the cover adds some thickness, the driver may be less powerful c: you could also use a completely closed (no holes), emg-style pickup cover, it's less work and looks really clean, but keep problem ( in mind d: if you need to lower the neck pickup (where the driver works best) to fit the driver,you're pickup tone can change. e: mounting the driver on top, will change the sound of the pickup somewhat, though it seems to be minimal. Welcome to the forum, Tim