jbm222

After searching for about 30 minutes and avoiding all the sites I've already searched, I finally found this site: www.bulkwire.com that sells 1/4 pound spool of 32 AWG (very close to 0.2 mm) for about $7.50, but then the charge another $7.75 for shipping.... which is way more than it needs to be. It takes less than 100 ft to get 8 ohms, and the 1/4lb spool is about 1200 ft. So at least 12 drivers worth of wire for about $16. You get a better cost/foot if you order larger spools. Unfortunately I still can find a place that sells small quantities with reasonable shipping rates.

psw, where do you get your wire? I checked a fairly large local electronics supplier. They didn't have anything smaller than 30AWG. And I don't like the prices I'm seeing on mouser.com. And Radioshack doesn't have it.

I actually thought about that some. The LM386 is a Class AB amplifier... look at National Semiconductor's datasheet. But I'm not sure what all the stuff on the input side is doing. It seems like you might be able to build a discrete amplifier from two transistors biased to operate almost Class B. Crossover distortion probably isn't much of an issue here, so an amplifier designed specifically for this application could probably take advantage of the power effeciency of running almost class B, or even purely class B. I got my pickup to driver conversion working. I ended up using 30AWG because I got some for free from work. I'll post picks probably tomorrow. I haven't installed in the guitar yet (because it's still being painted), but I tested it by holding it over the strings of other guitars. On the electric I tried it with first, I had trouble sustaining any of the unwound strings, but I think I was having pre-amp problems since I used a different booster. But then I tried it with my Acoustic, which has an onboard preamp, I connected directly to the 386. It seemed to be working fine. I also wonder if maybe the neck humbucker of the electric was causing problems. I'm going to mess around with the amp circuit a little bit (still breadboarded) to see if I can get any improvment. And if I'm still not happy with it once the guitar is done, I'll just wind a new driver with 0.2mm.

My strat copy guitar is actually enough different from strat that a strat pickguard would not fit it right. I want a dark green pearl guard, which is hard enough to find already cut for a strat. So does anybody know where I might be able to purchase solid sheets of the plastic? I figure I can just trace around my existing pickguard and cut it with a jigsaw (this kind), and countersink the screw holes wiht a normal drill bit. I don't know what I'd do about the tapered edge, but I'm not sure it would need it depending on what plastic I might be able to find. Oh, btw I'd like something a little darker than this if I can find it anywhere. The stuff at Warmoth looks like it's a lighter green than what I want.

I have a soundclick page that I've put my recordings on. Most of it's old. I used to have an ebow, which I used on "Lewisberg". But as far as the site is concerned, I've been pretty happy with it. When I get some this thing working, I'll record something and put it on there. It will probably be 2 weeks minimum though, because the guitar I'm installing it on is getting a fresh paint job starting tomorrow.

Before PSW's last reply, I was looking around to see if I could find away to calculate how much wire I would need of a given gauge to get 8 ohms. I found this page: AWG Table. I measured the approximate dimensions of the bobbin to convert the number of turns I counting into an approximate length, then used that table to calculate the theoretical resistance of my failed coil. It came out a little short, but I didn't factor in the fact that windings get longer as you go. Plus I measured with a riciulously cheap DMM which show about 0.2 to 0.4 ohms when you just touch the two probes together. So if I were more careful in my calculations & measurements, the numbers probably would've turned out just about right. Also, though it requires a bit more thought, you can use the diameter of the wire and the dimensions of the core to figure out about what the physical dimensions of the end result will be to give you the appropriate resistance. So based on some rough guestimates, I don't think I would fit enough windings of 0.2mm in 3mm of space on my bobbin and still have the pickup case fit over it. I would probably either need about 5mm of thickness with the 0.2, or go down to 33 AWG or even 0.18 to fit it in the 3mm space. I think I'm going to try some 33 AWG and try blocking it most of the way to see how it goes. I'll take some pics along the way so that with any luck we can have a working example of a pickup-to-driver conversion. Already removed the old wire from the bobbin, but that's a pretty self explanatory part of the process. **EDIT** Question about batteries.... I'm thinking about making a pack of NiMH rechargeables. A 9V just doesn't seem like it would last long enough to mess with. Which would be better? 6x AA, or a couple 9v's in parallel? There are AA NiMH's rated at 2000mAh, while the best 9V NiMH's are around 200mAh. But if the AA's ALL drop to 1V, then there's a problem (probably). Any thoughts on this? How much current does one of these things typically draw?

I wanted to try making one of these but want it to fit nicely into my guitar if it works, so I tore the windings off of a a cheapo single coil with over sized pole pieces. I had some 26 AWG enameled wire laying around, and i tried wrapping it. I put as many turns on it as i could fit under the pickup case, and measured the resistance. About 200 turns came out to about 4.2 ohms so I figured I should probably get some smaller wire. But before I try this again, I have a question. How do you measure the resistance as you're winding it? The tutorial says wrap 'til you get 8 ohms, but if your pulling wire off a spool, how do check that?

I have a guitar with the standard strat style tremelo where the strings feed through the hole in the back. If possilbe, I'd like to convert it into a fixed bridge guitar. I've blocked tremelos before and not been to happy with the results. Blocking has to be done perfectly to avoid going out tune across all 6 strings when you bend or change tuning. Plus from my experience it doesn't sound the same as a fixed bridge. So here's what I want to do. Take the bridge/tremelo system apart, removing the metal block that the springs attack to and the strings feed through. Fill in that hole in the back with wood. Then screw just the bridge plate into the new piece of wood and drill holes for the strings to feed through. Any thoughts?