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Pickups that are potted usually have a very hard coating that is used to seal the coil and components usually within a cover. Epoxy is also poured in rubber molds and the electronic components are covered with the liquid and let dry. It is done to seal the pickup parts to keep them from being…

The bridge plate is punched out from a ferrous material. The logo’s and numbers are stamped on then deep drawn to the desired shape. Other procedures include deburing, polishing, case hardening to help reduce scaring from the bridge saddle adjustment screws.

The pro of an epoxied pickup is that it keeps you from messing with it after it is built. Many active pickups are epoxied to keep sensitive components from being altered or damaged. The biggest problem I have with epoxied pickups is that you can’t repair or modify them with ease. We get epoxied pickups…

The plate used on the bottom of a Telecaster bridge pickup is commonly called an elevator plate to support the Telecaster bobbin and is punched out of a cold rolled steel and is copper plated to help keep the plate from rusting and the plating makes it easier to solder the ground wire. The plating…

Is normally any given length of insulated magnet wire wound on a coil form or bobbin to a desired number of turns. A coil has a desired number of turns per layer and number of layers when wound on automatic traverse control winding machines. Scatter or hand winding will give you a coil with undetermined…

I also use the term TL which means the top of the pickup is facing left on the winding machine that I am using. If you see TR that means the top of the pickup is facing right. The term TC means when facing the pickup, the top of the pickup is coming towards you…

Preamps are used to increase the current and input impedance to match the amplifier you are using. Many good results can be obtained by using field-effect transistors or FET’s and you can get a better signal to noise ratio. Pre-amps can be used to increase a low impedance signal or enhance or EQ a high…

A guitar pickup is basically the same in construction as many bass pickups and use most of the same principles. A magnet is normally permanently mounted inside a pickup and is used to magnetize the ferrous string. As the strings vibrate when being plucked an induced voltage and impedance is created that travels through the…

A guitar pickups could be used for a bass pickup but generally bass pickups have more turns to give the instrument lots of bottom end. Some early Gibson EB-Bass pickups would use 20,000 turns of magnet wire per coil that sounded deep without a lot of clarity. Generally all guitar or bass pickups use a…

You can stack coils and in my Stack Patent # 4,524,667 (June 25, 1985) I used two bobbin basically stacked or mounted horizontal on top of each other. I use a vertical North & South magnetic field either in bar or rod magnets. The two bobbins are hooked up electrically opposite each other for a…