Post Type Archives: SWD

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…

While making custom pickups for Cheap Trick back in the early 80’s the instruments were custom built for them by Hamer Guitars. Along with the custom pickups the instruments included custom electronics. I wound individual coils for each string on their basses that included volume controls to balance the output of each string. I believe…

Most epoxied pickups that stop working normally can’t be fixed. It is difficult to remove the epoxy without breaking the coil or bobbins. You can’t repair them properly and several pickup builders pour the epoxy directly on the fine magnet wire. When the epoxy dries, it can shrink and in time break the inner coil….

There are many things that can go wrong when winding pickups. Here are some that can be problems for beginner and experienced winders. Here are a few hand winding problems. Hand winding is often called scatter winding. When winding with to much tension the magnet wire can stretch causing the coil to have a higher…

Single coil pickups can be tapped as many times as you want. You can tap a pickup at desired number of turns or at pre-determined DC resistance. Tapping a pickup at a desired DC resistance takes more time and measuring the resistance at various readings. We have a way of measuring the DC resistance quite…

This can be done and I’ve often wound a pickup with 7800 turns of 42 gauge wire soldered to the normal finish eyelet and continued winding with 43 gauge wire either to a desired number of turns or a determined DC resistance. You need to add another eyelet for proper connections and lead wire connections….

A pickup without a bobbin is usually called an air coil. To wind them, you need a collapsing fixture to hold the coil in place till they are coated with an insulating material such as tape or wax. There have been several pickup models wound with air coils. One example that comes to mind is…