Opposite-wound PUP

[Bent]

Ok. I hope you all got what I was trying to explain with the staggered coil pup (or Reversed coil pup or Split coil pup). It's main features were winding a half coil R to L and have north pole pointing up. And doing the opposite with the other half coil.And then hooking the 2 up in series.
How about this:
Say I want a 17K pup. What if I were to mount the mags as usual all ten in a straight line, but have 5 with North up and 5 with South up and then wind it R to L for enough revs to get 8.5 K. At this point I would cut the wire re-mount the pup on the other end of the axle (or reverse the direction of my drill/winder). I would then wind another 8.5 K to have it add up to 17K. I would thereby have half and half R/L winding as well as correct magnet orientation. When the pup is all done, I will make sure to hook up the opposite-wound coils in series. This can be tested with my meter to be sure I have 17 K.

What do you think? Yays and nays with explanations will be appreciated.

By the way, I doubt if this is anything new.

[azureskys]

Hi Bent , i read about your opposing pickup[, did you try it?

[Bent]

Yes Russ, I believe I tried that one but it ended up just 8.5K. That's because one winding one way canceled out the winding running the other way. Someone told me that's what happened - was it you Allan? So that was a dud for sure.
Back to the drawing board.

Another thing I think I have learned is when you wind a single with staggered coils, or dummy coils or anything other than a straight single coil, you will in effect get something similar to a humbucker and thereby lose some single coil sound.

So right now it looks like the only way to get a single coil with reduced hum is to do proper shielding, grounding and find the right location to play in. I.E. away from disturbing electrical fields.
I believe one of our enemies here on the N.A. continent is the 60 cycles.

[Peter_Den_Hartogh]

So right now it looks like the only way to get a single coil with reduced hum is
to do proper shielding, grounding and find the right location to play in.

Hi Bent, that is what I thought as well.

But here is what I found: I had a dual coil pickup on my Sho~Bud SD10 Professional, and I could hear the hum (50Hz in South Africa).
So I ordered a Trutone, specifically wound for this guitar. And I also ordered 2 Alumitone pups.
The Trutone went on the guitar and there was an improvement : a slightly fatter or fuller sound. But there still was some hum.
A little bit less than the original pups, but I could still hear it.
I then proceeded to put on the Alumitone pup. This one sounded just as good as the Trutone, but there was no hum at all.
Completely clean.

So there is a way to get a single coil sound without hum.
And they sound very similar to the Trutone and the original dual coil pup with the switch set to 17.5k.
I am glad I bought 2 of them Alumitones.

By the way, if you connect two 8.5k coils in series, surely you have enough coil wire to get to 17k?
Regardless of the winding direction? I assume that you are measuring resistance, not inductance.
If you accidentally wired them parallel, you would get a 4.25k resistance value.
But you got 8.5k, which made me suspect that there might be a break somewhere.

Regards
Peter

[Bent]

Peter I got only 8.5 K on that one because at half the windings needed which were wound clockwise, say, I switched over and did the last half of the coil winding counter-clockwise. Because of this direction switching , I got only 8.5 k. If there had been a break, I would have got zero K .
And yes, I measured resistance, not impedance.

[mac639]

Bent....I was trying to figure out awhile ago when you posted this. Why you got 8.5K. If the two coils were connected in series you'll get 17K.....doesn't matter if they're upside down, beside each other, magnets or no magnets etc. You must have hooked them up some other way. With only four wires the end of one connected to either end of the second coil, and the remaining two wires will certainly give you 17K.

[Pat Comeau]

Just for the record...the alumintone is a humbucker pickup and it is why it does't have any hums

[Bent]

Hi Mac,
I might not have been clear on how I did this experiment. Here is how:
I wound a coil clockwise(on a single bobbin) until I had 8.5 K. Then I reversed the wire and winding direction to ccw and wound another 8.5 worth of wire onto it.
But because I had changer directions, the end result was a coil that had only 8.5 K in the end. I think it was Allan who told me that because of the way I wound it, I got only 8.5.

[Bent]

pat, I think they want to tell us that Alumitone is like a humbucker but sounds like a single coil. Opinions are divided as to the veracity of this. It is wound not like either single coil or humbucker.

I am trying my hand at single coils to see if I could possibly make one with no or acceptable hum level.
Humbuckers are a breeze, no challenge winding one of those.

I am currently working on one of my pickups now testing out some special shielding. It will take some time and I will let you all know the results good or bad when done.

[Allan]

Hi Mac,
I might not have been clear on how I did this experiment. Here is how:
I wound a coil clockwise(on a single bobbin) until I had 8.5 K. Then I reversed the wire and winding direction to ccw and wound another 8.5 worth of wire onto it.
But because I had changer directions, the end result was a coil that had only 8.5 K in the end. I think it was Allan who told me that because of the way I wound it, I got only 8.5.

Hi Bent, my concern with that pickup was that you would cancel out the signal due to the configuration. There is no way that it would give you a resistance of 8.5K if the coils were not shorted in some way. When you measure DC resistance with a meter the length of wire is all that counts in this case. The 'hand' of the wind does not count at all. If you have got 8.5 at the end of the process then there is a short on one of the winds. You can check this by measuring from the center tap to each end. You will likely find that one half of the wind is going to read 0 ohms or very close to it. In any case, I have a feeling that the pickup will have a low output at best. I say this because it will either be very low as regards coil resistance or it will have a configuration that will have the signal canceling its self due to the opposing winds.
Now, with all of that said, we are talking about DC resistance here when we say 8.5K and 17K. The concept of what you have come up with, the opposing wind thing, has thrown me completely. I can't really visualize the effect on impedance in the coil under these conditions but I think that the canceling would be the same in general terms.