Hi all,just a question regarding pups.If you wind and mount 2 single pole pups in humbucker configuration and send them through a 3 way switch,when you pole split them and the signal is taken from just 1 pup,is the 'dead 'pup still effectively hum cancelling?I feel it must be,but not 100 pc sure,also if pups are run without switch,but with 2 volume pots,with diodes controlling back feed,i expect the humbucking effect is also working.Appreciate all feed back,thanks.
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People used to use a Strat pup as a dummy coil to get humbucking benefit, but still have a bright single coil sound.
This was accomplished by using a middle pickup (RWRP) with a bridge or neck that was regular wound. They would remove the magnet from the middle pup(easy to do with a ceramic magnet pickup with a magnet across the bottom) and wire it in parallel with the other regular wound/polarity pickup. Result is bright single coil tone without the hum.
Thanks Paul,that makes sense,i was more interested to find how to use a bucker as a single pole and be able to switch it back,seems easy enough as long as the humbucker has 4 wires
I've done the coil tap on HB's before and it works okay. Not a lot of hum, but not a lot of output either. So if your not expecting a lot, you won't be disappointed.
The hotter the HB, the better the coil tap. You'll get half the DCR rating. Example would be 12K DCR HB would give a coil tap at 6k DCR which is comparable to your typical Bridge Strat single coil pickup.
Did a bit of research and discovered that pole splitting will in fact cancel bucking ability,but switching from parrallel wiring to series wiring will allow either single pole or normal mode and keep humbucking feature intact,more research needed though
Humbuckers are a pair of mag pups with opposite polarity and wired in phase based on the opposing polarity. (see Wayfinder's post about phase and polarity)
Simplified version: take two identical mag pups and wire them in parallel, the signals add together when you play.
Now take one and flip it upside down, the upside down pup now sends its signals backwards and the two will cancel, so you reverse the wires on the upside down one and now they add together again.
Now the coils in MAG pups act like the old UHF hoop antennas and respond to noise, especially from nearby fluorescent lights.
Noise don't care about the magnets because it is a low frequency radio wave, not a metal guitar string, and sends a positive charge clockwise in the coil on the wave crest and counterclockwise on the wave trough. Because the upside down pup has its wires backwards, the noise picked up by both coils are on opposite wires where they meet and cancel.
So the noise canceling only happens when you have both pups feeding the output jack together. A 3 way switch set to only 1 or the other pups but not both takes away the noise cancelling. separate volume knobs turned to different volumes gives you partial noise cancelling.
hope this helps.
They're only signal cancelling if wound opposite and mag'd opposite... If it's not hooked up, how can it cancel noise?
The theory with a humbucker is (basically) that 2 coils wound in opposite directions pickup equal amounts of EMI (Electromagnetic interference) - aka electrical noise. Since they are wound in different directions, the noise is cancelled out. In order for these to work as pickups, you add a magnet. If they used the same polarity magnets, the signal from the string vibrating in the magnetic field would also cancel each other out, thus the reason they''re magnetized opposite....
Basicaly: No... if it's not wired into the other pickup, there's no noise cancelling.
Diodes allow voltages to pass in one direction... Adding diodes would eliminate some of the back signal from the humbuckers, effectively reducing their hum-eliminating characteristics... but I could be wrong on this point... I need to think this one through.. but it's late... and I be sleeeeepy...
I'd have to draw it out for it to make sense.
I understand all the polarity/phasing issues John,i've made a few buckers with no issues as yet,what i was asking,and you addressed it,was whether the 2 poles had to be outputting for bucking effect to work,I still have an inkling that it will work,my line of thought is the fields are still active,only the signal is muted,i may be totally incorrect,but that's why i asked.Thanks for the feedback,[no pun intended]