Making a humbucker

Is it possible to make a humbucker that only has one or two pole pieces? I'm making an electric foot drum like Ted Crocker's Terraplane Floorboard and the pickups I have installed the prototype are buzzing a lot and I don't really want to use a full pickup.

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  • You need 2 poles and 2 coils for a humbucker (almost always). 

    The coils need to be wound in opposite directions, or wired in opposition.  If you wind 2 identical coils, then wire the 2 start leads together, and the 2 finish leads become your hook-up wires for jack or controls.

    The magnetic polarity through the coils needs to be opposite too, ie one coil north up, one south up.

    You can wire the coils in series as above, or in parallel, but you'll get better output from series hookup.

    No, 500k pots are not a requirement.  Wiring any pot to the pickup will cut some highs, 1M pots less so than 50K pots.  Small coils produce more highs anyway, so probably not an issue to lose some.  In fact, if you're making a bass drum style thing, you might want to try a fairly low value pot, maybe 100K, and perhaps a fairly large capacitor on the tone control, like in an electric bass - maybe .047uf to .1uf.

  • Here is the link to Eric's page...

     

    http://www.cigarboxnation.com/profile/ericgittins

    Cheers

    Peter

  • Can you send me the link? Also, since it's  humbucker would I need 500k pots for volume and tone? and what kinds of pots? (sorry about all the question

     

  • Yes. There was somebody on here who recently posted a humbucker made from sewing machine bobbins that might do the trick.
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