42 awg vs 43 awg

[Marco78]

Two pickups with same magnet, same type of wire, same slug, same screws, same bobbins thickness (ie. full bobbins) but with different awg (42 vs 43). What should be the differences?

[Edgecrusher]

Re: 42 awg vs 43 awg

Still a few variables here. How many turns of wire? At what tension? Pattern? If your trying to isolate what sonic changes there are from just the wire gauge it doesnt work that way. The number of turns needed on the bobbin is what dictates the choice of the wire gauge.

[Marco78]

Re: 42 awg vs 43 awg

same tension and pattern... max number of wire on the same bobbins...

[Edgecrusher]

Re: 42 awg vs 43 awg

The one with smaller wire will have more turns and a higher DC resistance. The general tendency will be to words more output compression and less highs but these are only tendencies not absolutes.

[uOpt]

Re: 42 awg vs 43 awg

Two pickups with same magnet, same type of wire, same slug, same screws, same bobbins thickness (ie. full bobbins) but with different awg (42 vs 43). What should be the differences?

That's 59 versus C5 or CC versus APH.

I never got really warm with the awg43 pickups, I like both awg42 and awg44 better. The ceramic version needs a monster guitar to drive it. The A5 version is too scooped and overly dynamic. The A2 version has no treble, although it can play nice with a Floyd.

[zenmindbeginner]

Re: 42 awg vs 43 awg

The main thing to know is that the inductance will be higher with the 43 gauge wire pickup because as Edgecrusher mentioned, it has a higher DC resistance because of the greater number of turns.

The lower the inductance of the pickup... the more high frequencies it will be able to produce. Higher inductance values will give more bass and output.

This can all change with scatter winding because the inductance decreases due to the minimization of self inductance. Self inductance occurs when tightly machine wound wire amplifies the signal due to close proximity.

Smaller gauge wire also has a "skin effect" where higher frequencies move along the surface of the wire and not through the center.

This leads to the shrillness and brittle character of the treble and upper midrange detail of high output pickups (which is independent of the decreased highs due to increased inductance).

[Marco78]

Re: 42 awg vs 43 awg

Thanks boys!!

[orpheo]

Re: 42 awg vs 43 awg

The skin effect has little or no effect in guitar pickups... just try to calculate the depth of the skin effect with a general frequency. let's say, a 1000 hertz. The skin effect becomes .002 meters. Thats WAY thicker than the wire gauge of conventional pickups.

Just saying.

Oh, and if you want to calculate it for yourself, here's the formula



where

ρ = resistivity of the conductor
ω = angular frequency of current = 2π × frequency
μ = absolute magnetic permeability of the conductor

[RayBarbeeMusic]

Re: 42 awg vs 43 awg

There is no reason you have to fill the bobbin with wire, therefore no reason that a 43ga. has more turns. A more relevant question is, same turns, all other variables held constant, what is the tonal difference? Same turns, magnet etc. would be same voltage, but higher dcr.

[ItsaBass]

Re: 42 awg vs 43 awg

With the same coil thickness, the 43 gauge wire will fit more winds. So the wire can be used to get higher inductance than can be achieved with 42 gauge wire in the same amount of space. As such, 43 gauge usually finds use in very heavily wound pickups, or in pickups with very small bobbins.

[J E C]

Re: 42 awg vs 43 awg

What if we narrowed it down more. Instead of same number of turns, you put the same lineal length of each size wire on? Because the same number of turns of one size compared to the same number of turns of another size are two totally different lengths.

[scarr]

Re: 42 awg vs 43 awg

There is no reason you have to fill the bobbin with wire, therefore no reason that a 43ga. has more turns. A more relevant question is, same turns, all other variables held constant, what is the tonal difference? Same turns, magnet etc. would be same voltage, but higher dcr.

This is the true comparison: matching number of turns. Anything else and you're introducing other variables.