What does the capacitor in the neck Invader do?

[AnLaoShi]

This is my first post. After installing a neck Invader in a friend's guitar and telling him that I was looking for one myself, he gave a spare he had. Because of the capacitor (K1K 103), there was no reading on my multimeter. The capacitor bridges the white and red wire from the coils.

What exactly does this capacitor do? Does it filter highs? lows? both coils? one coil? What difference would taking the capacitor out make?

Any information would be appreciated.

Perry

 

[Jocelyn]

Re: What does the capacitor in the neck Invader do?

I have never installed a Invader but I am very sure that CAp is not there someone might have soldered it together. I am sure the Invader has a 4 conductor cable Green, Red Black and White. Green going to Ground along with the Bare wire, Red and white Soldered together and black Hot output for normal Humbucking mode.

 

[vinta9e]

Re: What does the capacitor in the neck Invader do?

I think I've read the cap between the coils comes stock on a neck Invader.

What all capacitors do, is they "conduct" high frequency currents and "block" direct & low frequency currents. In this particular application, I believe it would act as a high-pass filter for the signal generated in the first coil, for the sake of clearing up the low end.

 

[AnLaoShi]

Re: What does the capacitor in the neck Invader do?

I have never installed a Invader but I am very sure that CAp is not there someone might have soldered it together. I am sure the Invader has a 4 conductor cable Green, Red Black and White. Green going to Ground along with the Bare wire, Red and white Soldered together and black Hot output for normal Humbucking mode.

Thanks for your post. That's what I thought at first--that someone put the capacitor in there. It's soldered between the red and white wires underneath the tape. The pickup, however, does come with the capacitor.

 

[AnLaoShi]

Re: What does the capacitor in the neck Invader do?

I think I've read the cap between the coils comes stock on a neck Invader.

What all capacitors do, is they "conduct" high frequency currents and "block" direct & low frequency currents. In this particular application, I believe it would act as a high-pass filter for the signal generated in the first coil, for the sake of clearing up the low end.

Thanks for the information.

Let me see if I understand this correctly, when both coils are on, one coil is affected by the capacitor and the other is not. Is that correct?

Would anyone know if the neck Invader always came with the capacitor.

Thanks again.

Perry

 

[Jocelyn]

Re: What does the capacitor in the neck Invader do?

I think I've read the cap between the coils comes stock on a neck Invader.

What all capacitors do, is they "conduct" high frequency currents and "block" direct & low frequency currents. In this particular application, I believe it would act as a high-pass filter for the signal generated in the first coil, for the sake of clearing up the low end.

Oh Ok I was not aware of that..

 

[Natman]

Re: What does the capacitor in the neck Invader do?

Guys, the cap is stock and it is a LOW pass filter to tame the high end of a pickup with low wind and powerful ceramic magnets with big screws. If they didn't do that, it would be shrill city. It's only on the neck model.

 

[frankfalbo]

Re: What does the capacitor in the neck Invader do?

Actually its the opposite, they're right. It is to de-mud the pickup. It's trimming lows. The cap passes higher frequencies through. When the cap is between the coils it's passing highs, trimming lows. If the capacitor was to go to ground, like it does in a tone control, then you'd be right in that its passing those highs to ground, trimming the highs. So in short: putting it in-line leaves you with the sound of the capacitor, while taking it to ground leaves you the opposite-the sound of everything except the capacitor.

 

[AnLaoShi]

Re: What does the capacitor in the neck Invader do?

Actually its the opposite, they're right. It is to de-mud the pickup. It's trimming lows. The cap passes higher frequencies through. When the cap is between the coils it's passing highs, trimming lows. If the capacitor was to go to ground, like it does in a tone control, then you'd be right in that its passing those highs to ground, trimming the highs. So in short: putting it in-line leaves you with the sound of the capacitor, while taking it to ground leaves you the opposite-the sound of everything except the capacitor.

I appreciate all the responses.

You can see why I'm confused. I googled the subject and found a variety of answers before posting on this forum. I even read about someone who had purchased a neck Invader and returned it to the seller after being unable to take a reading on a multimeter. The capacitor prevents this, at least in humbucker mode.

Would anyone know how strong the capacitor is? The lettering on the capacitor is 1K1 103.

 

[Jocelyn]

Re: What does the capacitor in the neck Invader do?

Thanks Frank. So let me get this correct its a "High Pass Filter".

 

[Natman]

Re: What does the capacitor in the neck Invader do?

Guys, the cap is stock and it is a LOW pass filter to tame the high end of a pickup with low wind and powerful ceramic magnets with big screws. If they didn't do that, it would be shrill city. It's only on the neck model.

Get out of town! I researched this ad nauseum acouple of years ago and the consensus here was always what I posted. Ya learn something every day...

 

[speed2dirt]

Re: What does the capacitor in the neck Invader do?

Actually its the opposite, they're right. It is to de-mud the pickup. It's trimming lows. The cap passes higher frequencies through. When the cap is between the coils it's passing highs, trimming lows. If the capacitor was to go to ground, like it does in a tone control, then you'd be right in that its passing those highs to ground, trimming the highs. So in short: putting it in-line leaves you with the sound of the capacitor, while taking it to ground leaves you the opposite-the sound of everything except the capacitor.

That is really cool! I've never heard of doing this before, but I like my neck pickups to be bright & clear. I'm assuming this can be used on any pickup to de-mud it. What are the typical values for this cap?

 

[LonePhantom]

Re: What does the capacitor in the neck Invader do?

It can work with any pickup in any position. I did some experiments with the Tone Zone, using caps to filter the low end to remove some mud. It's documented on my blog, and I wrote some stuff for the Duncan blog too.

Start with a 0.047uf capacitor, see how that goes. 0.01uf can be good if the pickup is particularly muddy.

 

[G0lden]

Re: What does the capacitor in the neck Invader do?

Because the Capacitor is between the pickups, it is only a high pass filter on the first coil. The second coil will let all the bass through. So you end up with 2x the high and 1x the low.

 

[freefrog]

Re: What does the capacitor in the neck Invader do?

That is really cool! I've never heard of doing this before

It can be found stock in some Rickenbacker models like the 480. It's also the principle behind treble bleed mounted on volume pots, somewhat.

 

[Driverfrown]

Re: What does the capacitor in the neck Invader do?

Expanding on this :
Each coil of a seymour duncan Invader has a white finish wire and a black start wire inside the pickups guts and then the color coding is done adding a red lead to the screws white finish wire and a green lead to screw coils black start wire.
Here is the thing they put this 103 aka .01uf cap in between this color lead change connection point as it is soldered between the screw coils finish white and its re-identified red wire going to the control cavity ...not between the slug finish white and the screw finish red.( the connection is not between the coils ) at least not until the series connection is made. If you switch the series to parallel or split modes it will change significantly.

I prefer to add filters via toggle switches so I always remove these caps because when they fail you have to disassemble just to test it ( there is always a dead coil reading with these using the re-identified leads) even when cap is functional must be checked internally.

 

[KNUCKLHEAD]

Re: What does the capacitor in the neck Invader do?

Hmmm ~ In over 30 yrs. i never came across a Cap stock on a pickup

 

[Silence Kid]

Re: What does the capacitor in the neck Invader do?

A unique solution; wonder why they didn't just brighten it by changing the wind, rather than adding a cap?

 

[trevorus]

Re: What does the capacitor in the neck Invader do?

A unique solution; wonder why they didn't just brighten it by changing the wind, rather than adding a cap?

It's a lot of wire on the bobbin for lots of output. This makes a darker pickup. Adding a cap is a tunable, and CHEAP solution to trim (or block) lows.

 

[thanaton]

Re: What does the capacitor in the neck Invader do?

A few things; putting the capacitor between the coils is no different than putting it before or after the entire pickup. I've never seen an invader, but Driverfrown says that the capacitor is not actually in between the coils. If they did put it in between the coils, it might just be out of convenience. If the pickup were in parallel, only one coil would get the capacitor, no matter where they put it.

The series cap also increases the resonant peak slightly. The degree to which is does so depends on the capacitance of the guitar cable. A longer cable with a higher capacitance will cause any pickup to have a lower peak, but the higher the capacitance of the cable the more "helpful" that capacitor is at retaining a higher peak in the pickup, because the series cap acts as a mild shield against allowing the cable's capacitance to resonate with the pickup.

If it's true that the value of the cap is 10nF, it probably has a pretty mild effect overall. It's a conservative value for a series cap.