coil tap H/B mod

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does anyone know if its possible to mod a humbucker and add extra wires so i can coil tap it?? i have an old humbucker ive been keen to try it out on... but im not sure about how to go about it.
 
Re: coil tap H/B mod

Sure you can. Its just a matter of how well honed your soldering skills are. You'll be soldering some very small wires, in close proximity to delicate coils. I would recommend buying some 4-conductor wire from GuitarElectronics.com and just replacing the whole harness. But, you can also just add one extra wire if all you want to do is "split" the pup. (Parallel wiring requires all four.)

The only exception to the above I've seen are a few pickups that are potted in epoxy. Some older Peavey's did that and some older Bill Lawrences. (Maybe others.)
 
Re: coil tap H/B mod

first of all thanks for replying = )
ive had the pickup apart.. its an old BC rich mockingbird that im using in a one HB one volume strat project (great midrange for a metal pup)
its not even wax potted.. ive been meaning to get around to it.. but its not really prone to feedback its not that high output.
so how would i go about adding one extra wire to split it??
 
Re: coil tap H/B mod

So how would i go about adding one extra wire to split it?

When you take the pup apart, you'll notice that the two coils each have two wires. (Total of four.) One wire of one coil will be grounded and one wire of the other coil will be the hot output. The two remaining wires of both coils will be soldered together. Carefully connect a "tap" wire to that connection. Retape it. That wire will be your "split" wire.

Short that wire to ground to select one coil, or short it to "hot" to select the other coil. Without knowing the specific pickup, I can't tell you which will split to which. ;)
 
Re: coil tap H/B mod

ok so ive been inside the pup..

found two sets of wires soldered together under two different bits of heatshrink.... the wires were black and white... so going by the colour coding of most H/B's i attacked the white. i soldered a wire to the join easily and slipped the tubing back over with a bit of tape around the bottom and put the pup back together.
so now... first of all have i done it right? lol second of all has anyone got any schematics for coil tapping to a switch? this project runs one humbucker... one volume... and nothing else : )
 
Re: coil tap H/B mod

I believe so. The only thing I'm concerned about is that you say you attached your wire to the "white" wire. Technically, you should be connected to both the black and the white. You left the black wire attached, right?

Here's a schematic. Ignore the tone control, and your new wire attaches where the red/white wire are now. Don't worry about the fact that Seymour is using two wires. It will work just the same.

1hum_1vol_1tone_split
 
Re: coil tap H/B mod

hey thanks for the schematic!! im out to get some bits tomorow to finish this off..

basically there was one set of white wires joined together... and one set of black wires... they were seperate... so i soldered my wire to the join of the two white wires... assuming this to be the hot connection... also the two white wires looked more like they were coming from the coils as one came from each of the bobbins.
 
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