Hookup wire and coil wire termination

[Tinker]

Freshman question... must the thin coil wire finish point be soldered to the hookup wire? Is this the correct and only way the hookup wire connection is established?
Reason? I soldered a hookup wire to the pickup coil but not at the termination point. I'm afraid that there may be a broken coil wire I may not have picked up on visually.
The pickup shows continuity on the multi-tester, but will I be in for a general surprise of compromised tone and or volume when the pickup is operating?
Asking before everything gets finished.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Are you referring to a Strat type single coil pup?
Not sure what you are referring to as the "termination point".
Why do you think there may be a broken coil wire if your multimeter shows continuity?

Greater clarification would help. Some clear photos would even be better.

 

[Tinker]

Thanks, Doc, for responding to the vague description as I didn't really know where I was heading with this.
Let me try again... In trying to strip off the insulation from one of the lead wires, I yanked at it a bit too much. It came out of the screw side of my SD humbucker from under the tape (wrapped around the coil). I unwrapped the tape to reveal the coil wire but because of my inexperience did not look to see if the individual strands of coil wire were broken or where the separation might have happened. I've researched it since and now realize that I HAD to find the end of the coil wire or where the wire had been broken in order to join it to the lead wire. But in my haste to get things moving along, I just soldered the lead wire onto one or two of the coil wires on the last wrap. The way that a humbucker bobbin is started {I believe it doesn't start at an eyelet}, different from a single-coil pickup, there's no way of gauging if I still have a properly working humbucker coil testing through continuity from start to finish.
Unless the humbucker is miraculously still working, my hunch is that I'll have to un-wrap a few turns of wire from the bobbin to get to a new termination point. I came to the forum to make sense of the issue. Remember, this is my first time seeing this area of detail into a pickup.
The humbucker is fully assembled now awaiting a try-out. The thing is, I'm in the building process of reworking an older guitar, so I'll have to try the humbucker on a different guitar. That may take a bit of time.

I welcome any theory of whether the pickup is might still be workable at this point.
Sorry no pictures yet, but I think you get a general idea.

 

[GuitarDoc]

If you are measuring continuity, then the wire is not broken (if the coil wire was broken, your meter would not measure anything or it would be a very high resistance). If you've got the new lead wire soldered to the coil wire you're probably good to go. But it would be helpful to take a few resistance readings just to make sure. What pup are you talking about? What is the rated resistance of each coil and of the humbucker in normal series mode? What resistances are you actually measuring?

 

[Tinker]

I've got something...It seems as though that I'm in luck for getting the coils to measure resistance, assuming the values are in range. The pup is an Alnico II Pro APH-1b. I was able to get resistance on each coil as follows... Screw side 3.75 and slug side 3.85.
As far as getting the humbucker resistance in normal serial mode, I'm not sure what you're asking. If you mean those wires that should be tied off together for normal humbucker operation, I'm not quite there yet. That is the way I will wire them up, however. I've measured the neck pickup as well (same version of pup) and those values are a bit lower, which I would expect. Does it seem that I'm good to wire the pickups to the volume and tone controls at this point, or is measuring the humbucker resistance in normal mode a necessity before wiring?

 

[GuitarDoc]

Those numbers seem good. No broken wires.
Are there just two wires plus a ground coming from your pup? And both coils are connected together?

 

[Tinker]

When I initially took the humbucker apart, the coils separated on their own without any apparent resistance. I didn't see any loose connecting wire that would have indicated that the two coils had been connected. The lead wires coming from each coil were one black and one white. These wires in turn were connected to a four cable conductor cable heading out to the electronics. The grounding wire came from the four-conductor cable and it was soldered to the base plate.
This is my first time venturing into this and new to what I was expecting to see when I take a humbucker apart. Maybe this wiring scheme is unorthodox in this example but FWIW I did buy the pickup new. Are humbuckers supposed to wired together?

 

[Tinker]

Sorry GuitarDoc, I realized my last question was sort of idiotic sounding. Of, course the coils are wired together (as with the four-conductor cable). My pickup will be wired in a series configuration.
I'm good to go now after my discussion with you. I can estimate that the pickup is in working form and I'll proceed to get it hooked up.
Thanks for taking the time to walk me through it, and at least now I have a better idea of how the inner construction of a humbucker is.
I appreciate it.