How to identify which coils is reverse wound? (help please)

[waltschwarzkopf]

Hi guys,

I had a pair of old pickups laying around and decided to make my own hybrids.

One was double screws with about 14kOhm and the other was double slug with 16kOhm. I also had a couple of chrome covers, so I decided to make two screw-slug pickups with chrome covers. I removed the plates, magnets, bobbins, soldered the bobbins to correct coloured wires and put them together.

However, during the process I mixed them up, so I'm not sure which bobbin is which. The way I understand it, the screws should be red-green and the slugs black-white, which is the way I soldered. The screw should also be south magnetic and the slug north, which is the way I placed the magnets. However, since the pickups were originally screw-screw and slug-slug, one of each bobbin should be wound wound CCW and the other CW, right? And in order to be hum-bucking, they should be RWRP in reference to the other coil. The RP is not a problem, as the magnets will take care of that, but the RW is what I'm not sure about...

How can I tell which bobbin is CCW and which is CW? I replaced the cables and taped everything up, so looking at the colours won't help. Any ideas?

What happens if one Humbucker is CW-CW and the other is CCW-CCW Will they still be hum-bucking?

Thanks in advance!
Walter

 

[DavidRavenMoon]

Re: How to identify which coils is reverse wound? (help please)

Humbucker coils are both wound in the same direction. You just wire them up in reverse.

The reason single coils are reverse wound, rather than just reversing the polarity of the wires, is you want the start of the coil, which is closest to the magnets, to be at ground so that touching the magnets doesn’t induce noise in the pickup.


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[waltschwarzkopf]

Re: How to identify which coils is reverse wound? (help please)

Humbucker coils are both wound in the same direction. You just wire them up in reverse.

The reason single coils are reverse wound, rather than just reversing the polarity of the wires, is you want the start of the coil, which is closest to the magnets, to be at ground so that touching the magnets doesn’t induce noise in the pickup.


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So it doesn't matter if one the bobbins are CW, CCW or a both? As long as I wire start-finish-finish-start, which I'm sure I got right.

 

[DavidRavenMoon]

Re: How to identify which coils is reverse wound? (help please)

So it doesn't matter if one the bobbins are CW, CCW or a both? As long as I wire start-finish-finish-start, which I'm sure I got right.

That’s correct. You wire them start to start or finish to finish.


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[waltschwarzkopf]

Re: How to identify which coils is reverse wound? (help please)

That’s correct. You wire them start to start or finish to finish.


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Oh, great! Thats a relief. I'll solder a bare wire to the plate in order to avoid any grounding and noise issues.

Last question. I should wire both pickups start-start in order to be in phase. Correct?

 

[AlexR]

Re: How to identify which coils is reverse wound? (help please)

That will also depend on the magnet too.