Little Question - Phase

A

AlexS7320

New member
Hey,

the top coil has north polarity in a humbucker (black to white cables [SDs]).
My Neck Single Coil has north polarity too.
Can i wire them parallel: normal-neck + White-to-Black->Ground, to get the desired result?

Many Thanks in advance for dealing with this question!
 
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Re: Little Question - Phase

You can, but you'll end up not quite getting what you expect.
Try to wire them parallel "neck + red-green". If they sound thin and nasal, invert black to white and red to green.
 
Re: Little Question - Phase

Red green is a different coil.
Isnt it that the polarity of black-white changes when i wire them white-black?
(Out of phase would require backwardsNeck then, but would cancel anyways, isnt it?)

Or do i change the phase of black-white to white-black but not the polarity?
 
Re: Little Question - Phase

As far as the terminology used:
Polarity is the direction of the magnetic field. Phase relates to the direction of the wind.

What model is your neck pickup?

Most (not all, IIRC) Duncan singles will be in phase with the black/white slug coil of a humbucker when black of one is connected to the white of the other (and vice versa).
 
Re: Little Question - Phase

The Humbucker is fed by one magnet, the wind is different in a south coil, how come its polarity is different from the north coil?
The Neck and Top Coil are supposed to have some polarity, isnt it that changing the direction (white to black) is the same as flipping the magnet, which i cant do since it would overall change the polarity on a non-variable basis...
 
Re: Little Question - Phase

gregory said:
A Phase relates to the direction of the wind.
Click to expand...

It's not specifically about the direction of the wind, but just as much which side of the circuit that the start and finish leads are hooked up to. That's not to be pedantic, the significance is that no matter the direction the coil has been wound, any phase issue can be fixed by reversing the lead hookups / and or the polarity of the magnet.
 
Re: Little Question - Phase

AlexS7320 said:
The Humbucker is fed by one magnet, the wind is different in a south coil, how come its polarity is different from the north coil?
The Neck and Top Coil are supposed to have some polarity, isnt it that changing the direction (white to black) is the same as flipping the magnet, which i cant do since it would overall change the polarity on a non-variable basis...
Click to expand...

There is one magnet, but that one magnet is laid sideways so that that north face is pointing at the slugs, and the south pointing at the screws, so the screws and slugs have opposites polarity. That means the electrical signal coming out of each coil is opposite polarity. So what do they do? They wire the coils out of phase, now the signals are back in phase, with double the voltage to boot, and the noise is cancelled due to common mode rejection.
 
Re: Little Question - Phase

AlexS7320 said:
The Humbucker is fed by one magnet, the wind is different in a south coil, how come its polarity is different from the north coil?
Click to expand...
It's a bar magnet on the bottom. The north part of the bar magnet is against the slugs and the south part is against the keeper bar. The wiring of each coil is done so that that the wind direction is reversed between the coils in order for the signal from each to be in phase.

AlexS7320 said:
The Neck and Top Coil are supposed to have some polarity, isnt it that changing the direction (white to black) is the same as flipping the magnet, which i cant do since it would overall change the polarity on a non-variable basis...
Click to expand...
Standard Duncan single coils are the same as humbucker screw/outside coils: south. They will be hum cancelling when paired with the slug/inside coil of a humbucker which is north. When you want to combine a standard Duncan single coil with the inside slug coil of a standard Duncan humbucker you typically connect the white wire of the single to the black wire of the humbucker to hot and the black wire of the single to the white wire of the humbucker to ground.

The Antiquity Texas Hot is the exception. It was designed to comply with the modern day singles by Fender.
 
Re: Little Question - Phase

PicoRiveraTele said:
It's not specifically about the direction of the wind, but just as much which side of the circuit that the start and finish leads are hooked up to. That's not to be pedantic, the significance is that no matter the direction the coil has been wound, any phase issue can be fixed by reversing the lead hookups / and or the polarity of the magnet.
Click to expand...
"and" ???

No, if you reverse the magnet and the wind direction then you are back where you started.

Let there be no mistake, reversing the wires reverses the direction of the current which is as if the pickup was wound in the opposite direction even if that wasn't done physically at the factory.
 
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Re: Little Question - Phase

Nice Info! So the screw coil gets the south from the magnet and the opposite wind sets it back to phase? But still the polarities will be opposite. So the slug coil is still north, though i change the wind (white to black) which just changes the phase again. It wouldnt even be heard since the poliarity of neck and that slug coil dont match, is that right?

Somewhere i once heard, going backwards (white to black) would be the same as flipping the magnet; but if thats not the case, it will not work out to combine slug and neck single coil without flipping the magnet, isnt it?
 
Re: Little Question - Phase

The relative combination is all that matters.

If two coils are wired together so that the direction of current is opposite then you get hum cancellation, regardless of the magnetic polarity.

The polarity relative to the direction of the current determines between two coils will determine whether they are in-phase.

This leads to four possibilities:

  1. in-phase, hum cancelling
  2. in-phase, not hum cancelling
  3. out-of-phase, hum cancelling
  4. out-of-phase, not hum cancelling
If you want #1 and you're dealing with the slug coil of a standard Seymour Duncan pickups and a standard wind/standard polarity single coil (and not the Antiquity Texas Hot), then (again) you need to combine wires of the opposite color between the pickups.
 
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Re: Little Question - Phase

gregory said:
reversing the wires reverses the direction of the current which is as if the pickup was wound in the opposite direction even if that wasn't done physically at the factory.
Click to expand...

Right, so wind direction can be neglected. "Reverse wound / reverse polarity" for example, is a misnomer. It should be "reverse wired / reverse polarity" because ultimately how it's wired is all that is relevant.
 
Re: Little Question - Phase

But if the magnet polarities are same, i get no sound or EXTRA HUM?!
So,
single coil black to hot, white to ground
+ slug coil black to hot, white to ground
Equals
In-phase, no hum cancellation
_______
Single coil white to hot, black to ground
+ slug coil white to hot black to ground
Equals
OutOPhase no hum cancellation
______
Single coil black to hot, white to ground
+slug coil white to hot, black to ground
Equals
?????
 
Re: Little Question - Phase

If you want #1 and you're dealing with the slug coil of a standard Seymour Duncan pickups and a standard wind/standard polarity single coil (and not the Antiquity Texas Hot), then (again) you need to combine wires of the opposite color between the pickups.
Click to expand...
Isn that simply my first assumption in very first post?
 
Re: Little Question - Phase

AlexS7320 said:
Nice Info! So the screw coil gets the south from the magnet and the opposite wind sets it back to phase? But still the polarities will be opposite. So the slug coil is still north, though i change the wind (white to black) which just changes the phase again. It wouldnt even be heard since the poliarity of neck and that slug coil dont match, is that right?
Click to expand...

Are you talking about splitting the humbucker, or using it in full humbucking mode, when combining it with the neck pickup? If you are always keeping the humbucker in humbucking mode, then all that matters is the overall output phase of the humbucker, which is determined by the orientation of the bar magnet. Rather than flip that magnet, you can just as easily reverse the leads of your neck pickup.

If you are splitting the humbucker when running it in parallel with the neck (which I don't think is a great idea due to the low inductance this will cause), AND you want it to humbuck (which I don't think is even worth the trouble), then you have to make sure your north up bridge is paired with the south up screw coil, and that you connect the neck so that it's polarity it opposite the screw coil. If you flip over the humbucker's magnet, they all this now applies to the slug coil instead. Since we don't know the wind direction of the coils, nor which lead is connected to the start and stop, it's easiest to determine this part though trial and error.
 
Re: Little Question - Phase

AlexS7320 said:
single coil black to hot, white to ground
+ slug coil black to hot, white to ground
Equals
In-phase, no hum cancellation
Click to expand...
No, that gives out-of-phase with hum cancellation

AlexS7320 said:
Single coil white to hot, black to ground
+ slug coil white to hot black to ground
Equals
OutOPhase no hum cancellation
Click to expand...
No, that also gives out-of-phase with hum cancellation.

AlexS7320 said:
Single coil black to hot, white to ground
+slug coil white to hot, black to ground
Equals
?????
Click to expand...
In-phase, hum cancellation.

...this all assumes a standard Duncan humbucker and a standard, non-RW/RP Duncan single that is not an Antiquity Texas Hot.
 
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