Ohm testing pickups

[Swampyankee]

I'm trying to decide whether to swap in a pair of A2P's I have in place of the stock Ibanez H1 pickups in my AR250 Artist. Nobody seems to know the specs on the H1's, so I thought I could at least get an idea how hot they are compared to the A2P's.

My question is, can I check resistance with my Ohmmeter at the leads in the control cavity (as they are soldered to the volume pots), or do I have to disconnect them first?

 

[Artie]

Re: Ohm testing pickups

It will depend on how accurate of a measurement you want. If you just need a ballpark figure, deselect the pickup you want to measure. (That is, select the "other" one.) Put the volume and tone controls on "10", and measure the resistance across the hot and ground of the pickup.

Write down that measurement, (which we'll call Rt), and grab a calculator that has the 1/x key.

If the volume pots are 500k, press:

Rt 1/x - 500 1/x = 1/x
That will give you the resistance of the pup in "k". (A reading of 8.34 would equal 8.34k).

If the volume pot is 250k, press:

Rt 1/x - 250 1/x = 1/x

btw - thats not the formula. Thats the buttons you press.

Otherwise, unsolder the hot wire and measure direct.
You need to only unsolder one wire.

Edit: One last thing. If you measure something like 7.435k, be sure to enter it into the calculator as "7.435", ignoring the 1000.