Pickups resistance tolerance

A

avereste

New member
Well, I've just bought online a pair of Fralin Unbuckers and have asked the guy in the shop to tell me their resistance.
The readings are 6.8k and 7.4K when they're supposed to measure 7.5K and 8.5K...
I think this is too much difference!
Should I trust this readings? Any experience out there with Fralins, or with resistance tolerances in general??
I wonder if there are factors like temperature or measuring mistakes that could affect the readings.
 
Re: Pickups resistance tolerance

call Fralin, meters vary, temp makes a huge difference.

I recently recieved a bridge pickup off the truck that was right about freezing. hooked up my meter and watched it rise over 2000 ohms as it warmed up. I knew it would change with temperature, but I had no idea that it was that extreme over an approx 40F.

Maybe they were mis-boxed or mis labled. That kinda stuff happens way to often it seems for me.

Measure it at room temp with it out of the circuit, then contact Fralin about it.
 
Re: Pickups resistance tolerance

The DC readings are temperature-dependant.

What's called "nominal" readings are taken a 20°C.

The colder it is, the lowest the DC reads.

At the nominal temperatue, the DC reading changes with the variation of the wire itself, being both variables the wire's thickness and the insulation's thickness. In an industrial setting with good quality wire, variations are usually +- 5%.

HTH,
 
Re: Pickups resistance tolerance

Duncan advertises +/- 10%, which I assume is the industry standard. Like the others here have said, temp makes a big difference.
 
Re: Pickups resistance tolerance

Resistance does vary with temperature but not THAT much. I don't see pickups read that far off except when I've just removed them from the wax pot where it's 150F degrees.
 
Re: Pickups resistance tolerance

I'm assuming that we're dealing with normal circumstances indoors where the temperature DOESN'T vary by 60F in just 2 hours. If that's what's going on in your house, you have bigger problems than pickup DCR -- pay that gas or electric bill!

Even with the linked Lollar experiment, it's a 1.5k swing. My point is you're not going to get a 1.1k swing just by holding the pickup in your hand or by a 5-10F temp change in the room.
 
Re: Pickups resistance tolerance

So I emailed Fralin and here is their respose.

" it looks like the ones you got we're wound from a
spool of wire that was reading low. All this means is that the wire itself
was "big/fat" and therefore had a lower resistance (the "smaller/thinner" the wire
the higher the resistance and thus the higher the ohm reading). We don't put much
stock in ohm readings because they can--and do--vary so easily. What really
counts in terms of a pickup is the number of turns of wire on a coil. Your pickups
got the same number of turns as we put on any pickup that's supposed to
read 7.5-8.5k. Some read lower (as well as higher. Sometimes an 8.5k will
read 9k or higher) because of the size of the wire (again, an ohm reading is
simply a measure of resistance, which varies according to the size of the wire).

Having said all that, please install the pickups and listen to them and if you're not
happy with them, we'll be more than happy to replace them."

I understand that output isn't affected, and they sound the same as the others 7.5, 8.5 unbuckers with thinner wire?
It's true that is the number of turns what counts, instead of the resistance?
 
Re: Pickups resistance tolerance

True. The whole point of the resistance spec is to give you some idea how many turns of wire are there. Variation in the tolerance of wire gauge and other reasons, resistance is just ballpark, not a perfect peg to 2nd base. Thicker wire might be a tiny bit beefier with the same number of turns because the coil might be a little bigger.
 
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