Questions about Phatcats...

[TaZMaNiO]

I bought a new Phat Cat set off Ebay to split-up as following and I'm having ALL sorts of problems with them...

I put the Neck-Phatcat in my 71 LP, which has a WCR Fillmore in the bridge, but when I split the WCR I got hum (I wanted humbucking), even after I flipped the magnet!

I put the Bridge-Phatcat in my Anderson Tele, which has an Anderson singlecoil in the neck & all I get is hum there too!

Does anyone know EXACTLY how the bridge/neck Phatcats are wound (clockwise or counter-clockwise)?

 

[Zhangliqun]

Re: Questions about Phatcats...

Try flipping the magnets and reversing the leads on both Phat Cats.

 

[TaZMaNiO]

Re: Questions about Phatcats...

Try flipping the magnets and reversing the leads on both Phat Cats.

First off, I really don't want to reverse leads, I want to use them as they were designed.

Secondly, isn't reversing leads on covered P-90 a no-no since the cover is supposed to be grounded?

Doesn't anyone actually know how Phatcats are wound so I can figure-out exactly how to use em?

I know how the WCRs & Andersons are wound, but I can't find any info anywhere (including searching the SD forums) about the winding direction on Phat Cats...

 

[Artie]

Re: Questions about Phatcats...

I don't know if this will be of any help, but I'm fairly certain that for two coils to be hum-cancelling, they need to be reasonably close to the same impedance and inductance. They would, of course, need to pick up the noise at the same level and phase in order to cancel.

I wouldn't think it likely that the Phat Cat coils would match either of the two you have.

Artie

PS: Duncan tech support could probably answer the wind question.

 

[Gary Ladd]

Re: Questions about Phatcats...

I don't know if this will be of any help, but I'm fairly certain that for two coils to be hum-cancelling, they need to be reasonably close to the same impedance and inductance. They would, of course, need to pick up the noise at the same level and phase in order to cancel.

I wouldn't think it likely that the Phat Cat coils would match either of the two you have.

Artie

PS: Duncan tech support could probably answer the wind question.

Totally untrue...

Burstbuckers, Unbuckers and the like have mis-matched coils and don't have problems with humbucking...

 

[Artie]

Re: Questions about Phatcats...

Totally untrue...

Burstbuckers, Unbuckers and the like have mis-matched coils and don't have problems with humbucking...

Well . . . there's another perfectly good theory down the drain. :laugh2:

Artie

 

[Low_fidelity2100]

Re: Questions about Phatcats...

Totally untrue...

Burstbuckers, Unbuckers and the like have mis-matched coils and don't have problems with humbucking...

Well, You gotta look at the difference between the Coils on those pickups. I mean True the BB's, and Unbuckers Have mismatched coils, But whats the Difference in the coils? Not very much I'm guessing. If one coil is 4.1K and the other is 4.9K Its only a 0.8k difference. So They will still be Humcanceling (Or at least Cancel Most hum, Cause in my experiance BB's Do have a Slight hum to them.)
I don't know the Differences between The Phatcats Impedence, and These other pickups. But I am Fairly Certain that There is Much more than a 0.8K difference. Most Likely More than a 2k Difference. And as the Difference In the coils Increases, So does the hum.

So, Artie Is actully Correct.

-Edward

 

[Dills]

Re: Questions about Phatcats...

I had the same problem with my phatcat neck and stock esp bridge pickup.
U either have to flip the magnet in the Phatcat to correct the phasing issue or buy a seymour duncan match for the bridge (which is what i did even tho i liked the stock) and i am very happy i did.

 

[Gary Ladd]

Re: Questions about Phatcats...

Well, You gotta look at the difference between the Coils on those pickups. I mean True the BB's, and Unbuckers Have mismatched coils, But whats the Difference in the coils? Not very much I'm guessing. If one coil is 4.1K and the other is 4.9K Its only a 0.8k difference. So They will still be Humcanceling (Or at least Cancel Most hum, Cause in my experiance BB's Do have a Slight hum to them.)
I don't know the Differences between The Phatcats Impedence, and These other pickups. But I am Fairly Certain that There is Much more than a 0.8K difference. Most Likely More than a 2k Difference. And as the Difference In the coils Increases, So does the hum.

So, Artie Is actully Correct.

-Edward

**WRONG AGAIN***

I have a Fralin unbucker set and the bridge has one coil wrapped @ 5.5K & 3K and I have -0- hum...

http://www.fralinpickups.com/humbuckers.asp

Unbucker - In our Unbucker, we wind the screw coil stronger than the slug coil. This makes the pickup sound a little more single coil, but the best reason to do this is for coil tapping. When tapped the stronger coil is active as opposed to half a pickup. Our best selling set of these is 7.5K neck (4.5-3) and 8.5 Bridge (5-3.5) 3 conductor lead with a Vintage Hot reverse middle in-between. (Humb.-single-Humb.).

Combining the two coils gives a total ohm reading or approximate output to compare to normal humbuckers.

Anyone else wanna take a shot? :laugh2:

It's amazing that NO ONE has answered the poor guy's question about what direction the Phat Cats are wound?

Not much info around there here parts I guess...

 

[Breogan]

Re: Questions about Phatcats...

**WRONG AGAIN***

I have a Fralin unbucker set and the bridge has one coil wrapped @ 5.5K & 3K and I have -0- hum...

http://www.fralinpickups.com/humbuckers.asp

Unbucker - In our Unbucker, we wind the screw coil stronger than the slug coil. This makes the pickup sound a little more single coil, but the best reason to do this is for coil tapping. When tapped the stronger coil is active as opposed to half a pickup. Our best selling set of these is 7.5K neck (4.5-3) and 8.5 Bridge (5-3.5) 3 conductor lead with a Vintage Hot reverse middle in-between. (Humb.-single-Humb.).

Combining the two coils gives a total ohm reading or approximate output to compare to normal humbuckers.

Anyone else wanna take a shot? :laugh2:

It's amazing that NO ONE has answered the poor guy's question about what direction the Phat Cats are wound?

Not much info around there here parts I guess...

Anyway Phat cats are around 8K and split buckers are around 4K which means a lot of difference. But more important it's the desing of the coil. Vintage buckers have narrow tall coils while phat cats (as any P-90) have wide short coils (in fact they are as three times wider and four times shorter). The frecuency response is very diferent from one to the other. This makes harder to achieve a humcancelling effect, however it should be possible to achive at least a certain one.

 

[Breogan]

Re: Questions about Phatcats...

Does anyone know EXACTLY how the bridge/neck Phatcats are wound (clockwise or counter-clockwise)?

You don't need to know how Phat cats are winded to know in which configuration they should be humcancelling with other pickups. (sorry, I don't know how they are winded :smack: )

I put the Neck-Phatcat in my 71 LP, which has a WCR Fillmore in the bridge, but when I split the WCR I got hum (I wanted humbucking), even after I flipped the magnet!

The ability to cancel the hum it's only a matter of how the coils are winded and it has nothing to do with the magnet. The magnetic polarity only determines if the signal from the pickups are going to in phase or out of phase. If you want to know which coil should be humcancelling and in phase with the Phat cat follow this steps.

1) Find out which coil of the humbucker has an opossite magnetic field of the Phat Cat neck pickup. Put the Phat cat polepieces against the polepieces of any of the bucker's coils, then to the other. The coils that atract each other have oposite magnetic fields.

2) Wire the bucker in a way you split this coil that has this reverse magnetic polarity. Try pluging the guitar to your amp and listen to the tone. If you obtain a out of phase tone from the guitar then reverse the leads of this coil and check again. Either you need to reverse the leads or not in the end you should obtain an in phase tone with a certain humcancelling ability.

Remember that if you need to reverse the leeds of one of the coils of the bucker you need to reverse the leed of the other coil too. Otherwise the humbucker won't work properly.

I put the Bridge-Phatcat in my Anderson Tele, which has an Anderson singlecoil in the neck & all I get is hum there too!

In this case if the pickups are in phase and humming means that they have the same winding direction and magnet polarity. If you don want to modify any of the pickups means that you'll never get a humcancelling effect from both. But this also means that you if you use the Phat Cat neck model instead of the bridge model the result should be a humcancelling combination. (Because the neck Phat Cat should be in a RW/RP configuration with the Tom Anderson pickup)

 

[Robert S.]

Re: Questions about Phatcats...

The hum is easy to fix with a humbucker.

You can either split the humbucker to the opposite coil by connecting the split lead to hot instead of ground. This will leave the screw bobbin hot instead of the stud bobbin. A humbuckers coils tend to be wound in the same direction physically and it is by connecting the finish leads of both coils that the RW condition is met. If the WCN set is 4 conductor, you can also swap the leads out to change the wind direction. I'll use SD wire codes since I don't know the WCN codes. Instead of black to hot and green to ground you'd wire white to hot and red to ground, connectiong the black and green for the coil split lead. If you do it this way you can split to ground and be hum cancelling.

With the P-90 and a single coil it's harder because you'll need to reverse the wiring of one of the pickup. You can do this physically by moving the wires at the point that they are attached to the pickups or by ordering a new pickup with the opposite wind direction. If you are under the SD 21 day policy you could get the pickup swapped out. You could send the P-90 to SD to have the leads swapped or you could get a different neck pickup.

Two equally matched coils will cancel hum 100% and a single coil alone will have 0% hum cancellation. As the coils wind values get farther apart, more hum occurs and less mid cancellation also occurs.

 

[flank]

Re: Questions about Phatcats...

i'd email Scott Miller to find out there winding direction......but i always have to add, isnt the neck Phat Cat wound RWRP to the bridge? that should be considered once you find out their winding directions