scatter wound? what does it mean?

[shreddin_ED]

I hear this term,is it just the same thing as "handwound"?
I assume old 50's pu's are all scatter wound?

 

[BachToRock]

Imagine rolling a hose up on one of those wheel things... you can do it really neat and linear... or you can do it sloppily wher it looks like a total mess... "scattered"

 

[Lewguitar]

Scatter winding is effective on Strat & Tele style single coil pickups for smoothing out the tone and eliminating some of the ice pick shrillness some of those pickups have. It is less effective on dual coil humbucking pickups.

It seems to work best with pickups like the Strat & Tele style single coils...perhaps because the polepieces in those pickups are the actual magnets and the wire is wound around the magnets.

The magnet in a humbucker is UNDER the coils and the wire is wound around non magnetic steel screws or slugs. Scatter winding those pickups doesn't warm up the tone to the extent that it does in a Strat or Tele style pickup.

A machine turns the bobbin...a hand just guides the wire onto the bobbin.

Lew

 

[shreddin_ED]

Imagine rolling a hose up on one of those wheel things... you can do it really neat and linear... or you can do it sloppily wher it looks like a total mess... "scattered"

I hear it takes out the brittleness even if the pu is real? bright

 

[korinastratkyle]

Scatter winding is effective on Strat & Tele style single coil pickups for smoothing out the tone and eliminating some of the ice pick shrillness some of those pickups have. It is less effective on dual coil humbucking pickups.

It seems to work best with pickups like the Strat & Tele style single coils...perhaps because the polepieces in those pickups are the actual magnets and the wire is wound around the magnets.

The magnet in a humbucker is UNDER the coils and the wire is wound around non magnetic steel screws or slugs. Scatter winding those pickups doesn't warm up the tone to the extent that it does in a Strat or Tele style pickup.

The reason it doesn't do it as well on humbuckers is because humbuckers are in series. When you scatter wind a coil what you're doing is adding stray capatance to the coil. The overall capatance is like wiring a bunch of tiny capacitors in parallel- it increase capatance. When you take two capacitors in series, it will decrease in capatance. Overall resonant frequency in this case is determined by the inductance and the capacitor and the amplitude that it peaks at it determined by the resistance to ground.

 

[jmcorey]

The reason it doesn't do it as well on humbuckers is because humbuckers are in series. When you scatter wind a coil what you're doing is adding stray capatance to the coil. The overall capatance is like wiring a bunch of tiny capacitors in parallel- it increase capatance. When you take two capacitors in series, it will decrease in capatance. Overall resonant frequency in this case is determined by the inductance and the capacitor and the amplitude that it peaks at it determined by the resistance to ground.

Yes, at first that make sense, but isn't the capacitance in the first half of the coil in series with the capacitance in the second half of the coil? The capacitance itself is ccaused by the length of the coil itself, adding more wire on the other coil is going to increase the capacitance.

If you have a frequency drop by using 6 feet of cheap cable (with high capacitance), then you put an adapter on to it to connect another 6 feet of cheap cable, will your frequency drop get worse or better? Worse. So your capacitance is adding together. It is tempting to think that these model capacitors, but I do not think so in the end.

Humbuckers have steel pole pieces and metal bottom plates, which increase eddy currents, so your high end is decreased compared to single coil pickups. Scatter winding won't make much of a difference anyway.