Which coil on a humbucker is RWRP?

jumble jumble

jumble jumble

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The reason I ask is:

I want to split a bridge JB on a Strat to just the adjustable coil, and then combine it with a split Vintage Hot Stack Plus in the middle for an approximation of a quack tone.

It seems that most wiring diagrams assume you're going to split humbuckers to the slug coil.

I know that you can get the Stack Plus range of pickups with a RWRP top coil so that you can split it and use it to cancel hum on a single coil.

So my two questions are this:

1. Why is it always assumed you're splitting to the slug coil? I want to split to the screws to get more twang, is that a problem?

2. One coil on the humbucker is normal, and the other is RWRP. Which is which? This would decide what type of middle pickup I get.
 
Re: Which coil on a humbucker is RWRP?

Neither coil of a humbucker is RW. Its only RP by virtue of the way the magnet lies. The stud coil will humbuck with a normal neck single and the screw coil will humbuck with the normal middle pup. (RWRP)

So, for most people, they'd swap the neck and middle pups. In your case, you're good to go. But if you split the bridge pup by shorting to ground, you need to use red for hot, white for ground, and short the black and green together, which then get shorted to ground to split the pup.
 
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Re: Which coil on a humbucker is RWRP?

ArtieToo said:
Neither coil of a humbucker is RW. Its only RP by virtue of the way the magnet lies. The stud coil will humbuck with a normal neck single and the screw coil will humbuck with the normal middle pup. (RWRP)

So, for most people, they'd swap the neck and middle pups. In your case, you're good to go. But if you split the bridge pup by shorting to ground, you need to use red for hot, white for ground, and short the black and green together, which then get shorted to ground to split the pup.
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Cool, that's really helpful, thank you. I wanted to get a Custom Stack Plus neck and Vintage Hot Stack Plus middle. So am I right in thinking I would get a regular CS+ and a RWRP VHS+?

And to reconfirm, is there any problem splitting to the screw coil?
 
Re: Which coil on a humbucker is RWRP?

jumble jumble said:
Cool, that's really helpful, thank you. I wanted to get a Custom Stack Plus neck and Vintage Hot Stack Plus middle. So am I right in thinking I would get a regular CS+ and a RWRP VHS+?

And to reconfirm, is there any problem splitting to the screw coil?
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The Stacks are a slightly different animal. I'm not exactly sure if they will work the same way. The funny thing is, I have a neck/middle Stack set myself, to be used with a PATB-3B, but I haven't installed them yet.

I'd go ahead and do it, but be prepared to switch the neck/middle pups. And no, there's no problem splitting to the screw coil.

Sorry I couldn't give a more definitive answer. (Perhaps Scott or Frank will weigh in on this.)
 
Re: Which coil on a humbucker is RWRP?

ArtieToo said:
The Stacks are a slightly different animal. I'm not exactly sure if they will work the same way. The funny thing is, I have a neck/middle Stack set myself, to be used with a PATB-3B, but I haven't installed them yet.

I'd go ahead and do it, but be prepared to switch the neck/middle pups. And no, there's no problem splitting to the screw coil.

Sorry I couldn't give a more definitive answer. (Perhaps Scott or Frank will weigh in on this.)
Click to expand...

Thanks. Thing is I do need a definitive answer as I'm not planning on getting the same pickup for neck and mid positions!
 
Re: Which coil on a humbucker is RWRP?

dvadneau said:
Aren't the two coils wound opposite direction to each other? It's RW when compared to the other coil. Thus each coil is RWRP to the other. No?
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No. Not in a "normal" humbucker. The two coils are identical. When they're connected together, you wire them reverse polarity to each other, ie., start-to-start or finish-to-finish. That would make them cancel each other. (The noise does.) But the magnet is layed underneath such that each coil sees a different pole. Thus the two coils are back in phase, but the noise isn't. (The noise isn't affected by the magnet.)

Make sense? :)
 
Re: Which coil on a humbucker is RWRP?

Just to beat the horse good and dead, I think what I was missing is that it's the current that moves in the opposite direction not that the coil is wound in the opposite direction.

This is a pretty good diagram: http://www.1728.org/guitar1b.htm

I'm visually-minded so that helped :)

The problem is that if you read any info about humbuckers that is not how it is described.

A humbucker has two coils wound in opposite directions, one clockwise and the other counter-clockwise. The magnets in the two coils are arranged in opposite directions so that the string motion induces voltages across both coils in the same direction. If you want to get really technical, electrical engineers refer to this sometimes as “common-mode rejection.”
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http://www2.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/Features/en-us/humbucker-history-0326-2012.aspx

The direction of a voltage induced across a coil by the moving string depends on both the coil winding direction and the direction of the fixed magnets. A humbucker has two coils wound in opposite directions, one clockwise and the other counterclockwise. The magnets in the two coils are arranged in opposite directions so that the string motion induces voltages across both coils in the same direction.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humbucker

From Seymour's FAQs:
What we need to emphasize here is that humbuckers work because the coils are out-of-phase and the magnetic polarities are opposite.
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http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/faq/frequently-asked/installation-an/how_can_i_tell/

I try to think of it in terms of connecting two single coil pickups together.

Speaking theoretically here, let's say you only have two regular single coils of the same type and you want to connect them so they'll be hum canceling. Let's say you can flip the pole magnets so you effectively make one reverse polarity. Let's say the normal wire configuration is white hot and black as ground. What we have to do is connect the white wire of one to the black of the other, then the other white is hot and the other black ground. Does that sound right?
 
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Re: Which coil on a humbucker is RWRP?

jumble jumble said:
Cool, that's really helpful, thank you. I wanted to get a Custom Stack Plus neck and Vintage Hot Stack Plus middle. So am I right in thinking I would get a regular CS+ and a RWRP VHS+?

And to reconfirm, is there any problem splitting to the screw coil?
Click to expand...

The stacks don't come in any reverse, neither polarity nor wind.
 
Re: Which coil on a humbucker is RWRP?

Actually, they do. I have a neck and middle STK-S4 stack, and the middle is RWRP. Look here and you can see that Duncan confirms this.
 
Re: Which coil on a humbucker is RWRP?

OK, for notch positions when split. Sounds like an idea.
 
Re: Which coil on a humbucker is RWRP?

Wow. It is really hard to find anyone that gives you the option of buying one of the Stack Plus pups as the RWRP option. Everywhere just says "Vintage Hot Stack Plus" with an "add to basket" button. That's it. No option, nothing.
 
Re: Which coil on a humbucker is RWRP?

The only production RW/RP Stack Plus is the Classic Stack Plus middle position pickup. There is not an RW/RP Vintage Hot to be found. If you need one it has to be Shop Floor Custom. But if you split to the screw coil you won't need one.
 
Re: Which coil on a humbucker is RWRP?

Thanks for weighing in, Frank.

That's interesting. So splitting to the screw coil on a JB means combining with the top coil of a regular stack plus to get hum cancelling. That's pretty much the opposite of what was said above, my word this is complicated.

Thing is I'm splitting it again to combine with the neck pickup, so that would mean the neck pickup would need to be RWRP.

I'm happy to go custom on this as long as what I get is what I wanted:

Custom Stack Plus Neck
Vintage Hot Stack Plus Mid
JB trembucker Bridge

with the stacks split in both the notch positions, splitting the JB to the screw coil, and every position hum cancelling.

Obviously it's possible but so far I haven't got a definitive answer as to how.

Incidentally you can see the wiring diagram I'm going to be using here:
http://www.jumbleguitar.com/2012/04/05/electronics-part-2-initial-wiring-plan/
 
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Re: Which coil on a humbucker is RWRP?

I accept that it's not the responsibility of the folks on this forum to give me the definitive answer on this, but... where do I get an answer? I'm in the UK so it'd be difficult to call SD.
 
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