How many coils on a Humbucker?

Jake Massey

Jake Massey

Jul 20, 2018
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Liverpool
#1
So I'm thinking of building some cheaply made humbuckers as a little project for myself. How many coils should I use and what gauge wire? I'm looking for quite a powerful low end but something that can still punch through the mix, any suggestions/advice? Thanks
 
#3
Poke around in the Luthiers Corner a bit. Bruce Johnson had a thread about pickup winding. Not a huge amount of info yet but getting there. @Freekmagnet also has a thread documenting his process of learning to wind pickups. Very interesting.

Edit: I guess freekmagnet started both threads.
 
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#6
I would like to encourage you to have a go! Winding is a great hobby . Do you have a drill press? This is really handy for making bobbins.

I would recommend buying some 42 gauge wire as this is the most common for fender style pickups.

These days you can buy pickup winding machines for a few hundred, but I started back as a teen with an old hand-cranked axe sharpener that I repourposed.

You need two coils for hum cancelling. They need opposite magnetic polarity, but it's not strictly necessary to reverse wind one
 
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#7
If you need more "powerful" sound you need more windings and/or larger, stronger magnets (like Quarter pounders).
If you have some already existing PU on mind, try to find the specs.
Like a P bass PU. Normal is around 11 kΩ total/ 10000 turns per coil. Hot can be 16 kΩ. You can use the PU coil estimator.
Coil Estimator
Or, depending the bopping, just experiment. For ex., wind the boppings full, equal turns. Then you can unwind the wire. Say 1000 turns away. And check the sound. Etc.. It takes time, but you'll get real information.

If (=when) you break the AWG 42 wire you can solder it.
 
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#8
RobbieK said:
You need two coils for hum cancelling. They need opposite magnetic polarity, but it's not strictly necessary to reverse wind one
Click to expand...

Pretty sure it is strictly necessary, hence the common acronym “RWRP” - Reverse Wound Reverse Polarity. Reversing the polarity puts the signal out of phase; reversing the winding puts the signal back in phase, but still cancelling the hum.
 
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#9
ctmullins said:
Pretty sure it is strictly necessary, hence the common acronym “RWRP” - Reverse Wound Reverse Polarity. Reversing the polarity puts the signal out of phase; reversing the winding puts the signal back in phase, but still cancelling the hum.
Click to expand...

You can achieve the same effect by reversing the positive and negative connections on an identically wound coil after flipping the magnet around. It's a common trick for making a pair of p90's hum cancel in the middle position.
 
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#12
Jake Massey said:
So I'm thinking of building some cheaply made humbuckers as a little project for myself. How many coils should I use and what gauge wire? I'm looking for quite a powerful low end but something that can still punch through the mix, any suggestions/advice? Thanks
Click to expand...
I suggest you go do some reading on the pickup winder's forum (Google will pull it up...). I used to wind my own specialty buckers for lap steels and 5 string banjos and can assure you of one thing, if your time is worth ANYTHING they will NOT be "cheaply made". :)
 
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#13
ctmullins said:
Ah, okay. That’s just an easier way of reversing the wind! I shoulda realized...
Click to expand...
Yup,
Reverse the direction of wind OR reverse the direction of current flow.

It gets really complicated when you need to determine where you want the current to go in vs out, for applications using electric fields as well as magnetic fields.
Luckily we only need to watch the magnetic properties of our pickups.
 
#14
You'll need magnets

magnets.jpg


presumably at least 8 for one 4 string humbucker ($15.60)

Wire

wire.jpg


Flatwork

flatwork.jpg


And eyelets

eyelets.jpg


We're currently at $56.87. You'll also need a way to wind the pickup. I've used a sewing machine, but later went on to build my own winder. A cheap sewing machine can be had at a thrift store for $25.00 or there about.

To do this right, you'll also want to pot the pickup after you wind it. That will prevent the pickup from becoming microphonic over time. I use a crock pot ($15.00) and some wax ($5.00)

potting.jpg


winder2.jpg


So now at $101.87. Plus shipping. You may wish to just buy a couple of cheap pickups and save yourself some time, money, and frustration.
 
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#15
You can also use copper clad fibreglass pcb material for the flat work. It's cheap, easy to find, easy to work with, and you don't need solder eyelets.

Don't do this to save money. You can buy pickups out of China for a couple of bucks. Do it because its fun, challenging and educational. Also because you can experiment and make something unique.

Another place to start is by rewinding pickups. Here's a video I made about a pickup rewind I did for myself...

 
#16
And most of all, you'll find that there's enormous pile of mystification, black magic and all kind of mumbo jumbo in pickup making business.

Ps. You'll need some strong neodym magnets to re/demagnetising the Alnicos. And a cheap magnetometer is very useful, if you weaken or demagnetize the magnets. It also shows the magnet polarity. I wouldn't use it making a space rocket, but its good enough with DIY pickups.
WT10A LCD Tesla Meter Gaussmeter Surface Magnetic Field Tester 10Gs Ns Function 615200885892 | eBay
 
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