Alnico Humbuckers

[chrissyinbkk]

A mate of my brother gave me these to try out, brand new, he has them in a guitar and they to me sound good, they are an Alnico Filteron..... I was going to put them in the LP I'm doing now, but... Humbuckers provided 2 connections... hot and earth... Alnico's... 4 connections each... one obviously the earth.. the other 3? can these just be twisted together or am I now talking push pull pots?

edit... the pic is bad of the wiring there are 2 wires in the black shielding the are the earths?

[Simon Barden]

This page is very useful - even if you have to read it a few times to understand it. http://www.1728.org/guitar1b.htm

Each humbucker is made from two single coils - so each coil has two connections, plus a baseplate which has a ground connection. This diagram (from that web page) shows the normal coil connections but excludes the baseplate (to which any pickup cover is soldered). Ignore the wire colours used for the moment as they vary between manufacturers.

22053

For two-wire humbuckers, the signal hot wire is brought out (the + end of coil 1), the + end of coil 2 is is wired to the start (1 end) of coil 1 within the humbucker and the start (- end) of coil 2 is connected to the signal cable shield, as is the baseplate ground.

For 4-wire pickups, there are normally 4 wires plus a screen, (and the screen is normally a braided connection enclosing the other 4 wires.). If they don't simply come with all 4 wires plus the screen loose, then they normally come with the pickup ground wire (- end of coil 2) plus the screen connected together, the pickup hot wire (+ end of coil 1) separate and the coil 2 finish (+) and coil 1 start (-) wires that would normally be connected together at the pickup in a 2 wire pickup, are brought out and normally twisted or soldered together. If the pickup is only to be used as a humbucker, then these can be taped up with insulating tape and ignored.

But this pair can be connected to ground via a switch (or not) and used to coil tap the pickup so only one coil is connected.

If you want to mess about with series/parallel or phase reversal, then you need all the wire-ends separate.

So it would be useful to see all the wires - but I'd imagine that the black is the signal hot wire, and the rad and white wires are the screen and pickup ground connections, whilst the two coil connection wires are connected under the heat-shrink insulation.

If you have a multimeter and I'm correct, you should get a near zero ohm reading if you measure from the pickup casing to the red/white wire tip and somewhere in the 6-10k ohm region from the casing to the black wire tip.

If so, the red/white wire goes to the back of the pot and the black wire to the potentiometer lug.

If not, then a picture showing all the wires will help and we start again.

[chrissyinbkk]

Thanks Simon, I'll get that meter out and test the readings first

[chrissyinbkk]

Right, these are the wires... hopefully a better pic..

[chrissyinbkk]

and this is the damn meter I haven't learnt to use properly yet

edit..dunno why but the pic keeps getting cropped to show only the top part..there is an ohm range 2M, 200k...2k...200))))

[chrissyinbkk]

only reading i seem to get is from the back of the pup to the red and white wire is 3.6, same from the back to the thin black wire is 7.25, from the back of the pup to the 2 bare twisted wires is 0.1

[Simon Barden]

OK, all the info is there.

The thin black wire is the signal wire (7.25k ohms DC resistance), the red and white wires are the centre coil connection (roughly half the total DC resistance) at 3.6k ohms DC resistance), and the 2 bare twisted wires are the cable screen and signal ground. So for simple humbucker use, just put some heat shrink or insulating tape over the bare ends of the red/white wires, connect the 2 bare twisted wires to the back of the volume pot and solder the black wire to the input lug on the volume pot.

[chrissyinbkk]

You are a champion Simon thank you

[Dedman]

they look similar to the GFS "filtertrons" I used in my ES LP. I'm pretty happy with the sound.

[chrissyinbkk]

Now I'm confused again.... this is what the guy who gave me the pick ups said

"The bare and the black are both ground wires. If you were coil tapping one of these would be attached to the ground on the switch, but as you're not tapping them both are soldered to the back of the volume pot. The other two wires are your hot wires. These are twisted together and should be kept that way, and soldered to the switch."

Personally I think our Simon is right,

[Simon Barden]

I'm pretty sure I'm right as the resistance reading would be wrong for anything else. Is there anything on the back of the pickup that gives a clue to its origin or do you know what guitar it was taken from?

You could simply hold the wires against a lead plugged into an amp. If I'm correct, then hold the bare twisted wires against the sleeve of the jack plug and the black wire against the tip of the jack, and you should get a loud knock when you tap the pole-pieces of both coils with a screwdriver, Then hold the red/white wires against the tip and you should get a slightly thinner loud noise from one of the coil's pole-pieces, and a much quieter one from the other coil (which would just be mechanically transmitted vibration to the other coil).

You could also try holding it just above a guitar's strings which should give you more of an idea of the difference between the full humbucker and tapped coil sounds.

[chrissyinbkk]

Ok we have done that, with the pair of blacks twisted together going onto the sleeve and the single bare black onto the tip both coils give around the same noise when tapping the pick ups, when we switch the black single to the red and white twisted together then one coil is slightly lower than the other

The pick ups are Artec Filtertron Style Vintage 50's Pickups, purchased as while ago from Northwest Guitars, the guy that gave them to me has them fitted into LP but had a friend do it for him, the set he gave me are as yet unused, he bought them for another guitar he was doing but fitted something else in their place

[Simon Barden]

Here's the Artec wiring guide. http://artecsound.com/wiring/wiring_book01.pdf

From the look of it, there should be a green wire which should be the signal cable, and the black wire is meant to be the ground. The red and white are certainly the middle coil connections as I expected and can be used for a coil tap.

So under that heat shrink should be the green wire which has been twisted together with the shield.

If both pickups are like this and you plan on fitting both, then I'd keep them that way and use the black as the signal wire as I described before. They'd both be out of phase when compared to the standard pickup connection, but if they are both like that then it's fine. It's only if you want to try one with an existing pickup that you'll get a thin out-of-phase signal with both pickups on if you don't change the wiring arrangement on the Artec pickup, so that the black and screen wires are connected together, and use the green as the signal wire.

If you want to use both Artec pickups and one has different exposed wire colours to the other, then I would change one of them so that it matched the other, and you might as well then use green cable as signal and the black as ground, so that if you change a pickup in the future, it will be wired in a standard manner so no phase issue in the middle position.

I don't think your pickup donating friend knows quite as much about pickups as he thinks he does. Still, it's an opportunity to learn a bit more, which is always good.

[chrissyinbkk]

Both pick ups have exactly the same wiring colours, one night next week I will take that heat shrink off to see if there is a green wire, I've got more heat shrink I can put back on, ( rather suspect they are exactly the same pick up), when we come to the connecting i will take your advice and the thin black to the input on the volume and the 2 blacks twisted together to the top of the pot, will let you know how they sound, might yet revert back to the stock ones too so I can judge the difference. Thanks for your help

[fender3x]

I am also pretty sure Simon is right. If you take the shrink wrap off and see a green wire, I'd wire them conventionally. Do it the way Simon suggests if you are don't take the shrink wrap off.

The problem with not observing the convention is that if you want to change something later it will be harder to remember what you did.

I like to do a wiring diagram first, so I can remember. That works fine unless you forget what you did with the chart... As I have with frankenbass...

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

[wazkelly]

Your multi meter testing proved the above instructions were incorrect from the guy who gave you the pickups. Gotta wonder if he tried installing them that way and then gave away as they sounded crap all because he was wiring things up wrong.

[chrissyinbkk]

He didn't fit them Waz, the store he bought them off did, he still has the same set in that guitar, it was when he offered me his spare set he was going to fit in another guitar he got me the instructions from the store... Anyway, I'll be fitting them the way Simon suggested, good we have a forum like this or I'd have been scratching what little hair i have left off

[wazkelly]

Sorry, just realised I responded in the middle of other peoples responses.

Simon is on the money.

[Marcel]

I haven't sunk my mind into the detail ... however from the comment the guy who gave them to you I suspect that these PU's maybe parallel coil humbuckers instead of the usual and far more common series coil humbuckers...