HH Neck & Bridge coil wiring orientation

[zirltzn]

the color codes for, lets say, Seymour Duncan HH's show North coil with slug and South coil with screw and list the color codes as follows:

[SD's]
N-start = Black
N-start = White
S-start = Red
S-Finish = Green

the neck pup though has the screw slug at North and slug coil as South.

does this reverse the color codes or not? i.e., if one wants both outer coils on one switch position & inner coils at another switch position?

or do the pup companies take this into consideration when you order a "neck" pup and a "bridge" pup?

[JohnH]

Thats an interesting question, the only data that I have seen on all the sites is that the colours/polarity are consistent, so for SD, the red/green is south, and is the screw coil. I do my diagrms assuming that applies to both pups. But I have never had a guitar with a consistent pair of humbuckers to be sure. So I always check them, and work out coils and wires each time to get what I want.

John

[zirltzn]

i don't think i have a magnet polarity checker here at home.

remember the schematic i used of yours?

i tapped the Neck coils with switch in (#2 NxB) and (#1 N), put Tone 1 at 10 and its the South coil that is on and North is off.

i tapped the Bridge coils with switch in (#5 B), put Tone 2 at 10 and its the South coil that is on and North is off.

so, if i wanted say, the outside coils on at the same time, i would need to reverse the wiring on the Neck pickup, yes?

or is having the (Neck South on) and (Bridge South on) the same as both outer coils on?

[JohnH]

Interesting! It will be possible to get it to go as you wish, but a bit more investigation is needed.

My diagram is based on assuming two identical pups, and it would then provide a north and a south when coil cut.

Are your pickups SD, or are they original Fender ones? or others?

You can check polarity if you have a small compass, the north pole of the compass will be attracted to the south pup poles. Or you can use a fridge magnet and see which poles it is attracted to. You wont know north or south, but you can tell if your two screw coils are the same or different polarity, which is actually what we need to know.

In your build, there rae three combo positions, and two should sound full and in-phase, and one thinner out of phase. Do you get that?

John

btw, for info of others, we are talkin' about this:
guitarnuts2.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=schem&action=display&thread=5504

[zirltzn]

yes, that is it.

i posted the question outside of that thread though it does apply to that build also.

thx

[zirltzn]

i put a north magnet up to the pups and this is what i found:

the magnet was attracted to the south coil of both pups, repealed by both north coils of each pup.

[neck]
screw bobbin: north
slug bobbin: south

[south]
slug bobbin: north
screw bobbin: south

so the manufacture does take that into consideration for the polarity it seems.

----------------------------------------------------
[4-wire wiring color codes for pups]

my Neck pup is a bareknuckle
screw bobbin:
black-start
white-finish
slug bobbin:
red-start
green-finish

my Bridge pup is wcr guitar
screw bobbin:
black-start
red-finish
slug bobbin:
green-start
white-finish
----------------------------------------------------

>>In your build, there rae three combo positions, and two should sound full and in-phase, and one thinner out of phase. Do you get that?

yes in these pos's:

#2 : louder, brighter
#3 : twanger, a bit less bright, a bit less loud
#4 : much deeper, softer, not as bright ??out of phase here, yes??


i'm not 100% sure that the coil-cuts completely cut a coil out, though in this particular design it may not be meant too. i'm testing that by lightly tapping onto a screw/slug and listening over headphones. though the on coil could be picking up my light taps?

thx

[JohnH]

OK, its getting a bit clearer!

First, when you go to full coil cut, the design does completely cut out one coil. When you tap it though, you'll still hear a bit of sound from the other coil because they are linked magnetically. So the coil with the stronger thump when you tap its poles is the one thats working.

It seems you have two different pickups? from two manufacturers? with different wiring code colours? If If so, then we cant assume that there is any intended correlation between them, and so we must work out the right wiring from the data that you are testing.

I'm not sure about the descriptions of your sounds. Position 4, being that next to the bridge only position, should be the out of phase one, but it is not supposed to bedeeper, it should be trebly. So we may also have a phase mismatch happening due to your different pickup types.

There's two ways to attack an issue like this. The first is by trial and error, which will drive you mad, particularly on a strat where you can't test rewiring ideas without taking off the pick guard. The better way is to work it all out from outside the guitar, then go in and do one substitution to swap all wires to where they need to be.

Which leads to more tests I am sorry to say! We need to check this phase issue. can you do the 'screwdriver pull off test' as described here?:
guitarnuts2.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=reference&action=display&thread=4938

If you are set up to record into a pc, the pc version is very simple and clear, or else you need a sensitive analogue meter.

You will set the 5 way to position 3, both tones to about 8 so you get all coils working, and do the test on each coil, to see if all 4 coils make a signal that jumps in the same direction, indicating correctly in phase.

Finally, when you have both coils cut, based on the pickups that you have, do you want a bridge north and a neck south? or bridge south and neck north?

cheers
john

[zirltzn]

ok, i'll try this test procedure out and report back ...

thx for clarifying the coil issue

[zirltzn]

>>OK, its getting a bit clearer!

you know me, takes me a bit to paint a picture ;-)


>>...any intended correlation between them

what i did here was to x-ref the color codes of the pups with SD and wired accordingly to your schematic. not sure now, if that was the correct approach or not


>>supposed to bedeeper, it should be trebly

you're right, my fault a backward typo, the pos 4 is more trebly


>>do you want a bridge north and a neck south? or bridge south and neck north?

there seems to be certainly some sonic differences between both inside and both outside, yes? with this current wiring mod i don't think i can have both so i'll choose both hot outside coils.



here are images from attempting the screwdriver test. i have no idea is this is what you are looking for. doesn't look like your trace.

software = Audacity v1.2.6
amp = VOX AC30 mini-amp


Bridge pup


Neck pup


**note: neck pup has cover, only the screws are visible

[JohnH]

'fraid I cant tell anything from that trace either!

Ideally you plug the guitar directly into the pc line-in, or via a very simple clean mixer or other interface, such as a boss pedal in its buffer=off mode. We need to see the very beginning of each thump, does it initially go up or down. So youd need to zoom right into each trace.

J

[zirltzn]

Mar 27, 2011 3:36:32 GMT -5 JohnH said:

'fraid I cant tell anything from that trace either!

Ideally you plug the guitar directly into the pc line-in, or via a very simple clean mixer or other interface, such as a boss pedal in its buffer=off mode. We need to see the very beginning of each thump, does it initially go up or down. So youd need to zoom right into each trace.

J

OK, here is a redo. is this a bit clearer? guitar plugged directly into PC, no mini-amp this time.

looks as the bridge coils initially go down & neck screws initially go up. do you see it that way too?


[bridge pup screws in south pos]


[bridge pup slugs in north pos]


[neck pup screws in north pos]

[zirltzn]

i wanted to see what the stock fender pups would show so i hooked them up and this is what they returned.


[fender HH bridge pup screws in south pos]


[fender HH bridge pup slugs in north pos]


[fender HH neck pup screws in north pos]


[fender HH neck pup slugs in south pos]

[JohnH]

The recording and trace presentation seem to be working well. The Fender ones all seem to be clear and consistent, with an up then down.

The first set though seem a bit confusing, where the bridge traces have a couple of wiggles before the upward peak. Are they all done reasonably consistently, in that the screwdriver tip is resting on the pup pole, then lifted up cleanly in one simple move?

[zirltzn]

Mar 28, 2011 5:51:38 GMT -5 JohnH said:

The recording and trace presentation seem to be working well. The Fender ones all seem to be clear and consistent, with an up then down.

The first set though seem a bit confusing, where the bridge traces have a couple of wiggles before the upward peak. Are they all done reasonably consistently, in that the screwdriver tip is resting on the pup pole, then lifted up cleanly in one simple move?

i may not have been consistent in that approach. i'll redo them and post results.

[zirltzn]

i checked the wiring and resoldered a few connections. these sets look a bit more like they should, yes?



Neck pup screws (north)


Bridge pup screws (south)


Bridge pup slugs (north)

[JohnH]

hmmmm...its still not quite clear! eg The first trace above starts with a thump beginning upwards, then the same trace has one that starts down ward!

Sorry to be pedantic. Can you just focus on one trace for each of the four coils, with one pulse on each (so the ups and downs are clearer to see), just for the upward movement of the screwdriver. Pickup selector to the middle setting in which all coils should be in phase, so each of the four traces should either all start with an up, or all with a down. If not, then we know there is a phase issue.

If one pup has covered poles, theres still two coils under it, so just do it on top of the cover above wher the coils will be .

cheers

john