Technically, it's a pickup

[ashcatlt]

Thought y'all might get a kick out of this. I've kind of been looking for a way to get a magnetic pickup into my autoharp without major modifications (or $$$) pretty much since I got it back before Katrina. Not too long ago I found references to these things as being the thinnest easily available pickups around, and read that you could easily remove the case to make it fit even tighter spaces. They're only like $4, so I bought one to try. It fit, so I bought four more with the intention of sliding them under the strings and wiring them in some series/parallel combination.

They are originally meant to go in the soundhole of an acoustic guitar


deleting kik account

But things get kind of funny when you open them up...

Yep, it's just a coil of wire wrapped in tissue and taped to a magnet.

Obviously, these are almost perfectly microphonic.  That can be fun sometimes, but at the volumes I often want/need to play...  I like to have control of what feeds back when. 

So I haven't installed them because I've been wondering about a decent way to make them more solid without the case and without adding any depth to them.  Kind of thinking about the way Dean Markley just bricks their pickups into some kind of epoxy resin, but I'm definitely up for suggestions on any part of that.  Like, I'd have to fashion some sort of form or mold and then use a material that could both penetrate the coil and harden enough to hold together and be less like a microphone.

This particular one is going to stay  in the case, though, and be mounted between the bridge and tailpiece on my newish Xavier XV900, which I'll probably post in the gallery in a few days once it's all together.  I'd like to pot it, too, of course, but it's going to be only semi-permanently installed so I can do that down the road when I figure out how...

[b4nj0]

Hey Ash, what are these? Forgive me if I've missed it, but I've read your post through three times. With the stated microphony and the slim profile, then this could be a solution to amplifying a resonator without splashing out for an NRP Hotplate? You can't beat the price either! Not many pick ups are as slim as that, certainly not at four bucks a throw.

e&oe...

[straylight]

Epoxy potting benefits from a vacuum chamber, slow epoxy and a pickup cover that doesn't leak. You can, however, pot almost any coil in paraffin wax. Best done by heating a small pan inside a larger one filled with water so you don't overheat the wax and make a fireball. Outside or on an induction hob is recommended. Just leave the coil(s) in the wax until the bubbling stops. Some wax will run out when you remove it but enough will stay in to support the coil. If it doesn't quite work, you didn't leave the coil in long enough. 10-15 minutes is about right. Be careful with plastic bobbins though, too hot and they distort.

[ubertar]

I've got one of these too... was maybe $5. I haven't tried it on acoustic but if you remove the mount it's not bad as a second pickup on a one-pickup electric, to go to a second amp (with different effects). I have an old, junky but fun Japanese el cheapo guitar it works nicely with. I may replace the guts with a hum-canceling single coil I have a patent pending on (*alert* I do plan to market that at some point... not in this type of case, though).

[ashcatlt]

Wow. I didn't see any of these replies. Sorry about that.

They're sold under a number of different names. When I go to My Orders at Amazon, and find the ones I bought, the link goes nowhere. They're not even archived, I guess. This is the cheapest I could find in a quick search.

Jun 4, 2018 19:29:19 GMT -5 straylight said:

Epoxy potting benefits from a vacuum chamber, slow epoxy and a pickup cover that doesn't leak. You can, however, pot almost any coil in paraffin wax. Best done by heating a small pan inside a larger one filled with water so you don't overheat the wax and make a fireball. Outside or on an induction hob is recommended. Just leave the coil(s) in the wax until the bubbling stops. Some wax will run out when you remove it but enough will stay in to support the coil. If it doesn't quite work, you didn't leave the coil in long enough. 10-15 minutes is about right. Be careful with plastic bobbins though, too hot and they distort.

IDK if you noticed, but there IS NO bobbin. There is no structure to the thing at all. I've done wax potting before. I used a cute little mini crockpot that I happened to have around. I just don't see that really working very well here, though.

I did sort of semi-permanently stick it under the "harp" on that guitar. Just run via its own cord to a separate amp it was pretty cool. I kind of got to questioning how I really wanted to wire it in, but worse the vibrato that I had bought for it didn't work because the break angle across the bridge wasn't tight enough to keep the strings in the saddle, so I had to buy the other version of it, and that now leaves some question as to whether even this skinny thing will really fit and work. I just swapped those over last week, and haven't gotten back to this part of the project. I'm just happy it's playable. Taking it out in public tonight for the first time.

I also have made exactly 0 progress on the autoharp thing. :/