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Post by antigua on Dec 26, 2017 15:17:02 GMT -5
The tweezer layout is odd, and seems application specific, but for the price, I'd make due. You know, I'd been speaking up the virtues of the whole impedance plot testing, and I still would, but it's also become clear that there are relatively fixed attributes to pickups styles, PAF humbuckers, Fender single coils, etc. and that the inductance is by far any away the least consistent aspect of a pickup design. If you have reference points for the pickup type, an LCR meter tells you 90%+ of what is useful to know about a pickup. This is especially true of Fender single coils, with don't have a whole lot going on, design wise.
On the bright side, the Chinese seem to pay close attention to what we want to buy. Maybe they'll hear our cries and make a $20 Extech. You're still going to have to wait six weeks to get it though. I'd put the magic price point around $30. If it's any more expensive than that, most guitarists will be content to wing it like they always have.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 27, 2017 1:35:55 GMT -5
40 bucks for shipping those tweezers to Europe though I wonder how the chinese manage to sell $1 items free shipping worldwide and still make some profit, but I digress because apparently their gvmt subsidizes the factories. Also another important factor is the very fact that they re allowed to sell in the west (this should not be taken for granted)
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col
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Post by col on Dec 27, 2017 2:18:37 GMT -5
Surely it would easy to get a pair of cheap alligator leads/clips and attach them to the screw terminals for the tweezers.
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dazz
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Post by dazz on Dec 27, 2017 9:43:37 GMT -5
The pickups arrived in the mail. The middle one clearly doesn't belong to this set: The bridge pickup measures 7.6K ohms, the neck pickup 6.5K ohms, as advertised The middle pickup I received is only 5.3K ohms, 50mm pole spacing instead of 52, the wire is yellow instead of blue, the pole pieces aren't chamfered, the coil is thinner and the wrapping material is different. Here's one of the proper pickups (already installed, couldn't resist to test their sound). The chamfering looks very much like the Donlis' A view of the bridge pickup's bottom Those solder blobs don't look like the Donlis ones, and there's no QC sticker. All in all I like the sound, but I'm not sure these are the same pickups as the Donlis Vintage 60's
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dazz
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Post by dazz on Dec 27, 2017 9:56:03 GMT -5
The bridge pickup, with the cover removed. Please excuse the poor quality of the pics, my phone camera sucks
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dazz
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Post by dazz on Dec 27, 2017 10:09:46 GMT -5
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Post by reTrEaD on Dec 27, 2017 14:54:08 GMT -5
The pickups arrived in the mail. The middle one clearly doesn't belong to this set: The bridge pickup measures 7.6K ohms, the neck pickup 6.5K ohms, as advertised The middle pickup I received is only 5.3K ohms, 50mm pole spacing instead of 52, the wire is yellow instead of blue, the pole pieces aren't chamfered, the coil is thinner and the wrapping material is different. One more glaringly obvious difference you didn't mention. The leads on the middle pickup exit from the top of the bottom flatwork, not the bottom. Not just different from the others in the set, particularly not good.
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dazz
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Post by dazz on Dec 27, 2017 15:22:35 GMT -5
The pickups arrived in the mail. The middle one clearly doesn't belong to this set: The bridge pickup measures 7.6K ohms, the neck pickup 6.5K ohms, as advertised The middle pickup I received is only 5.3K ohms, 50mm pole spacing instead of 52, the wire is yellow instead of blue, the pole pieces aren't chamfered, the coil is thinner and the wrapping material is different. One more glaringly obvious difference you didn't mention. The leads on the middle pickup exit from the top of the bottom flatwork, not the bottom. Not just different from the others in the set, particularly not good. True that. Perhaps concerning, some reviews mention inconsistencies in magnets and pole spacing between pickups, so it may not be coincidental. That been said, they owned up and agreed to send a middle pickup. We'll see how that goes
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Post by antigua on Dec 27, 2017 15:31:22 GMT -5
I don't know what the distinction is between FLEOR and Donlis from a business standpoint. There seems to be some degree of product overlap. Maybe they both resell pickups make by other factories in China, I can't say. In any event, it looks like Donlis is a bit more reliable, though also a tad more expensive than FLEOR.
The 50mm pole spacing really sucks because you have to find special 50mm covers if you want to change the color. Otherwise, it probably has a sub 2 henry inductance, which is sort of interesting in that you don't usually find anything that low wound. If nothing else, pull out those AlNiCo pole pieces and stick them to your refrigerator.
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dazz
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Post by dazz on Dec 27, 2017 15:56:56 GMT -5
I don't know what the distinction is between FLEOR and Donlis from a business standpoint. There seems to be some degree of product overlap. Maybe they both resell pickups make by other factories in China, I can't say. In any event, it looks like Donlis is a bit more reliable, though also a tad more expensive than FLEOR. The 50mm pole spacing really sucks because you have to find special 50mm covers if you want to change the color. Otherwise, it probably has a sub 2 henry inductance, which is sort of interesting in that you don't usually find anything that low wound. If nothing else, pull out those AlNiCo pole pieces and stick them to your refrigerator. I'm guessing that middle pickup uses lower gauge wire maybe? I don't have much experience with many different pickups, but to get to 5K Ohms with so little coil I suppose the thinner gauge might explain that? Lulz @ the suggestion to use the pole pieces as refrigerator magnets, hahaha. Tone-fridge baby! BTW, if you think that's underwound, check this out... these are the pickups my strat copy came with. They measure just over 2K Ohms, LMFAO look how they decided to connect the wires to the coil... what a piece of crap
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Post by antigua on Dec 27, 2017 16:22:16 GMT -5
Lulz @ the suggestion to use the pole pieces as refrigerator magnets, hahaha. Tone-fridge baby! BTW, if you think that's underwound, check this out... these are the pickups my strat copy came with. They measure just over 2K Ohms, LMFAO 2K, wow. People say China builds stuff cheap, but it's more than that, it's like there's as assumption that everything the West ever made was over-engineered, and so much of what we get from them is consequently under engineered. It's sad to see mistakes that have little to do with cost, and everything to do with attention to detail.
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dazz
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Post by dazz on Dec 27, 2017 17:19:51 GMT -5
Lulz @ the suggestion to use the pole pieces as refrigerator magnets, hahaha. Tone-fridge baby! BTW, if you think that's underwound, check this out... these are the pickups my strat copy came with. They measure just over 2K Ohms, LMFAO 2K, wow. People say China builds stuff cheap, but it's more than that, it's like there's as assumption that everything the West ever made was over-engineered, and so much of what we get from them is consequently under engineered. It's sad to see mistakes that have little to do with cost, and everything to do with attention to detail. Yeah, I noticed there was something very wrong with those pickups as soon as I plugged the guitar, but I was planning to replace them anyway. Knew they would be bad but not that bad! I like the guitar a lot though. The neck is pretty awesome, the fret work is remarkable (managed to get the action below 1.5mm low E / 1.2mm high E) and it stays in tune just fine. For 89 EUR shipped I think it's a bargain. A bone nut, roller trees, locked trem and the addition of these pickups should turn it into a pretty nice instrument for about 120€ ($140). It's extremely light at 2.5Kg (5.5 pounds), basswood body which I personally like. I don't know if the low weight will effect sustain but I don't care too much: I'm a Johnny Marr / Peter Buck type of player... only much, MUCH, MUCH worse
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2017 8:06:13 GMT -5
so any tone review on the new Fleor pups? I got a little disappointed. It seems I wasted 50 EUR......
as a side note : first I pay, then the clearance is performed, then the packet is shipped with tracking no, and finally I receive an email from some "kelly" (for some reason it seems every second chinese female has an anglosaxon first name), that they wait for the payment to be confirmed. I said WTF? I went through a take-screen-snapshot/email back/repeat circle till "kelly" said that they had already shipped. Cross fingers with what I'll receive. I think kelly is a robot whose ntp (network time protocol/service) daemon went a little off, and they don't mind putting another robot make a new pup which the unmanned chinese cargo ship will happily eventually bring it to me some day in mid 2018.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2017 9:23:06 GMT -5
bump !!
any actual tone review?
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dazz
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Post by dazz on Dec 30, 2017 11:21:15 GMT -5
bump !! any actual tone review? They sound pretty good to me. My final verdict on the deal will depend on what I receive for a middle pickup. Also we'll see if the gadget we got can be used to test the pickups. At any rate, really hope it goes well for you
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2017 12:10:48 GMT -5
bump !! any actual tone review? They sound pretty good to me. My final verdict on the deal will depend on what I receive for a middle pickup. Also we'll see if the gadget we got can be used to test the pickups. At any rate, really hope it goes well for you thanx! btw i wouldn't sweat over the mid pup. if it quacks in 2 and 4 then its all good.
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dazz
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Post by dazz on Dec 30, 2017 13:57:15 GMT -5
They sound pretty good to me. My final verdict on the deal will depend on what I receive for a middle pickup. Also we'll see if the gadget we got can be used to test the pickups. At any rate, really hope it goes well for you thanx! btw i wouldn't sweat over the mid pup. if it quacks in 2 and 4 then its all good. Let us know what you think of yours when you get them
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 31, 2017 2:34:43 GMT -5
Let us know what you think of yours when you get them yes of course, after all the help we've got from this forum, the slightest help we can give back is a must.
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dazz
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Post by dazz on Jan 23, 2018 18:56:00 GMT -5
I finally got the middle pickup that matches the set I originally ordered. Pups are installed in my strat copy and I'm really impressed with how good they sound
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Post by antigua on Jan 23, 2018 19:06:31 GMT -5
I finally got the middle pickup that matches the set I originally ordered. Pups are installed in my strat copy and I'm really impressed with how good they sound Yeah, it's amazing how a pickup swap makes a guitar feel like it just became $500 more valuable. That's why someone can pay $300 for a set and feel like they somehow got a bargain, of course the secret is you can get a much, much better bargain when you have access to good data.
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dazz
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Post by dazz on Nov 20, 2021 19:31:10 GMT -5
Guys, there's this cheap LCR meter that actually measures inductance at 100Hz. It's not super accurate in it's measurements, but it has trimpots for calibration.
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Post by antigua on Nov 21, 2021 17:21:47 GMT -5
Guys, there's this cheap LCR meter that actually measures inductance at 100Hz. It's not super accurate in it's measurements, but it has trimpots for calibration. The issue with these LCR meters with the big dial is that they usually assume the component being tested is nearly ideal, like a typical cap, or a high Q inductor, but guitar pickups have a much higher DC resistance that is expected of an inductor, and what would be considered leakage in the case of a capacitor. The LCR meters that have as series/parallel equivalent circuit selector is a way of telling the LCR meter that there's a series or parallel resistance beside the ideal component, so it comes up with a more accurate calculation based on that provided input. Some people have measure inductance of pickups with those cheaper meters, and it seemed reasonably close for inductance but not capacitance, but I think it's hit or miss. A Fender style pickup is closer to an ideal inductor, so it would measure more accurately than a PAF type pickup, which is very "lossy" / imperfect if you think about it as an ideal inductor.
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dazz
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Post by dazz on Jan 14, 2022 5:24:17 GMT -5
Guys, there's this cheap LCR meter that actually measures inductance at 100Hz. It's not super accurate in it's measurements, but it has trimpots for calibration. The issue with these LCR meters with the big dial is that they usually assume the component being tested is nearly ideal, like a typical cap, or a high Q inductor, but guitar pickups have a much higher DC resistance that is expected of an inductor, and what would be considered leakage in the case of a capacitor. The LCR meters that have as series/parallel equivalent circuit selector is a way of telling the LCR meter that there's a series or parallel resistance beside the ideal component, so it comes up with a more accurate calculation based on that provided input. Some people have measure inductance of pickups with those cheaper meters, and it seemed reasonably close for inductance but not capacitance, but I think it's hit or miss. A Fender style pickup is closer to an ideal inductor, so it would measure more accurately than a PAF type pickup, which is very "lossy" / imperfect if you think about it as an ideal inductor. The meter finally arrived. I have two sets of pickups I can measure, these FLEOR ones, that are supposed to be the same as the Donlis DS53, and a set of Donlis DLS51 buckers. The meter seems to use a 150Hz signal to measure inductance, that's a good start, right? DLS51 measure 4.8H for the bridge pup and 3.8H for the neck pup. Pretty close to the advertised 4.6H & 3.4H respectively. Although I measured them in-circuit, not sure if that could be skewing the measurements. I can't measure the FLEOR single coils for now. EDIT: OK, I measured the FLEOR pups as well. Weird, all three of them measure 6.8K ohms and 2.8H in circuit. Quite a discrepancy for the bridge pickup that originally measured 7.6K ohms. Maybe I need to measure them out of circuit?
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Post by antigua on Jan 20, 2022 11:22:15 GMT -5
The issue with these LCR meters with the big dial is that they usually assume the component being tested is nearly ideal, like a typical cap, or a high Q inductor, but guitar pickups have a much higher DC resistance that is expected of an inductor, and what would be considered leakage in the case of a capacitor. The LCR meters that have as series/parallel equivalent circuit selector is a way of telling the LCR meter that there's a series or parallel resistance beside the ideal component, so it comes up with a more accurate calculation based on that provided input. Some people have measure inductance of pickups with those cheaper meters, and it seemed reasonably close for inductance but not capacitance, but I think it's hit or miss. A Fender style pickup is closer to an ideal inductor, so it would measure more accurately than a PAF type pickup, which is very "lossy" / imperfect if you think about it as an ideal inductor. The meter finally arrived. I have two sets of pickups I can measure, these FLEOR ones, that are supposed to be the same as the Donlis DS53, and a set of Donlis DLS51 buckers. The meter seems to use a 150Hz signal to measure inductance, that's a good start, right? DLS51 measure 4.8H for the bridge pup and 3.8H for the neck pup. Pretty close to the advertised 4.6H & 3.4H respectively. Although I measured them in-circuit, not sure if that could be skewing the measurements. I can't measure the FLEOR single coils for now. EDIT: OK, I measured the FLEOR pups as well. Weird, all three of them measure 6.8K ohms and 2.8H in circuit. Quite a discrepancy for the bridge pickup that originally measured 7.6K ohms. Maybe I need to measure them out of circuit? Yeah, without knowing the pot values in the circuit, it's hard to know how they're impacting the reading. Humbuckers are the least likely to measure accurate due to the especially low Q factor though. I think only Fender style pickups will read reliably, since they don't have steel parts.
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