Help needed for winding problem

[gtrplr2]

Hello,

I am new to the pickup winding world, and I have encountered a problem that I just can not figure out. I purchased a Shatten designed winder and have assembled several Tele bridge pickups with good luck. My problem comes when winding Strat pickups, and it is driving me crazy, so I need some help from others who might have been in my shoes. I am winding the pickup with 42ga wire at 8350 winds, for a vintage type tone. After I have wound the pickup, install the leads, I get over 1 Meg of resistance on my DMM. I have tried this several times now, as I was sure that I had made a mistake, and most likely have done something wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated so I do not go crazy trying to figure this out.

Jeff

[Dave Kerr]

Try working backwards to narrow down it down - did you measure the resistance before soldering the leads? Try that.

[gtrplr2]

Thanks Dave Kerr,

I will unwind the pickup a bit and see if that will help, I will update later tonight.

[David Schwab]

How are you treating the ends of the wire to remove the insulation before you solder them to the eyelets?

[gtrplr2]

Thanks David Schwab,

I did not treat the ends in the eyelet, or scrape off any coating, before I solder them in place with the leads attached. I had not thought that necessary as I was not having trouble with the Tele style pickups. I just went to the Stew Mac website where I purchased the wire, and sure enough here is what I found: You can check the DC resistance during the winding process by gently scraping off some of the protective coating on the coil wire with a hobby knife. Touch the “start” of the coil with one probe from your volt-ohm meter and touch the other probe to a portion of scraped coil wire just off of the coil (don’t cut the coil wire!). So as I thought, this whole mess is my fault for not properly reading the instructions, and proceeding ahead without much thought, especially after the Tele pups came out fine, just beginners luck I guess! I also read that some wire does not need to be scraped, and I obviously did not check into it. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, and I will now go back and carefully start the process of scraping the ends of the eyelet wires, and trying to make it work out. I will check back in after this is done.

[roundmidnight]

Jeff,

If you haven't torn anything apart yet I would recommend putting your DMM across the output leads and apply your iron to first one eyelet and then the other. Typically for SPN wire if you melt the polymer in the bobbin adjacent to the eyelet and get a little smoke you will flash off the insulation and get continuity through the coil.

Fender SC's aren't so bad because you can get at the eyelets but humbuckers are big trouble if you don't get the inner lead with continuity to the magnet wire. Heavy build enamel (PE) or formvar I generally sand with 400 or 600 grit wet dry sand paper and then solder to the lead leaving a pigtail off the solder joint. If I can get continuity from the magnet wire to the end of the flying lead I go ahead and wind.

Hope this helps,

RM

[gtrplr2]

Thanks RM!

Here is what I did. Before I received your reply, I was down working on the pickup and I believe I must have done what you said by mistake. I unhooked both lead wires, and checked the eyelets with my MM, and to my surprise it reads good at 6.12K, so I then hooked up one lead at a time and when I was done, it reads as it should. So I think I might have been a bit to carefully with the solder iron heat trying not to overheat or damage the coil wire. This time I left the heat on the eyelet for a bit longer, and it must have got the continuity that you spoke of. This is a big relief, as I actually wound, and tore apart two other Strat style pickups with the very same high resistance issue. (good thing they are all mine) I guess that this is the way to learn, and I am so pleased that a forum like this exists for beginners like me. Thanks to everyone for all the great info!! I am sure that this will not likely be my last frantic call for help.

[David Schwab]

Thanks David Schwab,

I did not treat the ends in the eyelet, or scrape off any coating, before I solder them in place with the leads attached. I had not thought that necessary as I was not having trouble with the Tele style pickups. I just went to the Stew Mac website where I purchased the wire, and sure enough here is what I found: You can check the DC resistance during the winding process by gently scraping off some of the protective coating on the coil wire with a hobby knife. Touch the “start” of the coil with one probe from your volt-ohm meter and touch the other probe to a portion of scraped coil wire just off of the coil (don’t cut the coil wire!). So as I thought, this whole mess is my fault for not properly reading the instructions, and proceeding ahead without much thought, especially after the Tele pups came out fine, just beginners luck I guess! I also read that some wire does not need to be scraped, and I obviously did not check into it. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, and I will now go back and carefully start the process of scraping the ends of the eyelet wires, and trying to make it work out. I will check back in after this is done.

I use a butane lighter. Just pass the flame past the wire quickly a few times. You see the insulation burn off and the wire is lighter on the end. Not too close though or you will melt the wire.

You might be able to burn the insulation off at the eyelet and apply some more solder.

Some wire is solderable, so the insulation burs off on it's own, but the Stew-mac wire isn't like that.

[David Schwab]

Thanks RM!

Here is what I did. Before I received your reply, I was down working on the pickup and I believe I must have done what you said by mistake. I unhooked both lead wires, and checked the eyelets with my MM, and to my surprise it reads good at 6.12K, so I then hooked up one lead at a time and when I was done, it reads as it should. So I think I might have been a bit to carefully with the solder iron heat trying not to overheat or damage the coil wire. This time I left the heat on the eyelet for a bit longer, and it must have got the continuity that you spoke of. This is a big relief, as I actually wound, and tore apart two other Strat style pickups with the very same high resistance issue. (good thing they are all mine) I guess that this is the way to learn, and I am so pleased that a forum like this exists for beginners like me. Thanks to everyone for all the great info!! I am sure that this will not likely be my last frantic call for help.

Ok cool! I hadn't read down that far yet!

[gtrplr2]

Thanks again David!

I was just lucky this time, but I will watch it much closely from now on. I am looking into some different wire, and think this might be a better way to go, what do you think? I will be focusing on the vintage winds of single coil pickups for now, I think it is a good way for me to start out, and that is really what I like, at least for now. Here is the wire I am talking about from Mojo:
http://www.mojomusicalsupply.com/ite...014&id=2113765

[David Schwab]

Yeah the Mojo wire is good.

I also have a Schatten winder. Mine is the older gray metal case version. I've had it for a few years now.

Recently my motor started to run slow, so I emailed them and Les Schatten called me a few days later. He seemed like a cool guy, and sent me a new motor.

Nice company to do business with.

[EtLa]

Hello,

. After I have wound the pickup, install the leads, I get over 1 Meg of resistance on my DMM.

oupss already answered

[Seth Leigh]

David, I'm surprised that you say the StewMac wire isn't solderable (without scraping insulation off). I've made three humbuckers so far, and the six coils I've wound for them were all made from wire I got from StewMac last summer, and I just wrapped the 42 awg around the ends of the lead wires and soldered, and they worked fine.


ps: Btw, if anyone has a used Schatten winder they will make a deal on, I'd be interesting in talking to them. I've been using a hand-cranked, cheap Chinese-made (really awful quality) grinder as my winder, with the bobbins sticky-taped to a wooden fixture I made for the grinder. I have no counter, so I just have been filling, or mostly filling as I've gotten more experience with this, the bobbins, soldering the second lead wire on, and checking the DC resistance. If the resistance was higher than I wanted, I unwrapped some and measured again, until I got it where I wanted it. I put enough wire on that so far I haven't yet had a coil come out lower than I'd wanted. My latest pickup, a hotter bridge pickup I made with an A8 magnet on a 52mm humbucker kit I got from Montreux, each coil measured about 5.13k.

[Joe Gwinn]

David, I'm surprised that you say the StewMac wire isn't solderable (without scraping insulation off). I've made three humbuckers so far, and the six coils I've wound for them were all made from wire I got from StewMac last summer, and I just wrapped the 42 awg around the ends of the lead wires and soldered, and they worked fine.

The solderable wire typically requires 750 F to work; 700 F won't quite work, and 800 F works instantly.

[David Schwab]

The solderable wire typically requires 750 F to work; 700 F won't quite work, and 800 F works instantly.

I use a 40W iron... I have no idea how hot that gets, but I do know that I haven't been able to melt the insulation on Stew-mac wire. I tried too.

Most of the wire I use know says 155 or 170 on the label. Isn't that the temperature that the insulation melts at?

I always use a lighter to remove the insulation anyway.