Tapped Pickup Construction

[spud1950]

When winding a tapped coil, having reached the point of the amount of windings for the lower output, exactly what is the method for hooking up the coil wire for the lower output lead before continuing the wind to it's finish point?

[Stan H]

Most builders add an extra eyelet to the flatwork to connect this to. That also gives them a secure place to add the extra lead.

[spud1950]

Here's what I'm getting at.Say your total amount of windings is going to be 8000 turns and the tap will be at 6000 turns.Once you reach the 6000 turns,how do you connect the coil wire to the eyelet in such a way that allows you to continue winding the other 2000 turns? I guess the easiest way to put it is what exactly is the procedure for winding a tapped coil pickup?

[David Schwab]

At 6000 turns you run the wire to the second eyelet as if you were done with the pickup. Then you start a new coil from that same eyelet and continue winding your 2000 turns. Then you connected that to the third eyelet.

[spud1950]

Thanks. I get it now.Knowing this, I don't think my 6000/2000 turn example would work too well.That would be a little off balance! Is there usually some sort of typical percentage,output wise,that the higher output coil would be in relation to the lower one?

[roundmidnight]

Yes Spud, the 6000, 2000 tap is probably close to the limit of usefulness since the 6000 wind coil is going to be pretty weak and bright. When I coil tapped (a while ago) I used to wind to about 7500 and then if the bobbin could handle it wrap on an additional 1500 turns for an overwound tap. You could use 44 gauge for the additional winds if 42 won't fit.

I found that a difference of 1000 to 1500 turns between the tap and total coil gave a noticeable increase in output and a slight difference in brightness.

It really depends on what effect you are going for and how you want it to function. If you are willing to do the work you will eventually get the result you are shooting for.

RM

[David Schwab]

Also, you can use different wire gauges for each part of the coil. You may need to move to thinner wire to get more turns.

[spud1950]

Thanks again.I haven't gotten to the point of actually winding yet.Just wanted to add to my general knowledge of pickup construction.

[Possum]

Thats kind of overkill. Traditionally a new piece of magnet wire is soldered onto the coil and led out, then the coil is continued winding. You didn't say what kind of pickup you are winding. My old coil winding book shows the wire being twisted and the tap soldered into the twist, its kind of vague how this is done, I've tried it and its a pain in the butt really. The eyelet thing works for Fender type pickups. Taps don't really work all that well, your inner coil is not going to sound like a coil of the number of winds it is, its going to sound like a coil of that number of winds with a big fat chunk of copper wrapped over it which will dumb down the treble. Probably why you don't really see any popular pickups out there that sell with tapped coils.....

[Dave Kerr]

Originally Posted by Possum

Taps don't really work all that well, your inner coil is not going to sound like a coil of the number of winds it is, its going to sound like a coil of that number of winds with a big fat chunk of copper wrapped over it which will dumb down the treble.

That's a great point - might make sense to do it the other way around, with the inner coil being the incremental part that's tapped in/out.

[David Schwab]

Originally Posted by Possum

Taps don't really work all that well, your inner coil is not going to sound like a coil of the number of winds it is, its going to sound like a coil of that number of winds with a big fat chunk of copper wrapped over it which will dumb down the treble. Probably why you don't really see any popular pickups out there that sell with tapped coils.....

Schecter tapped pickups used to be very popular back in the day. Duncan made some too. PRS also has tapped pickups in that guitar with 5 coils.

You could maybe use the outside loop to an advantage by closing it and tuning it with capacitors.

If it's left unconnected it shouldn't have too much of an effect... but then I've never wound any tapped pickups.

I think they just fell out of favor as anyone who wanted a louder pickup just used a louder pickup.

[roundmidnight]

I have wound probably 6 tapped pickups and don't remember them being terrible. They were all strat pickups because that was what I was building in the day. 3 are on a nephews guitar and are still in daily use. He likes having a normal and slightly hotter output pickup and sometimes uses one position for rhythm and the hot position for leads.

At the time I didn't really notice any difference between a similarly wound coill when playing on the tapped coil. Both coils in use are pretty much equivalent to a pickup with the same number of total winds.

Not sure why the outer winds function as "a big fat chunk o' copper".

RM

[David Schwab]

Originally Posted by roundmidnight

Not sure why the outer winds function as "a big fat chunk o' copper".

If you connect both ends of that outer wrap together it would probably affect the tone, but left open I don't see an issue.

[GlennW]

I had a single coil P Bass pickup that was about 7.15K, and added about 1.5K of 43 and a switch to it. I didn't notice any difference in the sound of the original coil afterwards.

[adamsapple]

sorry to dredge up an old thread but my duncan ssl-5 tapped pu works very well. the inner coil tapped at 6.8k sounds almost exactly like my ssl-2 pu at 6.8K. the full tap at 13K still sounds suprisingly chimey, with just a bit more output and mids. of coarse the highs are reduced a bit but not nearly as much as i thought it would. I really like this pickup. FWIW.

[Zhangliqun]

I disagree and think tapped pu's work VERY well and make them pretty frequently. I don't notice any treble loss due to the extra windings, likely because the extra turns are not grounded. There's certainly no loss of treble on a split humbucker, which is basically a tap between two coils.

Duncan continues to offer tapped versions of a lot of their single coils.