zero ohms and it works?

[dazzlindino]

Is there any way possible to have a humbucker read that it is an open coil and still function? The tech at Fender/ Charvel claim that EVH pickups reads nothing but still plays?
Thanks

[Mystic]

An open coil would read infinate ohms. Zero Ohms would have the super-conductor scientists knocking down your door. Oh, and no it would not work.

[Possum]

No actually a pickup can have a broken turn somewhere and still get sound out. There is still current being generated in the coil so that one lead that is getting a voltage potential and I don't understand the physics of it, Joe Gwinn could explain it, but you will get some sound. I have personally experienced this in a dead tele bridge pickup, the sound isn't very loud but its there. Maybe at the extreme volumes that EVH uses it still works, but screw that they should fix the damn thing...

[Joe Gwinn]

Originally Posted by Possum

No actually a pickup can have a broken turn somewhere and still get sound out. There is still current being generated in the coil so that one lead that is getting a voltage potential and I don't understand the physics of it, Joe Gwinn could explain it, but you will get some sound. I have personally experienced this in a dead tele bridge pickup, the sound isn't very loud but it's there. Maybe at the extreme volumes that EVH uses it still works, but screw that they should fix the damn thing...

It's the self-capacitance of the coil that allows an open coil to work. Basically, the broken coil acts as if it were a good coil in series with a ~100 picofarad capacitor.

I recall a patent where something like this was done intentionally: The coil was bifilar wound (where a pair of insulated wires twisted together is used to wind the coil), and one wire of the pair goes to ground, the other to hot, and there is no DC connection between the two (infinite ohms). The bifilar winding will have capacitance between wires of the pair in the thousands of picofarads, versus a hundred pF or so. The claim is that this worked quite well.

[David King]

I was going to say any pickup with a cap in series will show infinite ohms and work like a pickup. Villex bass pickups have a cap in them and you can't measure the DC resistance across the leads.

[Mystic]

Thats inyeresting. I've wondered if something like that would work with a guitar humbucker.

[David Schwab]

Originally Posted by David King

I was going to say any pickup with a cap in series will show infinite ohms and work like a pickup. Villex bass pickups have a cap in them and you can't measure the DC resistance across the leads.

Hey David, what do you know about those Villex pickups? You know he's the guy who invented the Lace Transsensor and Alumitone pickups. I figured the Villex pickups must use a similar idea. I haven't been able to find any info on them though.

Have you tried them out?

[Mark Hammer]

Originally Posted by Possum

No actually a pickup can have a broken turn somewhere and still get sound out. There is still current being generated in the coil so that one lead that is getting a voltage potential and I don't understand the physics of it, Joe Gwinn could explain it, but you will get some sound. I have personally experienced this in a dead tele bridge pickup, the sound isn't very loud but its there. Maybe at the extreme volumes that EVH uses it still works, but screw that they should fix the damn thing...

I've also had that exact same thing happen, and also in a Tele pickup (a laquer potted one). Basically, it sounds like something that had a reedy out-of-phase tone.

[David King]

I've had these Villex on the bench for 3-4 years without listening to them. For one thing he potted one of them backwards in the shell so his logo is upside down.
I just needed a J set the other day and pulled them out of the drawer. When I tried to hook them up to an Audere pre, they simply had no output, I measured them, infinite ohms. They also have 3 wires coming out and his schematic show 3 passive tone pots (mid, bass and treble). I assume he's got some sort of inboard L C circuit under the potting. These are clearly not designed for active bass applications.

[David Schwab]

Originally Posted by David King

I've had these Villex on the bench for 3-4 years without listening to them. For one thing he potted one of them backwards in the shell so his logo is upside down.

How can you tell on a Jazz pickup? I see on his website that the logo is on the left side of the pickup.

Originally Posted by David King

I just needed a J set the other day and pulled them out of the drawer. When I tried to hook them up to an Audere pre, they simply had no output, I measured them, infinite ohms. They also have 3 wires coming out and his schematic show 3 passive tone pots (mid, bass and treble). I assume he's got some sort of inboard L C circuit under the potting. These are clearly not designed for active bass applications.

Did you also wire the passive tone controls up before the pre? I bet you need his passive controls wired up. After all an active bass is just a passive bass with the first stage of amplification inside the bass, and not at the amp. I make pickups that are passive, but use a pre outside the pickup, so they are actually active.

I also thought he's doing some kind of LC network, but now I'm thinking it's some kind of transformer based circuit, because he also sells "passive boosters".

[Possum]

Do you have the patent number for that one you mentioned?

[Joe Gwinn]

Originally Posted by Possum

Do you have the patent number for that one you mentioned?

Not offhand, but I'll look.

[Possum]

would love to read that pickup and WHY they did that? To darken the tone of a low wind coil is all I can think of, strange the weirdness one finds at the patent office...

[Joe Gwinn]

Originally Posted by Possum

Do you have the patent number for that one you mentioned?

I found it: US Patent Application 20020073829, to Gaglio.

[David Schwab]

Originally Posted by Joe Gwinn

I found it: US Patent Application 20020073829, to Gaglio.

That's pretty freaky. Anyone have any bifilar wire to try it out?

[Joe Gwinn]

Originally Posted by David Schwab

That's pretty freaky. Anyone have any bifilar wire to try it out?

MWS sells it as "Multifilar magnet wire": http://www.mwswire.com/mfilar.htm.

Twistite should also work: http://www.mwswire.com/twistite1.htm.

The difference is that in twistite the strands are twisted, while in multifilar they are parallel. In a pickup, this will not matter.

No idea what these cost. I assume that there are other makers.

One can get much the same effect by putting a capacitor in series with a singlecoil.

[David Schwab]

Originally Posted by Joe Gwinn

One can get much the same effect by putting a capacitor in series with a singlecoil.

Well that doesn't sound too interesting then... I don't see any benefit, and depending on the cap value you would lose low end.

[Joe Gwinn]

Originally Posted by David Schwab

Well that doesn't sound too interesting then... I don't see any benefit, and depending on the cap value you would lose low end.

It didn't seem worthwhile to me either, but I've never tried it either, or heard it. But the Italian thought it worth protecting.

[David Schwab]

Originally Posted by Joe Gwinn

It didn't seem worthwhile to me either, but I've never tried it either, or heard it.

I remember reading something in Guitar Player mag years ago.. the guitar player from .38 Special put electrolytic caps in series with his pickups. He said it gave a compressed sound. I never tried it myself.

Originally Posted by Joe Gwinn

But the Italian thought it worth protecting.

Those damn Italians! lol Oh wait, I'm Italian! I guess if you come up with something new, and you have the money to get a patent, why not. As I'm sure you've seen, there are a LOT of unusual pickup ideas patented, and I bet most of them don't even sound all that good.

[Arthur Dent]

If you used capacitors right, I bet you you could get some pretty funny-sounding resonance between them and the pickup coil.

[David Schwab]

Originally Posted by Arthur Dent

If you used capacitors right, I bet you you could get some pretty funny-sounding resonance between them and the pickup coil.

I've done some stuff using caps to bypass one coil in a humbucker which gave some interesting resonance effects. The one thing it did was make a bridge pickup sound like a neck pickup on my one pickup lucite guitar. It worked best with very high resistance pickups. I've since lost the exact schematic...

I recently saw something like it on a guitar wiring web site. Sooner or later everyone tries the same things.

[Instigator]

Not to sound conceited, but the "capacitor trick" is one of the oldest in my book. Meaning I used to fit a hidden capacitor on some of my pickups that didn't affect tone but would render the pickup "unreadable" - talk about secret specs!