2.0 ohm humbucker ???

[toystoystoys]

Last year i bought off of e-bay a loaded pickgaurd (a strat hss with a three way toggle added in conjunction with the five way switch ) the neck single coil measures 4.5 ohms , the middle 6.2 ohms and the humbucker 2.0 ohms . all the pickups are wax potted . the humbucker appears to have both the hots soldered to the same lug on the five way and both grounds are soldered to the back of the volume pot so im surmising the toggle is not a coil tap . This humbucker without taking the cover off looks just like a paf without the sticker it does have a long enough leignth of wire to have been a neck pup and the wire is black plastic not braided sheilded wire . My question is , would any of you have an idea of who made a 2.0 humbucker or what type of guitar it would have been made for and is it most likely a neck pup . It does have a nice clean tight sound to it thanks for any input .

[daz]

There is no 2k humbucker to be sure. it wouldn't even be usable Don't forget the "k" by the way ! A 2 ohm humbucker wouldn't even work period. Sound like it's wired in paralell and that the toggle probably in on position at least goes from series to parallel. You should remove the hot wires from the toggle and measure from ground to each wire, then ground to one of the 2 hots with the other one not connected and one of them should measure higher abd that would be your normal series HB wiring. You should post a pic tho because it's hard to tell you exactly what going on w/o a pic. Seems strange the way it's wired because the 5 way only needs one wire going to it and the switching is done at the toggle, but it sounds like he wired two wires to the 5 way then used the switch to select which one gets activated. Weird way to do it and i don't see a reason why. But there may be....just need a pic.

[toystoystoys]

Thank you for your reponse , i do appreceate your help and knowledge . I used a beckman circuitnate digital multimeter set at 200k ohms setting to get that reading of 2k ohms . The wiring needs some cleaning up ( theres too much spagetti and the solders are like they were done by someone that just didnt have the knack ) however it seems to work . My daughter will have to snap the pics and maybe help post them . I have to take the pickgaurd back off the guitar again , so this is going to take acouple days , i'll take a pic of it as now assembled and then make a schematic of what it is now and then dissmantale it so you can see what the leads look like then i can reassemble it cleaning up the wire job . I did set the pup heights to those of an american made standard strat and the volume from 5 to 3 to 1 are consistant , 2 and 4 are tinny and bring out the strat say turning the sound inside out adding a real acid type rock sound anyway i'll be back soon with pics and more ...thanks again !! By the way this pickgaurd setup im sure is someones frankinstein and not a real good job of it so these could be squire parts fender , who knows ..

[David Schwab]

Doesn't your meter have an auto range function? You have the range too high. Those are kilohm readings. 4.5K, 6.5K, and 2K.

The humbucker is 2K because if both hots are soldered to the same connection, it's wired in parallel. So that's two 4K coils. Wire it in series and it will be 8K like a normal humbucker.

[toystoystoys]

Thanks again ! I'll be opening it up again and with all of your help i'll get this back together the way it should be .I need to pick up fresh strings before i tear it up but im positive your right about the wiring so i should have a much better guitar when im done , i'll be back to let you know how it plays out ... To have stumbled onto this site with so many sharing information , helping eachother and learnng together .I'm humbled ..the internet is going to change the world quickly i can see that . Very nice basses and guitars David i went to your site and im impressed and again humbled your obviously a master at your craft and also a teacher of the best kind , thanks.

[David Schwab]

Thanks for the kind words!

Yeah this is a great place, very helpful people.

Good luck with your project.