Anyone have experience installing any ILITCH ELECTRONICS dummy coil products?

[SoulFetish]

I've decided that I really can't live with the excessive noise from single coil pickups in either my strat or tele. I just read uneumann's article on winding and installing a dummy coil for hum cancelation. I'm convinced that this is a project worth doing and I'm prepared to wind a custom coil(s) for my tele.
My recent searches have turned up some commercially available products. This might be the way to go, if it makes sense and people have had success using them. The one that interests me the most is ILITCH ELECTRONICS "PGNCS T" which looks to be a coil wound on a Tele pickgaurd. Has anyone had any success or experience using their products? What are your thoughts on this?

Here is their website:
https://www.ilitchelectronics.com/hu...systems/pgncs/

[Helmholtz]

No own experience with the Ilitch system yet, but I think it's the best passive hum-cancelling method for single coils around.
Principle is simple, yet effective: A large area dummy coil using only 200 to 400 turns.
As induced hum voltage is proportional to loop area, far less turns are needed than with a conventional PU shaped dummy coil.
Coil inductance is proportional to loop area times turns number squared (!).
So the low turns number results in relatively low inductance, meaning less interference with the original PU sound.

Same principle is used by Suhr guitars.

[Mark Hammer]

I've had only one encounter with the Ilitch/Suhr system, some 15 years back at a guitar trade show in Montreal. The guitar with the Ilitch backplate installed was leaning against an amp head, on the power transformer side, and it was dead quiet.

I've also installed a few dummy coils. Dummy coils can work quite well. As Helmhotz notes,one of the advantages of the backplate/under-pickguard approach is that fewer turns are required to achieve the requisite hum-sensitivity.

Equally important is their sort of omni-sensitivity. One needs to think of coils as being like radio antennae. In a humbucker pickup, the coils are side-by-side, such that they are always equally sensing any nearby EMI. Because they are opposite phase, the equally-sensed EMI cancels out. A single dummy coil NOT immediately adjacent to the pickup may not sense any EMI in an identical manner, especially as one moves around while playing. Moreover, where does one stick a dummy coil to provide equal hum-cancelling for all 3 pickups on a Strat? By having the coil wound around the perimeter of the backplate over the vibrato springs it effectively "surrounds" all 3 pickups, such that antiphase EMI is not really sensed more for one pickup than for others. I imagine the same is somewhat, though not identically, true for the Telecaster version.

[SoulFetish]

I just wanted to follow up on this thread –
Since posting this I decided to call contact him and order one of his systems to install in my tele. The model I chose with was PGNCS T, which had the coil set into a routed pickguard. The one challenge I was facing was that when I first ordered my pickups from Lollar, I bought them as a set, with the option of having the neck p-up revese wound/reverse polarity for the benifit of at least having hum canceling when in the middle position.
In order to overcome this, I needed to use a 3 position "super switch" to avoid coil polarity issues when switching between neck and bridge, as well as switching it out of circuit altogether when in the middle position. Ilitch didn't have them in stock, so I bought it from a vendor on reverb. While the switch opens up a number of posibilities for switching ideas, I hated the actual tactile feel of the switch and felt like it was not made well. I really liked my CRL 3-Way switch, but to my knowledge, they didn't offer a 4P3T lever switch. I opted for the Black/White/Black to keep the same look as my original The PGNCS T system included with the pickguard/coil and a small PCB containing two trimpots, with 4 leads pre-soldered to the board. The cost of the product and shipping came to around $320 i think (which is not an inexpensive accessory).
The product arrived in perfect condition, with plenty of length on the two leads extending out of the bottom of the pickguard. One thing I would mention, is that I needed two holes on either side of the neck pickup hole because I don't mount it to the body, like traditional teles. He provided visual markings as drill guides for the location of the holes, but for some reason, I actually needed to drill them. I can't remember exactly why, but I didn't mind, I knew what I was doing. The risk of doing that was that the neck pickup location is very close to the coil to maximize loop area, and the leads extend out of the pickgaurd right near the top inside corner of the pickup hole. If you slip, or your drill runs out on you, you could very easily damage the coil and render it useless. Also, with the additional wiring and PCB, it can be a tight fit in the body cavity under the switch plate, so care needs to be taken for that as well to make sure not to short anything or break any solder connections if you need to do any servicing.
After install, the system work incredibly! Absolutely worth the investment. The coil, in circuit, adds a series resistance of around 420Ω (or so). I wish I could say that it is sonically indistinguishable to the original sound and feel of the original set up, but now that the miserable noise inherent when using single coil pickups no longer present, it sounds so much better. The whole experience does. Our band practices in a house with the noisiest dimmers I may have ever heard, and the ability to keep my volume up while plugged into a high gain amp when we aren't playing could almost bring me to tears. It's a great feeling.

[MatsEriksson]

Sorry that I am very late to this one, but 18th of November last year (5 months back) ain't that necrobump is it?

I do have Ilitch installed on my strats. With the backplate that covers trem springs. Not a vintageguitar one so I am not afraid of drilling holes.Not that I needed it. It was a bit finicky to install/solder and you must measure what resistance (4,5k or 6,7k and so on) the pickups has before ordering, you can't just smack anyone of these coils in there without this. And also Ilitch has NO RWRP system, your 3 or 2 pickups must work without the noise cancelling in both mode. However, there is another vendor far from us, down under, that has a similar system bu thas a RWRP option dummy coil to offer too. Oh, it's a passive system too.

Ulbrick systems, from Melbourne Australia.

https://ulbrickmusic.com.au/noise-reduction-systems

I recently obtained an used EJ signature strat that needed much setup and modifications in order for it to work for me properly, and that one had RWRP middle pickup so I am thinking getting an Ulbrick for that one instead of the Ilitch. The Ulbrick systems seems not to have that small pcb board with trim pots on. Ilitch are slightly more expensive than Ulbrick, but then again you have to think of the freight distance, customs added (these days these things are shaky), VAT added, and whatnot. I live in Sweden so the amount of money will be the same or exceed that of the Ilitch systems, should I choose Ulbrick.

However, both these PASSIVE systems are the best hum cancelling methods out there, and does absolutely nothing to the original sound of the pickup. Treble and high end is as sweet as it was before, chimey, and whatever. Well, there's a change in sound if will be picky about it, in that is that the hum is gone.

[SoulFetish]

Thanks for checking in, MatsEriksson. So, I've installed the Ilitch Tele Pickguard system about three times in my tele (same tele). That was mostly due to trying to find the right bridge pickup I liked.
I wanted to offer a correction on one point you made in that you can install the Ilitch system on guitars with RWRP pickups. It just involves installing a "super switch", and makes for a more complicated switching scheme. My Tele was RWRP when I installed it at first, however, finding a 3-way lever switch with 4 throws is a pain in the ass. In my experience, they are not built well and are usually very expensive. Then, there is the challenge of fitting the added wiring as well as additional/bigger components in the route under the tele switch plate all while not breaking solder connections or shorting anything out. It kind of sucks. I actually had Lollar wind me a new bridge pickup to match my neck p-up in order to change my switch to a high quality CRL and simplify the wiring.
I, having said all that, think that it's totally worth it. I'm really happy with my Tele now. So much so that my strat build is not getting done quickly at all.