Any valuable info on Lane Poor MM pups?

[Moses]

I found one the two bassics articles on Lane Poor, and it has some useful info..

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Lane, and his right hand man, George use an Adams - Maxwell Model 1201-1 Precision Winder with a Model 1250 Traverse that insures winding pitch accuracy to 0.0001". Typical winding time is 35 minutes.

That seems like a really long wind time to me. Could winding speed have an effect on tone?

[belwar]

That seems like a really long wind time to me. Could winding speed have an effect on tone?

I could see only two negilible benefits.. 1 - More even tension on the wire 2 - Maybe more even layers of wire.

[David King]

Audere's analysis of the JB4500 pickup (a narrow aperture 6 string) suggests that there are 9 pole pieces or magnet segments along the length.

knowing the wire gauge is useful but knowing the insulation thickness, capacitance, inductance/resonant of the coils. (An Extech would be good here.)

I'll try to pull up the Bass Player review of the LP J set as part of a "shoot out" from around 2000 and see if they spilled any company secrets.

[David Schwab]

Litz is multifilar; the difference is is the strands are insulated from one another.

OK, I thought the multifilar was also insulated, but not twisted or woven. That's the way MWS makes it sound. They mention that you can soak the wire in a solvent to separate them. They list the insulation and bond coat as separate, i.e., Polyurethane insulation, and epoxy bond coat.

If the strands are in parallel, no effect at all other than that due to the use of what is in effect a lower wire guage.

That makes sense. That would give the bright tone the pickups are known for, but so could other factors.

If he did use it, it was probably something he thought would matter, and probably didn't the way he thought it would.

And David King reminds us of the bifilar pickup that uses inter-strand capacitance to connect the strands into a coil.

Yeah, that's another kettle of fish. I wonder what it sounds like?

[David Schwab]

It will be interesting to see what is meant by pole pieces.. Its pieces, not piece indicating multiple parts. It's all speculation at this point, but a basic iron filings test should show this to be the case.

The first step in assembling a pickup begins with plain copper clad printed ciruit board material. It is sheared to size, resulting in tiles. Magnets are then glued to the tiles. For Jazz Pickups, they glue a series of pole pieces inbetween the magnets. For the wider apperture Soap Bar pickups, they use a precast assembly. For the Jazz Pickups, the pole pieces are taped off, and any bare metal is painted with an insulating varnish. The result is a bobbin, ready to wind.

Still a little hard to picture what they are talking about. There is a sidewinder in the Erno Zwaan book that is probably similar, but the magnets are where the poles would be, and the outside steel flats are the poles.

So the "tiles" are the bobbin "flatwork". The magnets form the core you wind on, and then the poles are in the middle, and are the other side of the bobbin flatwork. The precast assembly must be the poles that are used for the soapbars.

In the same way, the Q-Tuner coils are precast with the magnets inside before the whole thing is cast as a unit.

[belwar]

knowing the wire gauge is useful but knowing the insulation thickness, capacitance, inductance/resonant of the coils. (An Extech would be good here.)

Well It's a good thing then that I have an extech, and Joe Gwinn was kind enough to show me how to measure resonance peak of a pickup. I've got an old HP Audio Frequency oscillator (20-20000hz) and a good DMM that measures frequency. Do you want me to run the gamut on the pickups your sending me? I can either keep the info private if you wish, or share it, its up to you since they are yours.

I'll try to pull up the Bass Player review of the LP J set as part of a "shoot out" from around 2000 and see if they spilled any company secrets.

See if you can find the issue number and I'll order a copy. I found one of the Bassics Mags that has "Shop talk" with lane, It was Vol 6.2 so I ordered a copy and it should be here in a week. Aparently though he's also in another one .. volume 5 something - Im going to order that puppy too.

If I can get a couple of pickups, then what Im going to do is cut one in half, between the two center strings. I'l use one have to measure the wire, turns, and tpl. The second piece I'll cut into layers from the top down. That will should the construction, and I can send the alloys out for examination to find out what is used. I have to find a company that will be able to examine the magnet and tell me the type... though I might be able to have the alloy testing company check it with thier Sequential X-Ray Spectrometer. They say it does Complete Chemical Analysis of Ferrous and Non-Ferrous Alloys

[belwar]

Still a little hard to picture what they are talking about. There is a sidewinder in the Erno Zwaan book that is probably similar, but the magnets are where the poles would be, and the outside steel flats are the poles.

So the "tiles" are the bobbin "flatwork". The magnets form the core you wind on, and then the poles are in the middle, and are the other side of the bobbin flatwork. The precast assembly must be the poles that are used for the soapbars.

In the same way, the Q-Tuner coils are precast with the magnets inside before the whole thing is cast as a unit.

I just dug out that book - Should be some good evening reading. I always forget about it..

[belwar]

I'll try to pull up the Bass Player review of the LP J set as part of a "shoot out" from around 2000 and see if they spilled any company secrets.

Google and archive.org are my friends!

BASS PLAYER ONLINE: Gear

However, I didnt learn squat!

[David King]

I learned once again that the LPs are in the "pretty sound" category but are kind of useless in a band situation.

[ModulusMK]

I learned once again that the LPs are in the "pretty sound" category but are kind of useless in a band situation.

It depends... Flea is using it and he is in a band . The thing is you can fine tune this pup (like Flea did) easily and get many tones, whereas with colored pups you are very limited.

[David Schwab]

It depends... Flea is using it and he is in a band . The thing is you can fine tune this pup (like Flea did) easily and get many tones, whereas with colored pups you are very limited.

Yeah, that BP article just showed that they don't know how to EQ a bass.

[David King]

Sequential X-Ray Spectrometer

These or something like them is being used to analyze coatings, specifically the pigments used in old artworks that are hiding under other paintings (recycled canvases).
It may be possible to determine the coating material on the wire if we get to that.

I'd ask someone at Devcon what to use to dissolve Flexthane 94 which is what I'm betting Lane used to fuse the coils before casting them in the black epoxy.

The epoxy will usually crumble off between 400-500 degrees so a heat gun should get through it without having to saw through the coil. Being able to see the ends of the coils will be important to determine how many strands were used and to measure the gauge.

[ModulusMK]

These or something like them is being used to analyze coatings, specifically the pigments used in old artworks that are hiding under other paintings (recycled canvases).
It may be possible to determine the coating material on the wire if we get to that.

I'd ask someone at Devcon what to use to dissolve Flexthane 94 which is what I'm betting Lane used to fuse the coils before casting them in the black epoxy.

The epoxy will usually crumble off between 400-500 degrees so a heat gun should get through it without having to saw through the coil. Being able to see the ends of the coils will be important to determine how many strands were used and to measure the gauge.

This might recover something... interesting idea. Equipment for this?

[belwar]

Well I only had time to measure 1 set of P/U's before I had to send them out for X-ray and that was the P-bass pickup... The DCR was something crazy low like 2.6, so I'm assuming it was wired parallel.. I tried to get a Resonance Peak measurement but my normal method didnt seem to work - either I was doing something wrong or the peak was above 20khz. I'll wait till I get them back and try again.. Seems like really low inductance to me..


These reading measured using an Extech 380193 using the "SER" setting.
Inductance @ 120hz: 0.441 H
Q as the secondary Parameter of Inductance @ 120hz: .1400
D as the secondary Parameter of Inductance @ 120hz: 7.140
R as the secondary Parameter of Inductance @ 120hz 2.422Kohms
Capacitance @ 120hz: 3.813 uF
Q as the secondary Parameter of Capacitance @ 120hz: .1400
D as the secondary Parameter of Capacitance @ 120hz: 7.145
R as the secondary Parameter of Capacitance @ 120hz 2.422K
AC Resistance @ 120hz: 2.427Kohms
Inductance @ 1khz: .437H
Q as the secondary Parameter of Inductance @ 1khz: 1.11
D as the secondary Parameter of Inductance @ 1khz: .9003
R as the secondary Parameter of Inductance @ 1khz 2.478K
Capacitance @ 1khz: 57.75nf
Q as the secondary Parameter of Capacitance @ 1khz: 1.447
D as the secondary Parameter of Capacitance @ 1khz: .9005
R as the secondary Parameter of Capacitance @ 1khz 2.478kohms
AC Resistance @ 1khz: 2.484K

These reading measured using an Extech 380193 using the "PAL" setting.
Inductance @ 120hz: 22.86H
Q as the secondary Parameter of Inductance @ 120hz: .1397
D as the secondary Parameter of Inductance @ 120hz: 7.151
R as the secondary Parameter of Inductance @ 120hz: 2.476kohms
Capacitance @ 120hz: 0.073uf
Q as the secondary Parameter of Capacitance @ 120hz: .1398
D as the secondary Parameter of Capacitance @ 120hz: 7.149
R as the secondary Parameter of Capacitance @ 120hz: 2.476
Inductance @ 1khz: .792H
Q as the secondary Parameter of Inductance @ 1khz: 1.11
D as the secondary Parameter of Inductance @ 1khz: .9006
R as the secondary Parameter of Inductance @ 1khz 5.534
Capacitance @ 1khz: 31.88nf
Q as the secondary Parameter of Capacitance @ 1khz: 1.128
D as the secondary Parameter of Capacitance @ 1khz: .8864
R as the secondary Parameter of Capacitance @ 1khz:5.579 kohm

[Magnut]

That inductance does seem low for normal setups. However considering the inductance to resistance ratio it's not bad at all.

I have been struggling with a way to correctly and consistantly express this ratio to project some expected results of tone. I am trying to include all of the factors i.e. Q,C,R,D.. If all things were equal it would be easy but when you come across something like this all bets are off.

There should be some way to mathematically express the result. What I haven't included in the equation as of yet is some value or fraction of Pi to express the sine wave.

Has anyone else considered doing this?

BTW thanks for the info Bel. With those results I would be willing to bet that there are 4 conductors in parallel.