Mixing wire diameters....

[restorationad]

After reading the posts we ended up going a little more PAF and a little less modern. Mind you we are guessing and will probably need to wind another one. Hopefully the customer will like this one but you never know.

We used 43 screw side and 42 slug side.
42 x 5200 = 4.39
43 x 5500 = 6.5
Alnico V
Mind you this is on 58.3mm cocobolo bobbins for a multiscale. Once we get it testable I will experiment with the Air part...

Thanks for the notes. If we have to go at it again we will probably move to 43/44.

[restorationad]

I tracked down the patents. Dimarzo puts the patent number next to the pickup on its site. They are a little generic when it comes to the windings stating for example 42awg / 44awg at 5400 turns. Not as helpful as what David put up with his notes.

[Down Time]

I tried to find the old thread on this, sometimes the search engine sucks....

Has anyone tried mixing magnet wire gauges, or slightly different wire diameters in a bucker, I know some have but what did it do? DiMarzio's FRED pickup does this, does anyone know what gauges wire he used in it? It measures around 10K, I had one here once but didn't write anything down. DiMarzio says I think, better hum cancellation and more frequency range, but then says that pickup is designed for a midrange boost....

Be careful, I think DiMarzio has a patent on that.

[Possum]

....

DiMarzio only has a patent on using different gauge wire on seperate bobbins, not mixing within the coil. I actually had successful experiment with doing that but probably won't use it in production work, too gimmicky and too much extra work. I do wonder though how the Van Halen new pickup thats out there got away with it because they did pretty much what DiMarzio did. Really its not an enforceable patent, reason being if you have two spools of say 42 gauge wire, odds are they arent exactly the same diameter now are they? So you're mixing diameters, oops...

[David Schwab]

I tracked down the patents. Dimarzo puts the patent number next to the pickup on its site. They are a little generic when it comes to the windings stating for example 42awg / 44awg at 5400 turns. Not as helpful as what David put up with his notes.

I got that from having an Air Norton here and taking DC resistance readings on each coil. Then I used Salvarsan's handy dandy coil estimator to figure out the wire gauge and how many turns.

As I said, it got me in the ball park, but in real life it was too low. Still made a nice sounding pickup though.

So either it needed more winds, or the wire gauges had to move to the next smallest size. I haven't gotten a chance to mess with it more. I was happy with the finished pickup and left it at that.

Coil Estimator

[Zhangliqun]

DiMarzio only has a patent on using different gauge wire on seperate bobbins, not mixing within the coil.

As I recall reading the patent, it was more narrowly defined than that. Yes, different gauge on each coil (say 42 screw and 43 slug) AND -- this is the important part -- "substantially the same number of turns" on both coils.

The idea was to create a different sound AND with near perfect humbucking, which would require the number of turns be extremely close if not identical. I would think that if if you make one where the turn count gap between one coil and the other is 500 or more, you're safe.

Anyway, I have made both humbuckers of this nature and single coils with mixed gauges, start with 42, finish with 43. The humbucker sounded great -- definitely not the same number of turns -- which I think actually helps the sound.

The single coil idea was fine, but after I found I could get longer rod magnets to make taller bobbins to hold tons of 42 wire, the design became obsolete at Zhangbucker Labs...

[David Schwab]

...you're safe.

You're safe anyway. That patent is expired.

[Possum]

...

How would you even enforce such a thing anyway? Is DM going to buy every boutique humbucker out there and painstaking dissect it to find out if someone is mixing wire guages? Duncan mixes wire guages, its fairly common thing among the small makers, its not enforceable. And what happens if your wire suddenly changes diameter off the spool, are the guage police going to show up at the door I got a really nice useable pickup out of what I did, I don't remember if I matched the turns or not, wrote it down, but this will probably never be a production pickup, it was just an experiment in capacitance manipulation....

Now the Eddie pickup, that design is a little more focused because of the terminals at the ends etc. you probably wouldn't want to go that route but having tried that idea, it would probably only appeal to metal heads who never play clean.

[Zhangliqun]

You're safe anyway. That patent is expired.

Even better...

[David Schwab]

How would you even enforce such a thing anyway? Is DM going to buy every boutique humbucker out there and painstaking dissect it to find out if someone is mixing wire guages?

You don't have to dissect them. Each coil will have a very different DC resistance reading.

I wouldn't be surprised if they buy a lot of boutique pickups anyway... at least the popular ones.

I seem to remember that they have been known to tell small builders to stop using double cream bobbins.