HB polepieces not grounded

[Marco Pancaldi]

Out of curiosity, for the first time I used a ohmmeter to verify the ground connection between pickup baseplate/shield and polepieces.

While all the screws are OK (grounded), only one or two of six polepieces are grounded - I tested three SD JB humbuckers with same - random - results.

I haven't tested the acoustic noise touching the poles yet, but the ideal situation would be to have all the slugs grounded.

Please share your experience, thanks

Marco

[JGundry]

The slugs are not touching the magnet or the baseplate. This is actually pretty common with PAF's. I think it is just a by product of how they were assembled. But the result is you get an air gap between the magnet and the slugs. Dimarzio takes this to the extreme by removing the keeper bar and creating a big gap between the magnet, poles and slugs by putting a rubber washer between them. I'm sure some people think this is a PAF secret ingredient. It sort of is but it is just another one of many little details that have a little affect on tone. But all of the little details add up and can affect the tone quite a bit.

[Billy Bones]

I've been thinking about this too. I checked some polepieces on some random pickups, and haven't found any where each and every polepiece was making a physical connection to the baseplate/each other etc.

Don't the pole pieces want to be grounded with a physical connection?

[jason lollar]

very few pickups are made so every pole is grounded- the guild pickups made by franz are made that way but all fender pickups are not- only the two outside poles are grounded if you are lucky.
my question for you is why are you touching the poles? Ordinarily if you are playing a guitar you wont touch the poles except maybe the two outside ones if that.

[Billy Bones]

I will sometimes check continuity from the strings to a polepiece to see if I'm grounded properly. Today I realized that some were and some weren't. This made me nervous, so I started checking other pickup brands to see what was going on. All of them were grounded only on random poles.

Doesn't the polepiece need to be grounded for it to play it's role it this whole thing?

[David King]

Billy,
Ungrounded poles will act as antennas for noise so it would help to ground them all. That said the noise floor for an HB is already very low and I doubt you could hear the difference but it will show on a scope.

[Billy Bones]

But maybe that's part of what is making these p90's a little extra loud?

[Dave Kerr]

What P90s? I thought the topic was humbucker slugs?

[David Schwab]

But maybe that's part of what is making these p90's a little extra loud?

Grounding the poles has nothing to do with how loud a pickup is. Fender pickup poles are not grounded.

[Billy Bones]

OP was talking humbuckers. I think I hijacked the thread and was generalizing about pickups all around.