Sigle Coil : lack of smoothness and mediums ....

[Strat76]

Hi everybody,
I must confess, I am a newbie and I a winding my 10th pups. Great anniversary ;-)
I try to clone the Fender CS69 because I love them. I used PE, Alnico 5 magnets and tried to get 5,5k per pup. I take care to wind not too tight.
When I AB the two sets (CS69 and mine) there is a difference. I get clarity, good trebles, tight basses and good definition but it lacks this kind of smoothness, roundness, and a bit of low mediums which are present in the CS69 set. My set seems too tight, almost too hifi.

Here are the main differences between the two sets :
- I got 5,47K instead of the 5,5K
- My set is not pot waxed (microphonie)
- My set is wound the same way (CCW) put the polarization is different (North, up on the magnets)

Do you have an idea ?

ps: sorry for my English, I try do to my best.

Fabrice

[Bill M]

CS 69's have around 200/220 TPL and are wound (CW), not (CCW). It sounds like you need to wind with more TPL as this should give you what your looking for.

[marku52]

Also, potting will move the resonant frequency down a kHz or two, and this may change the sound quite a bit.

[Strat76]

Many thanks for these answers. But what do you mean by TPL please ?

[marku52]

TPL means "turns per layer". How many turns per traverse. It effects how tightly the wire lays together.

[Strat76]

Ah Ok, Thanks.
I believe that I understand, it means that I must wind tighter ?

[marku52]

Not necessarily. Tension is another independent variable. Imagine you were winding 42 AWG on a fender bobbin and only making 10 turns per traverse. No matter what the tension was, the wire would lay messily, since there would be wide gaps in between each turn of wire. You can calculate the ideal TPL from the diameter of the wire and the width of the bobbin. For example, if I were using 1mm diameter wire to wind on a 10mm bobbin, then 10 turns would be the ideal TPL for maximum best packing of the wire. In reality, best packing is fewer turns than calculated, because the winding never goes perfectly.

Increasing tension will also increase the best packing of the wire, but that is a separate variable.

Now the problem is, does best packing make the best sounding pickup? It does increase the interwinding capacitance and lower the resonant frequency. maybe what you want, maybe not. The highly regarded "scatter wound" means that the winder purposely broke these TPL rules.

What's best? Flame war bait.....

[Strat76]

Ah Okkkkkkkkk ... I understood ... ouahhh it's far less intuitive that I believed ... Thanks a lot Markus, it's very interesting.
I will try to wind this way and calculate before the ideal TPL minus fewer turns. Just to see if it sounds different.
Many many thanks, I learnt a lot.

[kayakerca]

CS 69's have around 200/220 TPL and are wound (CW), not (CCW). It sounds like you need to wind with more TPL as this should give you what your looking for.

If I may ask, what is the inside height of the bobbin, flatwork to flatwork?

[big_teee]

If I may ask, what is the inside height of the bobbin, flatwork to flatwork?

I think all fender Forbon Bobbins were 11mm .433" inside bobbin height.
Some of us Vary the heights of different Pickups.
As far as bobbin direction, there is no difference in sound CW or CCW.
69s were all wound the same direction and No RWRP is used.
RWRP is very easy to do and I make all Strat Sets With a middle pickup RWRP, unless told otherwise.
Use white and black on Neck and Bridge, and yellow and black on Middle.
Also if your trying to look authenic, Post CBS had Grey bottom fiber with Plastic wire.
My Local guys think that the Grey bottom Strat Coils sound much better than the black bottoms.
B_T

[kayakerca]

I think all fender Forbon Bobbins were 11mm .433" inside bobbin height.
Some of us Vary the heights of different Pickups.
As far as bobbin direction, there is no difference in sound CW or CCW.
69s were all wound the same direction and No RWRP is used.
RWRP is very easy to do and I make all Strat Sets With a middle pickup RWRP, unless told otherwise.
Use white and black on Neck and Bridge, and yellow and black on Middle.
Also if your trying to look authenic, Post CBS had Grey bottom fiber with Plastic wire.
My Local guys think that the Grey bottom Strat Coils sound much better than the black bottoms.
B_T

Thanks Terry. I had read somewhere that taller bobbin = more pronounced highs and shorter bobbins = more pronounced mids. Being barely even in the preparatory stages of pickup winding and wanting to cut down my learning curve (or error curve) as much as possible, one of the things I have been looking for is bobbin height range references. The shortest I found was 0.4375" (Jason Lollar Book and StewMac) and tallest was 0.4380 (StewMac). I am now adjusting my short bobbin height end of the range downward to .0433".

I have a lot of black flatwork. Do you think simply painting black bottom flatwork grey will produce the improved tone your local guys seem to be experiencing?

[David Schwab]

Also if your trying to look authenic, Post CBS had Grey bottom fiber with Plastic wire.

And that's either for the people with the clear lucite Strats, or those that take their pickups out every night and look at them....

[big_teee]

The Paint might work.
If you use Lead Paint, Who Knows, you may pick up some additional Eddie Currents to reflect the signal. lol
On bobbin height for clear neck tone I go taller, and for fatter bridge tone I go shorter.
If you are trying for the older Strat Tones, don't forget the 250 Pots, and .1uf Cap.
The .1uf Cap is a huge part of the tone in those days, IMO.
Good Luck,
Terry

[kayakerca]

All kidding aside for a minute, I thought scatter winding was more along the lines of less turns per layer than more turns per layer. A Strat bobbin height of .4375" with 42 AWG wire @ .0028" thick (with insulation) would have 156.25 TPL to lay down the wire 'side by side'. At 200/220 TPL (top section of this thread), the wire would be laying down more layers than could be accommodated on a layer. I was under the impression (no doubt mistakenly) that 'scattering' would be more along the lines of fewer turns per layer. Can you help the new guy learn a little more stuff on this topic?

[big_teee]

All kidding aside for a minute, I thought scatter winding was more along the lines of less turns per layer than more turns per layer. A Strat bobbin height of .4375" with 42 AWG wire @ .0028" thick (with insulation) would have 156.25 TPL to lay down the wire 'side by side'. At 200/220 TPL (top section of this thread), the wire would be laying down more layers than could be accommodated on a layer. I was under the impression (no doubt mistakenly) that 'scattering' would be more along the lines of fewer turns per layer. Can you help the new guy learn a little more stuff on this topic?

Your correct.
If you run it through the Coil estimator and Pick Bobbin as 67 Strat, and pick 42 HFV, 100% would be 145 TPL.
Single PE or SPN should be 156 for 100%.
Coil Estimator
Later,
T