Multi Purpose Wire Coating?

[parentheticalfact]

Hello!
I've read a lot of discussion about wire insulation types. Insulation thickness, texture and possibly dielectric properties play a role in the overall response of the pickup.
I work on a small level and work on pickups for myself and friends. I don't distribute, advertise, or produce OEM pickups for anyone (yet ), nor do I try to produce any vintage replicas. I.E. vintage correct fender style single coils or late 50's Gibson humbucking pickups.
I've had some very satisfying results using some poly 42 awg single build.

Okay, enough background. Here's the question (s).

I'd like to purchase some 42 awg wire that you all might recommend as a good wire for producing good single coils and humbuckers.

Is heavy build formvar a poor choice for humbuckers? Is it too large or difficult to produce vintage humbucking sounds with?

I've generally got an idea that knowing your tools and equipment plays a big part in voicing a pickup, so I don't want to be limited by the wire, if the wire will produce any limitation at all as far as the sound.

If overall two spools are recomended, that's just what I'll do but I'd like to see some opinions on whether working with a certain type of wire coating really limits the builder and the types of tones their pickups can have.

Sorry, I don't post much so when I do I really go off.

[madialex]

Hello!
I've read a lot of discussion about wire insulation types. Insulation thickness, texture and possibly dielectric properties play a role in the overall response of the pickup.
I work on a small level and work on pickups for myself and friends. I don't distribute, advertise, or produce OEM pickups for anyone (yet ), nor do I try to produce any vintage replicas. I.E. vintage correct fender style single coils or late 50's Gibson humbucking pickups.
I've had some very satisfying results using some poly 42 awg single build.

Okay, enough background. Here's the question (s).

I'd like to purchase some 42 awg wire that you all might recommend as a good wire for producing good single coils and humbuckers.

Is heavy build formvar a poor choice for humbuckers? Is it too large or difficult to produce vintage humbucking sounds with?

I've generally got an idea that knowing your tools and equipment plays a big part in voicing a pickup, so I don't want to be limited by the wire, if the wire will produce any limitation at all as far as the sound.

If overall two spools are recommended, that's just what I'll do but I'd like to see some opinions on whether working with a certain type of wire coating really limits the builder and the types of tones their pickups can have.

Sorry, I don't post much so when I do I really go off.

I'm sure you could use heavy formvar for a humbucker and I have before but dont remember what it sounded like. Poly is ok if you know how to wind with it to get the tone you want.

For the best vintage humbucker tone plain enamel is best to use. I use MWS wire personally but it is a matter of preference. But again your winding is what will define the tone you like no matter what wire you use.

Formvar and plain enamel are the most common. I use a lot of poly as well simply because I got a great deal on it and need to use it up. But for vintage correct I use PE or formvar....

[Ruel]

Never had the chance to use formvar but I believe it is thicker than poly or pe. So the resulting coil will have less turns/wires with formvar as compared to using poly or pe. Lesser output and brighter tone, right?

[corduroyew]

I use 42 awg heavy build formvar on humbuckers. If you compleatly fill the bobbins your pickup will read about 7.5K. It makes a very bright, clear, smooth pickup. If you put one of these pickups in the neck of a guitar and an SD59 in the bridge, the neck pickup will sound cleaner and brighter than the bridge pickup.

[NightWinder]

I bet you can hit about 8 1/2 k with that.

[rocket]

Why is poly so differnent from PE? Is the insulation even thinner?

I suppose the main differnce between the insulation types is their thickness, with the actual material playing a minor role.

[parentheticalfact]

As far as I can conclude, a really big difference would be the flexibillity and how it feels to the touch. I've worked on a lot of pickups with PE and it's definately kind of sticky feeling compared to poly. It also seems a little stiffer. This would make a difference as to how the coil would overlap or scatter when winding unless the PE was lubricated somehow (?).
I think I'm going to go with some poly 42 single build, unless I can find PE inexpensive, decent quality and available to someone who is not really a business.
My theory is that it's easy to change the scatter to produce a brighter pickup
with single build than it is to build a bassier pickup with heavy build. I've wound some very very bright pickups with single build and I think that it had to do with very wild scattering and low TPL.

[Zhangliqun]

Funny, I've had the opposite experience. Whether PE or poly, I've found that winding the pickup very very straight/neat/tight/even layers -- the way an engineer would want to see it -- makes for a pickup so harshly bright that you could cut glass with it.

[parentheticalfact]

Funny, I've had the opposite experience. Whether PE or poly, I've found that winding the pickup very very straight/neat/tight/even layers -- the way an engineer would want to see it -- makes for a pickup so harshly bright that you could cut glass with it.

Well the one's I've done are certainly a far cry from perfect windings. I hand guide my wire and puposefully do things a little differently each layer, but I keep a fairly high tpl count compared to my older pickups. These pickups are bright enough, but seem to lack the midrange of a good PAF clone.
My comparison pickups are a duncan antiquity bridge humbucker and some patent # gibsons from my les paul.
I've increased the bass response in my pickups greatly by slowing down my layering it seems. Haven't gained a lot of mids though.
Given this description, have you really noticed an oposite effect?
This might need to turn into another thread, though I would not expect seasoned pickup makers to just want to give all of their winding information away.

[Joe Gwinn]

Well the one's I've done are certainly a far cry from perfect windings. I hand guide my wire and puposefully do things a little differently each layer, but I keep a fairly high tpl count compared to my older pickups. These pickups are bright enough, but seem to lack the midrange of a good PAF clone. ... I've increased the bass response in my pickups greatly by slowing down my layering it seems. Haven't gained a lot of mids though.
Given this description, have you really noticed an oposite effect?

In absolute terms, the mids (and lows) are almost unaffected. What happened is that the highs were reduced, making the mids (and lows) more prominent by comparison.

[parentheticalfact]

In absolute terms, the mids (and lows) are almost unaffected. What happened is that the highs were reduced, making the mids (and lows) more prominent by comparison.

You are you saying that winding patterns affect mostly high frequencies, with hardly a change in the low or mid response?

I understand that the reduction of one particular frequency can seem like a boost i others, but what you're saying doesn't coincide with my experimentation.

My pickup I made recently seems as bright as my duncan, but it has more lows and less midrange. I've always used the same parts supplier as well, though I'm well aware that stewart macdonald and allparts may not be the most consistant parts.

Still, it makes sense to me that affecting the capacitance between the windings will not just affect highs.
I absolutely do not mean to argue either. I have no idea how long you've wound pickups compared to me or what your electronic background is, so I'm open that you're far more knowledgeable. A lot of senior members here are.
I just enjoy the discussion of the different aspects of pickups.

[DrStrangelove]

Wire insulation factoids

Still, it makes sense to me that affecting the capacitance between the windings will not just affect highs.
I absolutely do not mean to argue either. I have no idea how long you've wound pickups compared to me or what your electronic background is, so I'm open that you're far more knowledgeable. A lot of senior members here are.
I just enjoy the discussion of the different aspects of pickups.

MWS Wire lists dielectric constants for their wire insulations page 11 (13 in the .pdf doc) of their tech book at http://www.mwswire.com/pdf_files/mws..._Tech_Book.pdf

The editted table looks like:

Polyurethane 155 6.20 MW 79-C
Polyurethane 180 6.20 MW 82-C
Poly-Nylon 155 6.20 MW 80-C
Poly-Nylon 180 6.20 MW 83-C
Polyester 200 3.34 MW 74-C
Solderable Polyester 3.95 MW 77-C
Formvar 3.71 MW 15-C
Polyimide(ML) 3.90 MW 16-C

I see this:
Lower dielectric constant means lower distributed capacitance

Solderable polyester and Formvar are close and should sound similar if the insulation thicknesses are similar.

Nylon and polyurethane's 6.20 dielectric constant suggest higher distributed capacitance.

Plain enamel was left out. It comes from vegetable oil feedstocks and is very inexpensive. I'd be curious to see how it compares electrically.

MWS does NOT test for dielectric loss / dissipation factor.

-drh

[Joe Gwinn]

You are you saying that winding patterns affect mostly high frequencies, with hardly a change in the low or mid response?

No, I didn't say that. I expressed no opinion.

I understand that the reduction of one particular frequency can seem like a boost in others, but what you're saying doesn't coincide with my experimentation.

This was my point. As for experimentation, be aware that the human ear, while real good at music, isn't a very good lab instrument.

Still, it makes sense to me that affecting the capacitance between the windings will not just affect highs.

It's a matter of degree, and there are two capacitance-related effects happening at once. Capacitance affects high frequencies more than low frequencies. However, the effect of added capacitance in parallel with an inductor (like a pickup) is to move the resonance peak into the audible range, which at first makes added capacitance increase highs, then mids (as the peak moves down).

The problem with the resonant peak story is that the capacitance of the cable from guitar to amp usually just swamps the pickup capacitance, so in practice, the inductance of the pickup may dominate, and variations in self-capacitance due to winding patters would seem secondary.

Eddy current effects also increase with frequency, but capacitance has nothing to do with it.

I absolutely do not mean to argue either. I have no idea how long you've wound pickups compared to me or what your electronic background is, so I'm open that you're far more knowledgeable. A lot of senior members here are. I just enjoy the discussion of the different aspects of pickups.

I've been experimenting, but mostly learning about pickups. I have a degree in electrical engineering, and I designed a one-tube preamp in the 1960s. Never used tubes again, and yet they are making a comeback.