What the heck is going on?

[corduroyew]

In my search to make the perfect seven string guitar pickup I have been working a lot with alnico V and I’ve been disappointed more often than not. Today I finished a pickup that I loved. It had a very strong high end but next to no bass end. It works great for jazz so I’m not bothered about the lack of bass. What I am bothered about is the readings I’m getting. I wound this pickup to what I thought would give me 15K resistance. When I checked it with my DC meter it did read 15K. Then I check it with my extec meter and it reads 0 ohms. It doesn’t matter if the frequency is set at 120 or 1k. The inductance is in the 600’s and capacitance is 2.5. I know I did something to “mess up” this pickup but I don’t know what. The thing is I want to be able to do it again and I don’t want to destroy the pickup I have by taking it apart and seeing where I “went wrong.” Anybody know what might cause something like this?

[David Schwab]

Is this a single coil, or humbucker?

The fact that you aren't getting the readings sounds like a short.

[Possum]

....

The Extech doesn't read DC ohms, it reads AC ohms. 600 henries is incredibly high, you sure you got that right? Usually with a short you get very high AC resistance, thats where it shows up. It sounds like you have a super bad short somewhere but need more details......

[corduroyew]

I realize the extec only reads AC, didn’t mean to insinuate that I thought it was reading DC. Sorry if I worded things poorly.

It’s a humbucker set up with a coil split. When I take readings from either coil they read over 400 Henries. The two coils together are over 600. I double checked things this morning and I am sure those are the readings. It’s also reading 0 ac resistance. 15K dc resistance.

[mick]

Got your extech on the correct setting , got the range . in the correct place? could be in the wrong place and you have hold engaged??

Mick

[David Schwab]

If that's a humbucker, and you are getting next to no low end, it sounds to me that you have the coils wired up in phase, which results in an out-of-phase super thin tone. Try reversing one coil's wires.

Does it hum?

[corduroyew]

I double checked my meter and it's working correctly. I am getting normal readings from all my other pickups.

The pickup is wired correctly. My 1st thought was that I had it out of phase with it's self but it turns out I didn't. I'm using a 2 bar magnets on this pickup so I double checked to make sure I didn't have one of the magnets up side down, and I don't. I've got a coil split switch and I have it set up so I can switch between each coil in the pickup and both coils on their own are also very thin and top heavy. I'm thinking that the first impression (a short) was the correct one, but it seems weird that it would have happend to both coils in the pickup.

[David Schwab]

So you have the two bar magnets opposite, right? (one north up, and the other south up?)

I use steel bars in my pickups, and the last two I wound I forgot to tape the bar. All four coils had shorts... In this case, taping the bar is the only reliable way to insulate it, and it's fast too.

This reminds me of a very odd problem that happened once. I have a long time customer that loves Duncan rail pickups. He brought me one of his strats to look at. The neck pickup, which was a Cool Rail, was VERY bassy, loud and distorted. You could lower it all the way down, and it was still way louder than the bridge position Hot Rail. After much inspection, I discovered that when he installed the pickup (his first problem!) he melted one of the leads and it stuck to the bottom of the bar magnet!

Somehow this made the pickup really loud. I was too busy at the time to try and figure out what was going on... but it's still very odd.