43awg P90.

[Phil Gerke]

Hey all,

So, my first post here, I've been lurking for a while and have learned much, but I gotta actually ask something this time.

Do any of you have any pointers on winding P90's with 43? My inclination is to fill the bobbin roughly to have the same amount of copper as a standard 10,000 turn 42awg. I'm not really sure at all how many winds I'm going to end up with, or what that will end up doing to the tone. I assume it will be hotter, and darker? Should I not wind that much on?

At any rate, if any of you would care to share your experiences I would love to hear about it. The pickup will be used in the bridge position.

Thanks in advance,

Phil

[David King]

Phil,
Welcome to the Pickup Makers area.
Either you only have 43Awg in which case you'll either get some 42 or you'll continue with your plan to wind on the 43.
Or you have some specific reason why you want to use 43 and you have an inkling on how to achieve the desired results.
I'd suggest you start with the standard 10000 turns (if that's what they take, I wouldn't know). You can then get some sort of a baseline idea of what that sounds like and then add or subtract wire to see what direction and how far you want to take it.
The end result will probably depend more on how acute your hearing is and how familiar you are with what you consider to be the ideal P-90 sound.
Whatever you end up at it will probably work and you'll probably think that it sounds great -especially if it's your first wind.
People generally wind bridge pickups hotter to make up for the reduced string excursion.
More important would be for you to share your findings here since it's unlikely that anyone else has done so.

[copperheadroads]

I have wound a few p-90's with 43 gauge wire & over 14k & I wouldn't consider them overly dark .

[big_teee]

Make a strong one for the bridge, and a weaker one, or one from 42 for the neck.

[copperheadroads]

Make a strong one for the bridge, and a weaker one, or one from 42 for the neck.

I agree 43 gauge is too dark for the neck pup

[aaronbrill]

I'm not an expert by any means, but I have a little experience with this. Several months ago I made a set of P90's for a friends' Les Paul that was originally fitted with humbuckers. I used a standard P90 bobbin that was cut down to fit inside a humbucker cover, and to ensure I could get enough wire onto the shorter bobbin I used 43 gauge instead of 42. 8500 turns (fairly consistent wind with minimal scatter, hand tensioned) of the 43 gauge yielded about 8.75K resistance which is what we were shooting for on his bridge pickup. I recently made up a set of standard P90's for one of my guitars using 11000 turns of 42 gauge wire on my bridge pickup which gave about 9.2K resistance. Last weekend we did a comparison of the two guitars with him playing both guitars through my amp. Honestly, we were hard pressed to hear much of a difference between the two. I'd say mine had slightly more output but the overall tone was very similar. Of course there's plenty of variables at play here so I can't make any concrete conclusions, but take it for what it's worth.

Aaron

[David Schwab]

It all depends on how you wind it. It you wind a coil the way you would with 42, but use 43, you generally get a brighter tone with more midrange emphasis. The coil will also be smaller. If you wind until the coil is full, then of course you have wound a lot more wire, and it will be darker sounding.

As an example, look at older Rickenbacker pickups. They are wound with 44, and not a whole lot of wire, and they are very bright. If you wound 10,000 turns of 44 on a P-90 bobbin it would not look very full.

So you can either use thinner wire to get a different tone, or to have more room to over wind the pickup, but you don't have to fill up the bobbin.

[Phil Gerke]

Thanks a lot for all the input guys!

So, it went pretty well. I was able to put around 14,000 winds on and my resistance was in the ball park of 14.5. I'm having to use my B squad analog multimeter and its not super accurate or easy to read. I'll get specific as soon as I can. I did not have issues with the wire, no breaks or anything, matter of fact the coil looked pretty good. There was definitely a little funkyness to the shape which I think I can attribute to my winder having not the purest rotation to it. Put in the A8/A4 combo, screwed it all in tight etc..soldered it up, taped it up. Its ready to listen to. Crappy thing is I gotta wait a couple weeks to try it out! I'm on the road working so its setting in my pickup box patiently. Still not sure if I should pot it or not. Depends on the tests I suppose.

My intention on the test day is to A/B against a known P90, and then proceed to swap different types of magnets as well as hex head pole pieces. Recording all the different combos so I can compare and contrast later. I really hope I can find the time to make it happen!

Next wind will be an A5 42awg 10,000 wind P90. I would have done this first, but had issues with my wire order from one source. Now I'm going through Remington in Illinois, great guys.

Also for those interested. My cheapo winder rig is simply a small Ryobi drill with a bit of flat iron as the bobbin holder. I have a reed switch rigged to the drill which feeds into the left click of a usb mouse which goes into my mac and actuates the equals button on the calculator widget (not the calculator app, its can't keep up for some reason). I made a traverse limiter out of a piece of 1/4" still rod and a couple 1/4' locking spacer things like on the Schatten winders. I used this 3M reusable double sided tape stuff that worked like a champ to attach the bobbin.

So thats where I am at for now. I'm expecting the pickup up to be on the darker, hotter side. I'm really curious to hear the impact of the magnets being swapped as well as the role that the hex heads will play.

Thanks again for the welcome and the input!

Phil

[David King]

Generally we want to change just one thing at a time to figure out what's going on. It's hard to be that disciplined when you don't have a grant.

Good to know about the reusable double sided tape (3M R100), I've been eyeing that stuff for a while now..

[David Schwab]

I use the 3M/Scotch double sided foam tape to hold the bobbins on. Been using it for years now.

[Phil Gerke]

Generally we want to change just one thing at a time to figure out what's going on. It's hard to be that disciplined when you don't have a grant.

Have no fear, I've done plenty of shootouts etc... and the scientific method is no stranger to me I'll be as meticulous as I can. Probably limit my self to 4 magnet configurations, each one getting fillister head poles and hex head poles. Everything else should stay the same. Being as these will be used by a good buddy of mines, we'll be comparing against the P90 he already has in his bridge position, the "control" if you will. Fortunately I really have no preconceived notions or any biases on what "should" and "shouldn't" sound good. It will be enlightening, already has been thus far.

David I see you are a fellow Portlander! Small world indeed.

Yes, the R100 stuff is what I used. Liked it more than I expected, jury is still out on how many re-uses I'll get out it.

[rhgwynn]

I'm not an expert by any means, but I have a little experience with this. Several months ago I made a set of P90's for a friends' Les Paul that was originally fitted with humbuckers. I used a standard P90 bobbin that was cut down to fit inside a humbucker cover....

Slightly off topic but... You know that they make P90 humbucker-sized frames, right? Well, if you didn't - now you do!

-Rob

[big_teee]

Slightly off topic but... You know that they make P90 humbucker-sized frames, right? Well, if you didn't - now you do!

-Rob

They call them that, but they don't sound like them.
I tried and tried to get one to sound like a P90
I'd rather have a good low wound Humbucker.

[David King]

Are "frames" the same things as bobbins? I'm a little confused here.

[copperheadroads]

Slightly off topic but... You know that they make P90 humbucker-sized frames, right? Well, if you didn't - now you do!

-Rob

Frames ?
We show us some ?
Most humbuckers wont fit in a p-90 routed guitar without modification ,nor will a p-90 fit into a bucker slot