insulation type

[David Schwab]

cant explain a lot of things going on in a pickup. I have a pretty good ear for the most part.

That's the important part. Knowing what's going on is great, but most of the time we don't know exactly, but we can build experience with materials and know how the results sound.

I use PE, formvar and Poly and each has their own distinct tone. PE versus Poly, well to me Poly has a more wet tone to it where as PE has a dry type tone. Formvar is like the 2 combined with a smoother feel but very nice highs and lows. Just My .02 cents worth.

OK, I've only used poly, but I can hear the wet tone. I love that in my bass neck pickups. I like a dryer tone for the bridge, so maybe I'll pickup some PE to try out.

I've heard several people use the same analogies, so I have to accept that's how each wires sounds.

I'm still finding it fascinating that with the same insulator, I can get very different sounds going to different gauge wires.

I have some 36 gauge I'm going to mess with... Les Paul Recording pickups anyone?

[NightWinder]

Oleoresinous is Plain Enamel. Many don't know that. Why so technical. Of the 2 names, I would refer to Plain Enamel.....A little more commonly known

[madialex]

Wondering if a certain someone is here

He hangs out at the TDPRI, a godforsaken place where all the people for the most part are snobs except for a select few, mainly the ones who hang here. His name there is rockin carl, he was winding pickups and was trying to see if he was still winding and how he was getting on. If you are here speak up Bro.

[David Schwab]

Oleoresinous is Plain Enamel. Many don't know that. Why so technical. Of the 2 names, I would refer to Plain Enamel.....A little more commonly known

Ah... so it's spar varnish. Real enamel would have to be fired.

If you look up "enameled wire" it says "Enameled wire is a thin wire coated with an insulating layer, used in electric motor coils. The core material is copper, coated with a thin layer of a polyurethane, polyamide, polyester etc resin - the so-called 'enamel'."

So.. enameled wire can have a poly coating... what we know as "plain enamel" is oil based varnish. That makes sense. So that would be the reason to ask for oleoresin.

[EtLa]

Yeah I was referring to different gauges and stuff. I had heard that MWS is the only one making PE.

So many different combinations to try out...

looking at the stamp, the PE magnet wire from MWS that I have is made by Rea

[Rosewood]

What are you guys describing when you say wet or dry, you're not talking about the same wet and dry as in a delayed signal are you?
Once you get past bass, mid, treble, compressed, muddy, fat, and thin, I'm pretty much out of any description.

[DrStrangelove]

wire insulation info

I've tried to find out electrical properties of magnet wire insulation.
No luck with the PE plain enamel or "oleoresinous enamel".

Perusing Wikipedia and the Shugg handbook, I find this:

It's a varnish, not an enamel, comes from a mix natural "drying" oils like
tung and linseed, with resins like rosin and copal.

Coal tars mixed in along with some organo-metallic hardeners like
cobalt/manganese acetates and naphthenates.

Lower oil content varnishes are called "short oil" and require
oven curing. Pickup wire is more likely the "long oil" type.

The industry handbook [Shugg] mentions that PE coatings are
easier to manufacture at tight tolerances than most other dielectrics,
an advantage for pickup winders, certainly. This suggests that PE
is supple and isn't completely hard when new.

PE's dielectric constant and absorption, it's ability to be a capacitor
and exhibit frequency-dependant loss in a pickup, is conspicuously
absent from any literature I can find.

The NEMA MW-1 wire spec was written too early in industrial
history to include dielectric info and no manufacturor will pay
for unmandated testing, particularly for a group as low on the
radar as pickup winders. We can ask MWS and REA, but I
doubt that they will tell us.

If I had to guesstimate, I'd say the PE dielectric constant
is slightly lower than other insulations, closer to 3 than 4,
and it's dielectric loss is a little higher when new but decreases
with age as it hardens further.

For an excess of information on wire insulations, get a copy of Tillar Shugg's,
Handbook of Electrical and Electronic Insulating Materials,
ISBN 0-442-28122-6. Mine was $40 and I'm still ambivalent about
the value of it.

-drh

[Possum]

clarify please.....

I don't think plain enamel wire is too new to have known properties, its been in use for a long time, back to the turn of the century I bet, at least the 1920s. Maybe there is some other name for the insulation?

Can you then tell us in plain english for us right brained logic challenged, how formvar, poly nylon, and plain enamel in dielectric terms would effect a coil? You kinda lost me there Dr. Strangelove in the last post. This stuff has been discussed before but not as sensibly as this paritcular thread. Also page 11 of WHAT MWS catalog? I don't see anything on their website like what you mentioned there.

Also if plain enamel hardens and the dielectric value changes, I wonder how many years it takes to do this? And following that how would you age it so it hardens? By baking? Or would that soften it?

[Possum]

Class....

I have the old Querfurth coil winding book and it describes all the insulations of coil wires. Plain enamel is described as Class A as are formvar and the poly wires. Epoxy and polyester are described as class B and teflon as class H. Teflon is desicrbed as having excellent dielectric properties, so maybe plain enamel is the same as formvar and poly? What is the class system referring to anyway A/B/H ?

[DrStrangelove]

I don't think plain enamel wire is too new to have known properties, its been in use for a long time, back to the turn of the century I bet, at least the 1920s. Maybe there is some other name for the insulation?

All I can find on plain enamel calls it oleoresinous enamel or yellow varnish.

We are trying to connect wire insulation with dielectric constant to see if it is significant in changing a pickup's sound. If you say that PE, formvar, and poly winds sound different, I believe you... and dielectric constant is the most obvious thing to look at.

Can you then tell us in plain english for us right brained logic challenged, how formvar, poly nylon, and plain enamel in dielectric terms would effect a coil?

I'll certainly try. A dielectric is an insulator for direct current but it often passes AC. The AC qualities of interest are dielectric constant and dielectric absorption (loss factor). Low dielectric constant (d.c.)means it's a poor capacitor, like air ( = 1.0) while a higher number means it passes AC better.

If a pickup wire's insulation has a higher dielectric constant that means there will be more internal losses at high frequency and a lower resonant frequency at a given load.

I interpret what you all say to mean that plain enamel has a slightly lower dielectric constant than polyester and formvar coatings.

If this is true, then poly-nylon insulation, whose dielectric constant is roughly twice that of PE/formvar/polyester, would sound muddy sooner as you add more windings.

Also page 11 of WHAT MWS catalog?

There's an MWS Tech Book in .pdf format at:
http://www.mwswire.com/pdf_files/mws..._Tech_Book.pdf

Also if plain enamel hardens and the dielectric value changes, I wonder how many years it takes to do this? And following that how would you age it so it hardens? By baking? Or would that soften it?

I'd guess years or decades; it would
depend on how it was handled -- stored in a cool dry place or an attic. If the industrial docs are right, oleoresin varnishes harden on baking and are mostly baked after they coat the wire. No idea how its dielectric constant would change.

more hand-waving arguments from
-drh

[Rosewood]

All I can find on plain enamel calls it oleoresinous enamel or yellow varnish.

We are trying to connect wire insulation with dielectric constant to see if it is significant in changing a pickup's sound. If you say that PE, formvar, and poly winds sound different, I believe you... and dielectric constant is the most obvious thing to look at.

I'll certainly try. A dielectric is an insulator for direct current but it often passes AC. The AC qualities of interest are dielectric constant and dielectric absorption (loss factor). Low dielectric constant (d.c.)means it's a poor capacitor, like air ( = 1.0) while a higher number means it passes AC better.

If a pickup wire's insulation has a higher dielectric constant that means there will be more internal losses at high frequency and a lower resonant frequency at a given load.

I interpret what you all say to mean that plain enamel has a slightly lower dielectric constant than polyester and formvar coatings.

If this is true, then poly-nylon insulation, whose dielectric constant is roughly twice that of PE/formvar/polyester, would sound muddy sooner as you add more windings.



There's an MWS Tech Book in .pdf format at:
http://www.mwswire.com/pdf_files/mws..._Tech_Book.pdf

I'd guess years or decades; it would
depend on how it was handled -- stored in a cool dry place or an attic. If the industrial docs are right, oleoresin varnishes harden on baking and are mostly baked after they coat the wire. No idea how its dielectric constant would change.

more hand-waving arguments from
-drh

Let's see if I am even in the ballpark( this is a little over my head)
1. resonant freq. lower with poly
2. to duplicate an old pu you would just about have to wind with old wire
3. using double, triple build poly would raise resonant freq.?
To get all the insulators on a even playing field wouldn't the film build have to be the same? Is a single build formvar or PE the same thickness as a single build of poly?

[DrStrangelove]

Let's see if I am even in the ballpark( this is a little over my head)
1. resonant freq. lower with poly

yup. We don't know how much until we do the measurements.

2. to duplicate an old pu you would just about have to wind with old wire

Yup.

3. using double, triple build poly would raise resonant freq.?

Yup.

To get all the insulators on a even playing field wouldn't the film build have to be the same? Is a single build formvar or PE the same thickness as a single build of poly?

Yes, and yes.

Let be clear: this idea of connecting insulation dielectric to pickup timbre is a hypothesis, a call to investigation. It is NOT a theory. We need proof, which means reproducible measurements.

-drh

[SteikBacon]

Great thread. Do you know the pickups they measure on the link?? Can we relate anything to insulation?

http://online.physics.uiuc.edu/cours...asurements.pdf

[Rosewood]

A few years ago I saw a picture of Fender checking a pickup with a loop of wire around the pickup, the loop being driven by a poweramp, and the output of the pickup plugged into an analyzer or something. It was to measure freq. response I assume. I'm about 95% sure it was Fender.

[madialex]

I interpret what you all say to mean that plain enamel has a slightly lower dielectric constant than polyester and formvar coatings.

If this is true, then poly-nylon insulation, whose dielectric constant is roughly twice that of PE/formvar/polyester, would sound muddy sooner as you add more windings.

This is correct, at least in what I have heard to my owns ears. Polly will fatten up way faster than PE, formvar will take a little more before it gets muddy and PE is the best as far as hotter winds not getting muddy. IMO