Thoughts on PRS 513's pickup system

[Biarnel]

I was really impressed by the sound and versatility of those 513.
But it seems nothing strange, a single coil that becomes humbucker not in the paf way but in a more "bass-pickup-like" way.
Am I wrong?

I was tempted to experiment on that, then I discovered 513 and.. whoops, someone already did it.

Let's discuss that thing. It's simple, why isn't it popular?

[Peter Naglitsch]

Dunno what you mean with bass pickup like.

I watched a YouTube demo of that guitar and my first reaction was that the switch system was a standard 5-way, while the 3-way "only" switched the HBs from Coil-cut to parallel HB to Series HB. But I have never had the opportunity to examine one first hand so hopefully someone that has will give us their idea.

[Biarnel]

The main feature is that the HB is not an HB but two true single coil.
So you have "strat" tone, and not the false single coil tone of a HB coil cut.
(well, to me, HB in coil cut is good enough, anyway!)

I think I heard, in that youtube video you mentioned, "the good thing is that in position 1 and 5 we have single coil BUT it's hum canceling!".

uhm... maybe I misunderstood!

I dont understand why the middle single coil is there.
The middle is used RW/RP in a strat S/S/S setup, in pos. 2 and 4, for hum canceling.. why use it in the 513, where you can do hum canceling with the coil next to the one you're using?

[Biarnel]

Dunno what you mean with bass pickup like.

Paf style: a bar magnet underneath the coils, slugs or screws in the coil touching the mag.

"bass" style (I mean, what you find usually in a bass humbucker): two coils, each one with individual mags.

[David Schwab]

The pickups are tapped, so in single coil mode, you get the full coil, and in tapped mode, you get the lower output in series with another coil wound the same.

Here's the patent applications:

The system: 20050150364

The bobbin and pickup: 20050150365

[Possum]

...........

there's usually nothing new under the sun, Velvet Hammer did a bucker with two single coil type bobbins a long time ago, uses pole screws but tall bobbins like a strat....

[EtLa]

there's usually nothing new under the sun, Velvet Hammer did a bucker with two single coil type bobbins a long time ago, uses pole screws but tall bobbins like a strat....

Red Rhodes pickup's I have the Velvet 54.

[Biarnel]

There's a couple of schematics and lots of info here, http://www.gearbuilder.de/forum/m-1166136844/, ..but it's german and I really can't understand

[Phil m]

There's a couple of schematics and lots of info here, http://www.gearbuilder.de/forum/m-1166136844/, ..but it's german and I really can't understand

Just stick it through one of the online translators. You get some pretty funky results but it's a lot more understandable than German


The PRS 513 fastened a few the flair of the special because here a special control is used, how the manufacturer knows to report on its web page. What sticks in the end behind it, looks at throws quickly clear, if one once one the belong with it patent from the year 2005.

Read about here the US-patent 20050150364 to that 513 of PRS and Co. to that.

For the "going bad" now the Quintessens:

Reason draft

The PRS 513 is a HSH-guitar with a control technical peculiarity. Both doppelspuligen cartridge consist of two spools, that have respectively an Anzapfung in 55 to 80% of the turns. Over a so-called fashion-Switch, now three positions can be activated:

1. Serial Humbucker (100%)
2. of serial Humbucker with tapped spools (55% - 80%)
3. Single-Coil (a spool 100%)

We look at once the consequences resulting electric from that:

1St Induction

Because the amount of the turns goes in quadratic into the calculation of the Induktivität, different Induktivitäten can be produced in this manner:

1St L (therefore the full value, over that once again nothing well known is) 2. 0,3*L until 0,64*L 3. 0,5*L

2Nd capacity

Because the capacity of a Humbuckers of many factors is dependent, only coarse estimations can be encountered there:

1St C 2. 0,5*C until 0,8*C 3. 2*C

3Rd resonance frequency

Under the acceptance that the capacity of the cartridge is small against the cable capacity (what in the normal case so counts), yield self-following relative resonances:

1st F0 2. 1,8*f0 until 1,25*f0 3. 1,41*f0

4Th exit tension

Here the winding number goes in proportionally into the size of the induction tension. Therefore:

1St U0 2. 0,55*U0 until 0,8*U0 3. 0,5*U0

5. It does not hum (almost)

The Single-Coil-business so is displayed that a together control with the Middle-PU is again a Humbucker-fashion. The magnetic polarity of the 5 spool is follows how:

Tease:

A: north (Single-Coil)

B: south

Middle:

C: south

Bridge:

D: south

E: north (Single-Coil)

the magic number is 6th 13

The PU-Selector functions like in many HSH-guitars. Therefore

1. 2. Tease tease|| Middle 3. Middle 4. Middle||Bridge 5. Bridge

Altogether one receives so 13 different combinations of which 11 Humbucker-variants are.

7Th control

One of control variants represented two in the patent the following picture shows:

[Peter Naglitsch]

And the version I suggested would be a much simpler aproximation of that...

OK, feel free to bang away on that statement now

[David Schwab]

Instead of translating that German text, why not just read the patent?

[verhoevenc]

Resurrecting a super old thread, but I wanted to comment on it a bit. I mainly wanted to wonder why PRS complicated the switching so much?!
Would this not have been simpler?
Pickups: Wind 3 single coils that have a coil reduction tap in them a few kOhm under their max output. Then wind two more coils with a value close to that of the tapped value of the other 3. These two coils become the "inside coils" of the positions that look like humbuckers.
Wiring: Have the 3 full sized coils go through a 5-way blade in standard strat config. Then have the 2 smaller coils go through a 3-way blade that has the configuration bridge/off/neck with the kicker that in the bridge or neck positions it's not only turning those coils on, but it's also sending the other 3 coil's tap to ground. That way, when you turn 'on' the 3-way blade to make humbuckers you don't get a huge leap in power.
Obviously this is very similar to what they are doing... but just looking at that diagram above makes me think they could have achieved this with standard components instead of likely having all those custom electronics components built for this one model.
Thoughts?
Chris

[Peter Naglitsch]

Been there, done that, not a mayor success...

[David Schwab]

....That way, when you turn 'on' the 3-way blade to make humbuckers you don't get a huge leap in power.

I think you have it backwards. The way I see it, if you take a regular H-S-H guitar, when you want the single coil tones from the humbuckers, you shut off one coil. But that won't sound exactly like a single coil, since it doesn't have as much wire wound on it. So it ends up being kind of thin and weak.

So what you do it wind one of the coils in the humbucker to have a tap, so when in single coil mode, it's wound like a real single coil. For what ever reason, they decided to wind both coils that way, so you can switch between "clear" and "heavy" humbucker tones. Since they use 5 single coil units, that's probably why they wound them that way.

I did something similar in the 80s, by stacking two standard humbuckers* on top of each other. You could have the top two coils, and get a regular PAF type tone, or switch to one of the single coil stacks, for a single coil tone with no hum (or if you change the phase, a louder single coil that hums), or all four coils for a loud humbucker tone.


(*I actually used two early patent label Gibson pickups from an old Les Paul! At the time they were just old pickups in my junk box, and nothing special either. Now of course they would be worth something.)

[Peter Naglitsch]

Thats the way the split-able EMGs are made. My version used standard HB bobbins. I wound the slug coil with 44 wire to 5000 turns and the screw to the same turncount with 42 wire. Then I added another 2-2500 turns on the slug bobbin. The idea was that the two coils with the outer winds should sound similar to a standard HB (that part worked) and the slug with both the inner and outer concentric coils would sound better as a SC approximation than a standard split HB. Not so.