pickup grounding

[Darren Orr]

Hey, I recently made a humbucker, well 2 single coils put together like a humbucker. But i used Pcb board with the copper on one side, figuring the copper would act like a shield. When the guitar is all wired (correctly, i checked about 7 times...) there is a hum. It gets quieter when i touch the strings.

Would this be due to me not grounding the copper facings?
Would grounding the facings, which the magnets are in contact with, be a good idea?

Apart from the hum it sounds awesome...

Anyone have any ideas?

Cheers.

[black_labb]

Hey, I recently made a humbucker, well 2 single coils put together like a humbucker. But i used Pcb board with the copper on one side, figuring the copper would act like a shield. When the guitar is all wired (correctly, i checked about 7 times...) there is a hum. It gets quieter when i touch the strings.

Would this be due to me not grounding the copper facings?
Would grounding the facings, which the magnets are in contact with, be a good idea?

Apart from the hum it sounds awesome...

Anyone have any ideas?

Cheers.

yes, you need to ground the copper. there will be hum virtually all the time, as even the wires pick up 50hz, but you should ground everything metalic on the instrument possible, to get minimum hum. usually hum is reduced my touching strings, as the instrument is using you as a ground.

im not saying you wont get any hum, but you should reduce it by grounding the copper on the bobbin.

[Darren Orr]

awesome, thanks for that, i kinda figured thats what i needed to do but wasnt sure due to the copper touching the magnets therefore grounding the magnets.

Cheers

[David King]

Grounding the magnets is a good idea provided that the windings didn't get shorted to the magnets on the ends of the coil. Hopefully you insulated the magnets first with tape or some concoction that gets really hard.