Turns Per Layer

[big_teee]

Here's an old thread that shows some of what has been mentioned.
http://music-electronics-forum.com/t26538/
T

[Ward]

I get up to as high as 200 tpl on Strat singles and they just drip with beautiful tones.

Yep, 200 for strat mid and neck is mandatory for my taste. I like 100 on the bridge.

[Stratz]

Yep, 200 for strat mid and neck is mandatory for my taste. I like 100 on the bridge.

If you haven't already... try 8,500 w ~200 tpl, quite tight, #42HF with A2 beveled and loaded to ~620-680 Gauss in the neck position.

Mine sound incredible. I actually surprised myself the first time I heard one.

[Ward]

If you haven't already... try 8,500 w ~200 tpl, quite tight, #42HF with A2 beveled and loaded to ~620-680 Gauss in the neck position.

Mine sound incredible. I actually surprised myself the first time I heard one.

Thanks for the tips Stratz, I only have A5 rods at the mo, I usually do the neck with 42 f/var, 7700 winds but also recently I've been making the coil 1mil taller so it's the same height as a Tele bridge, I'd certainly give it a go when I get some A2s, I just did a Mojo order and at min shipping of $40 to Oz I'm not about to do another one for a while. I do have a set of A3 and A4 but found both to be less chimey than A5 and I hate woolly tone. I don't have a gauss meter either so I can only test mag strength by hand. I'm always up for a new spec though so thanks again.

[Stratz]

I don't have a gauss meter either so I can only test mag strength by hand.

You can build a Gauss probe for $10 if you have a DMM. I used to use my Fathers Bell before he retired and moved to Florida.
I found the plans online and built the probe for almost nothing.

Rob.

[Mike Sulzer]

Here's an old thread that shows some of what has been mentioned.
http://music-electronics-forum.com/t26538/
T

I am wrong, the stretching won.

[big_teee]

I am wrong, the stretching won.

I just looked at it again.
If they both had 5000 turns, at 100tpl.
They must have stretched the hell out of it cause the max tension was 150 Ohms higher.
It should have taken less space.
So stretching the wire does have more effect than I figured.
I did a lot of that when I first started winding.
T

[David Schwab]

So if you lower the resistance, you make the Q higher, and it is brighter. It could be that simple. Nah, nothing is ever that simple!

Right, and then the peak shifts higher in frequency, and the pickup sounds smoother, and less bright! It's counter intuitive at times. Winding it hotter makes it sound brighter, even though its frequency response is not as wide.

[Joe Gwinn]

Winding with tension enough to really stretch the wire will be hard to standardize, making it difficult to tease the various effects apart.

I would start with winding a series of coils on bobbins with only enough tension to yield a non-floppy coil while varying only TPL, and testing these coils for mechanical dimensions, DC resistance, inductance, self-capacitance, and self-resonant frequency.

Then, vary the tension in a new test series.

[jason lollar]

even uninsulated 42 at .004 diameter X 200 is .8 so you are not actually getting 200 turns per layer in a single wire thickness. Your getting a different scatter pattern yes but your not getting the same results you would if you were trying to get an even single layer wind with a higher turn per layer. I have a tanac and i used it once for reverse engineering Rhodes pickups for a company. The original pickups were wound accurately at 100 turns per layer which was the maximum amount you could use with 38 gauge on a half inch tall bobbin and get the wire to lay next to the previous turn which is all programmable on a tanac- anything more and the wire starts folding over itself and it gets all uneven and pretty much goes out of control back and forth in micro amounts making a pretty loose scatter. Anyway more turns per layer up the the max you can get without starting to oscillate into a scatter gives you more inductance than fewer turns per layer.
Problem I ran into is unless your wire guide is right up against the coil at all times the wire will wander and you never get a perfectly machine wound coil like everyone reffers to. Think about the bobbin winder on a sewing machine and how that works with no traverse mechanism- its all about distance from the bobbin and the material oscillating. The henries on these coils are very important to have them in a certain range because of how many coils are wired together in series/ parallel- talking 54 to 88 coils so being off a small percentage really affects overall tone and volume.

[Ward]

Problem I ran into is unless your wire guide is right up against the coil at all times the wire will wander and you never get a perfectly machine wound coil like everyone refers to.

I got rid of my guide and end stops for exactly that reason, I now hold the wire right up as close to the bobbin as possible. It doesn't stray like before but still, hand winding is still hand winding.

[Stratz]

even uninsulated 42 at .004 diameter X 200 is .8 so you are not actually getting 200 turns per layer in a single wire thickness.

Sometimes terminology gets in the way. I should have stated ~ 200 turns per traverse with a very uniform coil.

[Possum]

While looking at tests for varying winding patterns, its interesting to know what the charts and graphs and numbers read, but you really have to do tough listening tests on each coil, because numbers don't show what you'll hear. In strictly talking about Strat coils, these are the toughest coils of all to make sound amazing and the bridge is the toughest of all. I use real harsh methods to listen, I use my 57 reissue strat with completely new harness with CTS pots, high efficiency guitar cord,and a NOS ceramic disk tone cap. Plugged into a Sivlerface Vibrolux which is plugged into a Celestion Alnico Gold 12" speaker, treble on 8, bass on 2. You can hear every tiny detail that way that you can't hear in a modern amp with ceramic speaker, master volume etc. Probably Blues Junior being the worst amp of all to do a test like this. The guitar itself is very bright, has a Callham block, Raw Vintage saddles and springs, the neck is all glossy nitro and the whole guitar is just real edgy sounding unplugged, nothing like a real vintage strat in any way. I have a 1958 strat coil as a baseline, I can get within about 2% of what it does but never closer. Probably the vintage magnets and aged HF wire account for the unobtainable. Here is a chart of rez peaks of 2 coils I wound, the grey line is closest to the '58, the red line was a different wind. I have yet to listen to the red line coil in the bridge in the guitar yet, but am amazed at how dumbed down the wind pattern accomplished this amount of difference. Both have same number of turns, both wound on the exact same bobbin/magnets. The reason to do lisening tests (that should also be recorded) is you cant measure unquantifiable things like vowel tone, twang factor, nor extreme high treble musicality.

[Ward]

Sometimes terminology gets in the way. I should have stated ~ 200 turns per traverse with a very uniform coil.

TPT

[Stratz]

TPT

That would work fine for hand winding