Pulling cover of P-bass

[chevalij]

A friend has asked me to rewind a p-bass pickup. Seems simple enough. Just curious about the cover. Is it just held on by the wax? I'm also anticipating the rewind at about 5.5k. Anybody have a rough idea of winds for that reading ?

[GlennW]

Here's a thread which might help. I don't think the cover should be attached unless someone did something to make it that way. Maybe a blow dryer will help if it's stuck.

http://music-electronics-forum.com/s...ighlight=split

[chevalij]

Here's a thread which might help.

Thanks Glenn, answered a lot of questions...

[David Schwab]

A friend has asked me to rewind a p-bass pickup. Seems simple enough. Just curious about the cover. Is it just held on by the wax? I'm also anticipating the rewind at about 5.5k. Anybody have a rough idea of winds for that reading ?

No wax. They are usually potted in lacquer. 10,000 turns per coil.

If you can't get the cover off, press something into one of the pole piece holes and press the bobbin out of the cover holding onto the mounting tabs.

[chevalij]

lacquer... great. this is not going to be fun is it...? How do you strip a coil that has lacquered windings? Just start cutting slow and easy?

[David Schwab]

I use xacto knifes, with several different blades. Once you get into the wire you can grab it and pull it off as a big chunk.

[chevalij]

So, basically the same as stripping any other pickup. Just a little tougher to dig into

[GlennW]

Scissors on Swiss Army knives work pretty good too.

[chevalij]

I received the pickup today. Was told one coil was dead. It's kind of odd. One has been rewound already using spn, reads about 5.3k. Second (supposedly dead coil) is original PE with lacquer. Reads in at about 9.6k ? And no, I'm not reading them in series I separated the coils. Any ideas on a high reading before I kill an original 62 P-bass pickup? Oh yeah, covers popped off with no problems.

[GlennW]

I don't think Fender ever wound split P pickups that hot. I'd guess (as usual) that the 9.6K reading indicates a broken or almost broken wire. Maybe it's a bad connection at one of the eyelets. Have you put a VOM across the start eyelet and the magnets (one at a time)?...might be shorting out there.

I've read something about self-capacitance and don't understand it much other than it's why broken coils continue to work. Maybe the high reading suggests that?

[chevalij]

First thing I did was reflow the solder at the eyelets. Same reading. Also checked from coil to poles, no shorts. Oh well, guess I'll just have to strip it down and rewind. Thanks everyone for the help.

[chevalij]

Operation was succesfull and the pickup pulled through nicely. The hard part was stripping the winds off a deep skinny bobbin Wound it up with 10k wraps of 42 PE. Ended up about 5.25k. Thanks all...

[GlennW]

Did you find anything weird (or not weird) to make it have the high reading?

[chevalij]

Did you find anything weird (or not weird) to make it have the high reading?

Nope. Nothing obvious on the outside or the eyelets. Of course, once I started cutting there was frayed wire everywhere, so the inside was a mystery...