Understanding Wire Tension

[Chris_H]

Hi All! First time newb poster here that has been lurking for a little while. I have built a winder and have tried my hand at winding a few pickups already and I think they came out ok. My question is how much tension do you want to apply to the ** gauge of wire that you are winding with . If the breaking point of said wire is say 40 grams of tension would you want a consistent 20 grams of preasure when winding? I know that you would not want to enter the area of the wire stretching at all so where would a safe tension be? How am I measuring this, a postal scale attatched to two felt disks on a bell crank that the wire proceeds through, works well. I'll try to take a video of it and post,
Regards
Chris
Here is YouTube link, I appologize for the lack of depth in the video... hard to wind and shoot with a camera on your head.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nXt6...e_gdata_player

[MrCandy]

Good work, the winding machine is crafted well.
About wire tension I want to note that
the wire tension itself does not affect frequency characteristics
as much as number of turns in the layout of a single layer.
You can check it here.

[copperheadroads]

the wire tension itself does not affect frequency characteristics

Too much Science spoils the broth
I think tension has just so much to do with the sound of a pickup as winding patterns

[kev]

lol, Your tensioner looks very much like mine.

[Chris_H]

Kev, you are the fellow that I need to thank for that pic of your dancer and very nicely machined winder. I had been reading thread after thread on the topic and your views made sence the most. Thankyou. The dancer that you designed works very well adjusting to the shape of the bobbin at all speeds thus creating a more even tension on all sides of it and reducing the chance of loose winds or the other end of the spectrum, stretching of the wire. I adapted a small postal scale so as to see if my felt tensioner was failing at all through the wind, the wire eroding a small channel through the felt as I wound. I have wound about 6 pickups now with the scale and yes there is a reduction in preasure on the wire, nothing dramatic but about 2 grams when nearing 5500 turns or so. This was with formvar wire. I just compensate by titening the tensioner a bit.

[MrCandy]

Too much Science spoils the broth
I think tension has just so much to do with the sound of a pickup as winding patterns

About tension real impact of this factor you can see here and here
And about winding pattern look here and here

Pure science, nothing personal.

[kayakerca]

How am I measuring this, a postal scale attatched to two felt disks on a bell crank that the wire proceeds through, works well.

I am very interested in how your postal scale tension apparatus works, but I guess I'm a little slower than most I guess as I'm just not getting how it works. Could you provide a bit more detailed explanation and possible a couple of close up photos?

Thanks in advance for your help and patience.

Take Care,

Jim. . .

[madialex]

Hate to spoil the party here but tension does have a profound effect on tone. Wind 2 coils with looser tension and listen to them together, then wind 2 with tight tension and listen to them together. You'll see what I mean, all other parameters being equal. Love science myself but in this case science is wrong.

[big_teee]

Hate to spoil the party here but tension does have a profound effect on tone. Wind 2 coils with looser tension and listen to them together, then wind 2 with tight tension and listen to them together. You'll see what I mean, all other parameters being equal. Love science myself but in this case science is wrong.

You didn't tell us which tension you like the best.
You left us in suspense!
T

[David Schwab]

Love science myself but in this case science is wrong.

But it is science. When the coil is tighter the winds are closer together, this changes the capacitance and probably some mutual induction from turn to turn. Also, the tighter coil is smaller, and there may be some stretching of wire involved.

See? Wasn't that easy?

[madialex]

Hi Big Teee, I like all sorts of tension, depends on what I'm winding. I have found that in the instance with a strat setup, If I wind looser, the pickups get a good funkiness to them by themselves but when combined they loose a lot of sparkle. You can play with the tension on different positions to get unique tones in all positions. But for simplicities sake, if you wind tight when 2 strat coils are used together they have better highs and sparkle, loose and they lose it and a good deal of high end. These are my findings, YMMV