Two pickups, four coils, two series/single/parallel switches and life sucks.

[big_teee]

If you read the whole thread, there are also diagrams of inside out, and outside in.
That is why we got on the polarity quest, and Sonny brought up the DMM way.
Cause most of us didn't have the old type of meter, me included.
The quest of this thread, was to wire Davids bass split with polarity and Hum canceling.
If you wire one humbucker inside out, and one outside in?
Then you can split using one coil from one pickup, and one coil of the other pickup together, and still be in phase, and still have hum canceling.
It can drive you nuts!
T

[kayakerca]

I like Sonny's way and it doesn't require an analog meter.
Hardly anyone has analog these days.
T

I wasn't critiquing Sonny's tutorial T. I don't criticize other people instructional contributions. I was just posting a video bit (that I found helpful) of the exact same technique you were quoting from Sonny's post. I was just adding a visual version for us visual learners. If you have a look at the video you will see at ~ 18:40 that the guy shows the same technique with a DMM as well, he just goes on to say that if you have an analog meter it's easier to see the result.

[kayakerca]

Holy crap, I just learned a bunch. Thanks for that video!

Ah, so I'm not the only visual learner around here.

[Jason Rodgers]

If you read the whole thread, there are also diagrams of inside out, and outside in.
That is why we got on the polarity quest, and Sonny brought up the DMM way.
Cause most of us didn't have the old type of meter, me included.
The quest of this thread, was to wire Davids bass split with polarity and Hum canceling.
If you wire one humbucker inside out, and one outside in?
Then you can split using one coil from one pickup, and one coil of the other pickup together, and still be in phase, and still have hum canceling.
It can drive you nuts!
T

Oh, I followed this thread when it began, and read all the way through it again when it came back to the top. I even printed your final diagram to study.

My challenge, being self- and interweb-taught, is that like any beginner I'll find information sometimes and make a rule out of it. So like with the humbucker polarity issue, I thought north in was a rule... but then I saw some diagrams of north up, and I scratched my head and thought, "Huh, maybe I was wrong." So I'm building and wiring pickups with both of those rules floating around in my head, and that explains why I got parallel out of phase on the middle position of my last guitar on a three-way toggle! (On the positive side, it actually sounds pretty cool and several friends have said they like it.)

Different diagrams have different conventions, too. Some are color-coded per brand, some just say north-start, north-finish, etc., and some say neck + and neck -. I really found your "outside-in" and "inside-out" descriptions helpful, Terry.

[Sock Puppet]

The Ibanez twin humbucker wiring - if it's any use.

[big_teee]

The Ibanez twin humbucker wiring - if it's any use.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]38185[/ATTACH]

I ran through it many times, and it appears to not be hum canceling in split mode with both pickups.
It also energizes the screw coils instead of the slug coils.
I like to energize the slug coil first, especially on the bridge, because in split mode it is further from the bridge, and will be less bright.
Because of those items I mentioned above, I prefer the Anastasio wiring which addresses these issues.
http://www.1728.org/guitar11.htm
Also you can incorporate the 2 vol. 2 tone layout very easily.
Those are just my observations, and opinions, and YMMV.

T

[Sock Puppet]

If you prefer the slugs that's fine.

The Ibanez pickups have opposite magnetic polarity on the neck and bridge types so they are hum cancelling in split mode.

HTH

[Jason Rodgers]

The Ibanez twin humbucker wiring - if it's any use.

I like that style of diagram a lot, but it still says nothing about magnet polarity. I guess maybe it should be assumed that a double humbucker diagram is north in, unless it specifically labels them otherwise?

Here's another question...

Terry's diagram with both pickups oriented north up (north towards the neck) automatically requires a reverse wiring on the neck (or outside in, green + and black -), because the typical polarity is reversed: in other words, if you RP, then you must RW. Right?

So, the guy in the video wasn't expecting north up on both pickups, and seemed a little surprised to find the neck wired RW, because the black-white and green-red leads (SD colors- I thought Peavey used brown and yellow or something) gave him the opposite reading. In other words, when the 4-wire lead was attached to that neck pick, they were flipped assuming that the person wiring might not understand phase and polarity matching issues with the bridge and would just wire it black +, white-red series, and green -.

The question, then, is: do pickup manufacturers do RWRP pickups with standard wiring colors to avoid confusion and accidental out-of-phase wiring?

Did any of that make sense?....

[Sock Puppet]

Hi Jason, yes the Ibanez neck and bridge use different magnet orientation.

Can I point you to this: Super Switch | stewmac.com

And scroll down to "Humbucking pickups, phasing & magnetic polarities"

As you see there the two coils are wound in the same sense but wired finish to finish to effectively connect the second coil as if it had been wound in the opposite direction. The base slugs or screws of the two coils now have either the north or south pole of the magnet in contact with them which rejects the now out of phase hum induced in them (the coils).

Physically rotating one pickup with respect to the other (say neck slugs to bridge) will not change the relative phase.

[big_teee]

Hi Jason, yes the Ibanez neck and bridge use different magnet orientation.

Can I point you to this: Super Switch | stewmac.com

And scroll down to "Humbucking pickups, phasing & magnetic polarities"

As you see there the two coils are wound in the same sense but wired finish to finish to effectively connect the second coil as if it had been wound in the opposite direction. The base slugs or screws of the two coils now have either the north or south pole of the magnet in contact with them which rejects the now out of phase hum induced in them (the coils).

Physically rotating one pickup with respect to the other (say neck slugs to bridge) will not change the relative phase.

IMO the stewmac not very good or helpful diagram for this thread, since we are dealing with 4 wire pickups, & the chart is two wire, & has a high confusion factor.
As Jason asked, you don't have to do the outside in wiring on the neck pickup.
However when you do you benefit from the RWRP, hum canceling when split.
All of here, pretty much get the basic humbucker design, but this thread is about utilizing the split mode to its best advantage, and how to determine the current flow direction with a DMM.
T

[Sock Puppet]

Sorry, it's been a while since I was on here and the thread has been in "confusing order mode" for me.

Cheers,

R.

[big_teee]

Don't run off, and join in on the fun.
Grab your volt meter, A pickup and help us play with the polarity bump.
I was just trying to clarify and keep things in perspective.
T

[Sock Puppet]

I didn't go far, I was looking for my glasses. I just tried a magnetometer app on my phone and I'll work it out tomorrow when I can remeber the pole naming convention.

Slug poles, 3.5k per side coils and a tiny 12V battery. First watching the bottom (y) trace field weakened by -Ve to the ground on the slug coil then re-inforced with positive to the ground on that coil. A compass south pole is attracted to the magnet on that side.

Maxwell's corkscrew rule should tell which way the coil is wound... when I'm thinking more clearly as it's late here!

[LowNote]

I found out about the soldiering iron buzz after tearing my hair out trying find the buzz in a humbucker.

LowNote.

[Steve A.]

Not necessarily applicable here but...
Using two identical pickups if you wire up a standard DPDT coil split switch it will not create a humcancelling split pair. One solution is to split the coils on one pickup by connecting the middle leads to Hot instead of ground. That is not optimal because you have the unterminated hot lead going through the bypassed coil which can get noisy.

PRS got around that by reversing the leads and flipping the magnet on one of the pickups so that with a normally-wired split coil switch the middle position pair will be hum-cancelling.

Steve Ahola

P.S. DiMarzio sells a full-sized 4PDT on-on-on toggle switch for $30 which will give you series/split/parallel options for both humbuckers but for a humcancelling pair in the middle position you would want to do the PRS swap.

P.P.S. As for creating a humcancelling combination of two pickups or coils you can remember that it is the winding direction that is important by thinking of a dummy coil which has no magnet; the magnetic polarity will determine if it is in phase.