No resistance reading

[NewBE]

Hello,
I’m brand new to winding pickups and have been trying to wind my first successful single coil. After several attempts,I still can’t get a resistance reading on any of these new pickups (meter works fine with other pickups).

The first two attempts, I sprayed the bobbin with lacquer then wound 9500 winds. Magnetized the pickup and soldered the begin and end of the wrap to the eyelet- no resistance reading.

I thought maybe the lacquer wasn’t melting in the brass eyelet when soldering, so made another with out lacquer. Same result no resistance reading.

I thought maybe the wire I had wasn’t melting the enamel when soldering so switched it out for a wire advertised to melt when soldering. Same result.

I made a new bobbin and wrapped the poles with cloth tape before winding,figuring maybe it is shorting on the pole pieces. Same result.
So now I am out of ideas and realize I suck at this.

Has anyone run into this before? Am I missing something?
Thanks in advance for any assistance.

[big_teee]

Probably an eyelet solder issue.
Is your wire Poly, PE, or Formvar.
Poly will easily solder to the eyelets, the others won,t without cleaning first.

[NewBE]

Thanks Terry.
The last wire I used was this:
Temco 42 AWG Copper Magnet Wire - 1 LB 48841 FT 155°c Magnetic Coil Red

Picked it up on eBay.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/TEMCo-Magne...=2370994235016

It’s supposed to solder without stripping.

Have you ever stripped a wire for a pickup? The beginning of the wind should be easy enough,but I fear I would f up all the hard work at the end of the wind if I tried to sand the coating off?

[Chuck H]

I thought maybe the lacquer wasn’t melting in the brass eyelet when soldering,..

I thought maybe the wire I had wasn’t melting the enamel when soldering

This would be chasing an open circuit.

I made a new bobbin and wrapped the poles with cloth tape before winding,figuring maybe it is shorting on the pole pieces.

This would be chasing a shorted circuit.

An open circuit and a shorted circuit are very different things. You're description of "no resistance reading" is vague on the matter. I think it implies an open circuit. A shorted circuit would have no resistance and an open circuit would have infinite resistance. Can you clarify this?

[NewBE]

Ahhh, good info. On my meter, if it isn’t measuring anything, the display reads .L.

This still shows when I touch the leads to the pickup.

[Chuck H]

Thanks. That's an open circuit then. I'm not a pickup maker but I thought the clarification might help you get responses.

[mozz]

Try using sandpaper very carefully on the wire, that's the only way i can get the insulation off. Using the soldering iron heat doesn't seem to work for me on any type of wire i tried. Even if the wire was shorted on the pole pieces, it would only be the first few layers, you might not even notice unless you measured from any end to the pole pieces themselves.

[J M Fahey]

1) welcome to the Forum

2) please don´t use "no resistance" or "no reading", whatever is displayed IS a reading.
In this case, a "1" or "I" first digit and none to its right means "above maximum range".

Which may not even mean "open" ... a 2500 ohm reading on a 2000 ohm range or scale will display that ... yet it´s not open at all.

Now if you find it displays "above range" even in the 2M scale, then yes, it´s open ... since we expect pickup coils to measute a few kilo ohms.

3) I do not wind pickups but professionally wind transformers.
I always hesitate to sand enamel off in fine wire (and what you use is finer than anything I do) because copper is soft and modern enamels are incredibly tough so it´s easy to break it.

Personally either use self stripping wire and a *hot* iron , usually so hot that tip oxidizes in a few minutes and needs wiping on a wet sponge before soldering, just "melting bright shiny solder" is not hot enough for this purpose, OR burn it .

Fine wire will melt into a copper drop with gas lighter temperatures, but flame is not uniformly hot, I carefully "touch" wire with flame edge enough to see enamel toast, then it´s much easier to sand off, using fine grit wet-or-dry emery paper.
220 to 400 grit works, use as fine as possible and don´t press wire too much.



practice as much as you wish with spare wire, leave actual pickup for the last moment.
Like on everything, practice makes perfect

[Joe Gwinn]

Ahhh, good info. On my meter, if it isn’t measuring anything, the display reads .L.

This still shows when I touch the leads to the pickup.

Low battery?

[R G]

I remember when I first started. The first few winds need to be flat against the bottom bobbin. If they are raised, the first wrap can be broken as the coil is wound. Could be your problem. It happens.