check out this coil winder. seems to work well.

[David Schwab]

Hi David

The reason I bought the machine was to be able to reproduce winding patterns accurately, be it hand guided patterns (with the pendant) or normal tpl even windings. I have made plenty of great sounding hand guided pickups with a few lemons in between. The nice thing about the winder is that it's able to accurately repeat windings. I'm still in the process of learning all this stuff and am looking for a straight forward way to accurately measure a pickup so that I can get an idea of what changes in winding patterns make to the sound along with all the other variables that need to be taken into account. I make and repair guitars for a living and pickup making is a bit of fun and an extra sideline. I sometimes find it a bit sad that some boutique pickup makers seem to think that their paf pickups will make your guitar sound like Eric on the Bluesbreakers without taking into account the wood and guitar and player (marketing hype maybe ?) I still wind by hand sometimes and enjoy doing it, but i wouldn't want to spend a day hand winding (better things to do) If I can avoid it. I think you've nailed it with you're last comment

You find a wind that works, and then you repeat that for every pickup.

Although pickups do sound different in different guitars. So not everything is written in stone.

Right, and this is the reason I'm also working on a CNC winder. I like hand winding, and will always have a hand guided winder available, but I'm tired of doing it all day long. Ideally I'd like two CNC winders. But for prototyping, or one off designs, I can see hand winding.

I watched the video with the joystick. I thought that was kind of interesting for programming he winder. I doubt I'd want to wind that way though, but I'd have to try it first.

[David Schwab]

It is my understanding (from Throbak?) that machine wound is an integral component to the "vintage PAF sound". And it is also my understanding, that the pattern-less approach of scatter-winding is an integral part of the classic single-coil sound.

That's because the Gibson humbuckers were machine wound, and the early Fender pickups were hand wound. But I hand wind humbuckers and they sound fine. Do they sound like PAFs? Don't know, and that; snot what I try to do.

But I also do not scatter wind any of the pickups I make. I think hand winding is random enough without introducing more randomness. I used to do it, but I stopped early on.

[kayakerca]

I know nothing of this machine you speak of.



I did work with Sean on a custom winder, which is based on the same software as the ones shown in the videos, yes. Mine is a different machine though, in all fairness. I can't take any credit for his original design shown in the OP. That's Sean's baby. He's truly an innovative, amazingly fast, and service oriented guy. Nothing but good things to say about the man!

Here's another little project he's been working on for it. In fact, I think these "pendents" are actually in production now and look much more refined. There's another video somewhere.

btw - the ramping per layer is optional. It's useful for other types of coils that use heavier gauge wire than pickups. Every feature in the software is optional. Ramping at start/finish only is probably a more practical option for most pickup coils, and it's available. There is a really nice GUI for easily setting up coil winds with all the common parameters and saving them. Then they appear in a drop down menu to load again later. You can also enter these parameters into a CSV file, if you're handy with spreadsheets, and they will appear in the dropdown. The GUI also has a tab if you want to write commands directly in code, and that tab offers a number of buttons and functions to help generate scripts which make that "advanced" programming actually quite simple. There is no function of the machine that the user doesn't have FULL control over via a very clean and well laid out software interface. A dedicated PC is essentially required to run this though, as it communicates over USB and has a significant flow of bi-directional data.

If you guys have any questions, just email Sean. He always responds immediately. I don't think he sleeps.

Honestly not wanting to sound too stupid, but as cool as that joystick is (and I think it's really cool), if you were wanting to "hand guide" the wind, why go to all this trouble and expense when you could just put the wire in front and truly guide it by hand. It would not take any longer to do the wind and you would have the true hand tension vs a felt or other pressure tensioner. I'm missing something here obviously.

[the great waldo]

Hi Jim

The trick here is to get the hand wound pattern and be able to reproduce it. It would be nice to maybe come up with a pattern of winding which sounds good and be able to make more. I've wound plenty of pickups by hand, most have sounded good but a few crappy ones have appeared. So with a bit of luck and perseverance I should be able to reproduce a pickup with a hand winding pattern and also get the machine to do the hard work while I get on with making something else that needs my other talents.
Cheers

Andrew

[kayakerca]

Hi Jim

The trick here is to get the hand wound pattern and be able to reproduce it. It would be nice to maybe come up with a pattern of winding which sounds good and be able to make more. I've wound plenty of pickups by hand, most have sounded good but a few crappy ones have appeared. So with a bit of luck and perseverance I should be able to reproduce a pickup with a hand winding pattern and also get the machine to do the hard work while I get on with making something else that needs my other talents.
Cheers

Andrew

Thanks Andrew. Makes complete sense, just couldn't see it for looking at it.

[ReWind]

Here - found that other video of the "pendant" showing recording a wind, then playing it back.

I'm working with a different interface, but I am on the list for one of those pendants anyway, as they are super slick and look like a world of fun! I'm just going a somewhat different route with programming, in general, for my purposes.

[rhgwynn]

I took a look at these, and I do kind of like it. But, from what I see in the videos - I would like to see finer threading on the traverse, for more precise control. It's easy to see that even with the motions recorded, the wire tends to have a mind of it's own as well, so to speak. The 3 repeats were only somewhat like the first one. Maybe if the guide-pointer was set closer to the bobbin, the wire would not be able to jump around as much and the program replays would be more consistent. It would be interesting to see if the programs can reproduce consistent inductance levels, too. Also, and this is just my opinion; I would rather have a dial than a slider. It's just more intuitive to muscle memory and if it is big enough (1.5-2" dia.) it would be more precise for the user as well.

-Rob