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Humbucckers and Stacked Humbuckers

4/26/2006 3:13 PM
Lucas	Humbucckers and Stacked Humbuckers I have been doing quite a bit of research about pickup winding and construction lately and have been lurking around this for for a couple of days. Forgive me if this thread is a repeat but I have not found a thread that answers my question(s). I don't completely understand how humbuckers are physically wound. I understand that they need to cancel out noise and that they need to be wound in opposite directions(?). For a humbucker, does that mean when looking from the top they have to be wound the same way(for example, both clockwise)? What about stacked humbuckers? From what I understand what you have is basically 2 single coils stacked on top of each other. 2 seperate bobbins? 2 seperate sets of magnets? If there are two seperate sets of magnets, are they oriented the same way? Again, if looking from top are they wound he same direction? Thanks to any that read this and thanks again to any that respond. Lucas

4/26/2006 3:13 PM

Lucas

Humbucckers and Stacked Humbuckers

I have been doing quite a bit of research about pickup winding and construction lately and have been lurking around this for for a couple of days. Forgive me if this thread is a repeat but I have not found a thread that answers my question(s).

I don't completely understand how humbuckers are physically wound. I understand that they need to cancel out noise and that they need to be wound in opposite directions(?). For a humbucker, does that mean when looking from the top they have to be wound the same way(for example, both clockwise)?

What about stacked humbuckers? From what I understand what you have is basically 2 single coils stacked on top of each other. 2 seperate bobbins? 2 seperate sets of magnets? If there are two seperate sets of magnets, are they oriented the same way? Again, if looking from top are they wound he same direction?

Thanks to any that read this and thanks again to any that respond.

Lucas

5/2/2006 10:34 AM

David Schwab

quote:
"I don't completely understand how humbuckers are physically wound. I understand that they need to cancel out noise and that they need to be wound in opposite directions(?). For a humbucker, does that mean when looking from the top they have to be wound the same way(for example, both clockwise)? "

You can wind them both the same direction, or you can wind them opposite. I wind them the same direction, which is how Gibson does it also. Then just reverse the wiring on one coil.

So the start wire (b) from the screw coil goes to ground, the finish wire (g) then connects to the finish wire (r) on the slug coil, and the start of the slug coil goes to hot (w). Or, if you are doing multi conductor cable, it's black, green, red, white, as shown after the wire.

So the idea is the coils are wired electrically out-of-phase, and because they have opposite magnet polarity, the strings are picked up in phase, while the hum is picked up out-of-phase.

Stacked humbuckers can be made several ways. SD makes them with the magnets going all the way through both coils. DiM makes them with the magnets in the top coil, a shield in between, and a coil with no core under that. Kinman makes them with metal slugs in the bottom coil, and double shields. You can wind them in the same direction, and wire them as above, or wind them opposite and wind them "in-phase."

Also various companies wire them in series or parallel, depending on how they are wound.

The important thing is to just try it! Experiment and see what you get.

5/8/2006 1:14 PM
Lucas	"because they have opposite magnet polarity" Does you mean that the magnets are installed in opposite configuration? One set of magnets with the north pole up and the other with the south pole up?

5/8/2006 3:12 PM
Lukas	so if are humbuckers oposite polarity and the same wind direction, try imagine it... for example, you have north on top and south on bottom... you wind one upper bobbing then rotate pickup to have south on top and wind second coil the same direction, then connect starts or ends together and you have humbucker in series... correct me if I am wrong

5/3/2006 10:28 AM
Zhangliqun	It works either way. I wind mine the same direction and just "reverse" the wind of one coil by soldering the two start leads together so the current in the coils flow in the opposite direction. Others solder the two finish leads together but it works either way. Stacked humbuckers are a much more complicated thing -- way out of my league. Phase cancellation is a much much bigger problem with stacks so you have to do things to deflect the magnetic field of one from the other, wind the two coils extra hot because they have to be in parallel, etc., to deal with the phase cancellation, etc. Probably I've said half of that wrong, but you get the idea -- it's a lot trickier.

5/3/2006 10:28 AM

Zhangliqun

It works either way. I wind mine the same direction and just "reverse" the wind of one coil by soldering the two start leads together so the current in the coils flow in the opposite direction. Others solder the two finish leads together but it works either way.

Stacked humbuckers are a much more complicated thing -- way out of my league. Phase cancellation is a much much bigger problem with stacks so you have to do things to deflect the magnetic field of one from the other, wind the two coils extra hot because they have to be in parallel, etc., to deal with the phase cancellation, etc. Probably I've said half of that wrong, but you get the idea -- it's a lot trickier.

5/8/2006 2:31 PM
gtrman	" Quote";For a humbucker, does that mean when looking from the top they have to be wound the same way(for example, both clockwise)? " Yes. " Quote ";What about stacked humbuckers? From what I understand what you have is basically 2 single coils stacked on top of each other. 2 seperate bobbins? 2 seperate sets of magnets? If there are two seperate sets of magnets, are they oriented the same way? Again, if looking from top are they wound he same direction?" Most single coil stacked humbuckers have magnets only in the top coil, the bottom is just a dummy or noise cancelling coil. I dont make these so i'm not the expert here. I think to be true hum cancelling both coils would need to be wound to the same turn count or within a very small percentage, maybe i'm wrong on this, and probably so. I know that a lot of makers who make them wind the noise coil a lot weaker to try and keep the single coil tone. Kinnman's site has some good info on this stuff. Or possibly Jason or a few others who know more about it than I can ring in.

5/8/2006 2:31 PM

gtrman

" Quote";For a humbucker, does that mean when looking from the top they have to be wound the same way(for example, both clockwise)? "

Yes.

" Quote ";What about stacked humbuckers? From what I understand what you have is basically 2 single coils stacked on top of each other. 2 seperate bobbins? 2 seperate sets of magnets? If there are two seperate sets of magnets, are they oriented the same way? Again, if looking from top are they wound he same direction?"

Most single coil stacked humbuckers have magnets only in the top coil, the bottom is just a dummy or noise cancelling coil. I dont make these so i'm not the expert here. I think to be true hum cancelling both coils would need to be wound to the same turn count or within a very small percentage, maybe i'm wrong on this, and probably so. I know that a lot of makers who make them wind the noise coil a lot weaker to try and keep the single coil tone. Kinnman's site has some good info on this stuff. Or possibly Jason or a few others who know more about it than I can ring in.

5/8/2006 3:02 PM
Mark Hammer	Let's do a thought experient. Take a stacked humbucker. So, two coils with a set of polepîeces that pass vertically through both coils. One of the coils has its leads reverse, relative to the other. One of those coils sits at the south end of the polepiece, and the other sits at the north end. With me so far? Okay, now take some imaginary pliers, and pull every one of those 6 polepieces out so that it is an inch longer. Whew, that' some tough work. Okay, now clamp the 6 polepiece ends in a vice and bend them all. That's it, keep bending. bend them until the other end has done a 180-degree turn and is pointing in the same direction as the end in the vice. Now slide the coils around so that one is sitting side by side the other, but they are both still at their respective magnetic "poles". Congratulations, you just made a PAF. So, the basic stacked humbucker is electronically and magnetically the same as a side-by-side humbucker. Where they differ is in the asymmetrical sensing area. Wih a stacked unit, the pickup senses activity between the poles. That activity and sensing area is essentially the same on each side (neck vs bridge) of the pickup since thepolepieces is straight. On a side-by-side unit, because the poles have been "bent around" to point in the same direction, the pickup senses what lies between the polepieces on one side (the top) but not the other (underneath the pickup). But this all assumes that both coils are dedicated to sensing audio as well as picking up the non-audio interference that will ultimately be cancelled. Where some designs like the Kinmans differ is that they only really allocate one of the coils to sensing the audio, and the other coil is used primarily for interference cancellation. The long and the short of it is that normally side-by-side humbuckers (including dual-rail types in a SC-sized package) seem to always use both coils equally for audio sensing, whereas some stacked unit use both coils in that way, and others don't.

5/8/2006 3:02 PM

Mark Hammer

Let's do a thought experient.

Take a stacked humbucker. So, two coils with a set of polepîeces that pass vertically through both coils. One of the coils has its leads reverse, relative to the other. One of those coils sits at the south end of the polepiece, and the other sits at the north end.

With me so far?

Okay, now take some imaginary pliers, and pull every one of those 6 polepieces out so that it is an inch longer. Whew, that' some tough work. Okay, now clamp the 6 polepiece ends in a vice and bend them all. That's it, keep bending. bend them until the other end has done a 180-degree turn and is pointing in the same direction as the end in the vice. Now slide the coils around so that one is sitting side by side the other, but they are both still at their respective magnetic "poles".

Congratulations, you just made a PAF. So, the *basic* stacked humbucker is electronically and magnetically the same as a side-by-side humbucker. Where they differ is in the asymmetrical sensing area. Wih a stacked unit, the pickup senses activity between the poles. That activity and sensing area is essentially the same on each side (neck vs bridge) of the pickup since thepolepieces is straight. On a side-by-side unit, because the poles have been "bent around" to point in the same direction, the pickup senses what lies between the polepieces on one side (the top) but not the other (underneath the pickup).

But this all assumes that both coils are dedicated to sensing audio as well as picking up the non-audio interference that will ultimately be cancelled. Where some designs like the Kinmans differ is that they only really allocate one of the coils to sensing the audio, and the other coil is used primarily for interference cancellation.

The long and the short of it is that normally side-by-side humbuckers (including dual-rail types in a SC-sized package) seem to always use both coils equally for audio sensing, whereas some stacked unit use both coils in that way, and others don't.

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