Half a humbucker?

[(8mileshigh)]

Any ideas why only one coil would be working on my HB1's? 2 pickups with the same fault on the same bass? Weird

[(cjj)]

How do you know only one coil is working? Unless you rewired them for single-coil operation, they are they are connected in series and if they work at all, both coils are working.

Or am I completely misunderstanding the question here?

[(8mileshigh)]

Well, when I put a meter on the pick up, meaning the ends of the wires that connect to the toggle & pot, it's dead. So I unsoldered the wire connections on the pickup itself Incase there was a break in those wires and metered the pickup directly on points 1&2 and got a reading of 7.56 ohms but then points 3&4 got a dead reading again. Does that make sense?

[(cjj)]

OK, yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah, it sure sounds like you've got a couple of dead pickups there. Being the same way from the same bass sounds like a bad batch of pickups. Again, it could be the solder joints where the pickup winding attaches to the circuit board part of the pickup. I know that a while back, when RIC switched over to lead free solder, they had some issues with it (it's "different" and is easy to mess up even if you're really good at soldering the old stuff so there's a learning curve to get to where it's easy to solder).

I've got an HB-1 here, but I can't see just how the pickup windings attach. My gesss is that they come through the board at the numbered points and are soldered to the same pads as where the wires attach, but without taking it further apart, I can't really tell. You might just try resoldering the pads again, with some old fashioned solder if you have it (in general mixing lead free and tin-lead solder will work just fine, it just won't be ROHS compliant anymore). Lead free solder requires a higher temperature to work perfectly so you may not have an iron that will do the best job. Using tin-lead will tend to fix that issue too.

Of course, if it was a bad batch, there might be some sort of problem where the wires break more easily on that coil (I'm assuming they check them before using them - otherwise they could be that way from the start).

How old is the bass?

[(8mileshigh)]

2006

[(cjj)]

Well, I guess that puts it a bit out of range for warranty repair then.

I'm not really sure when RIC went to lead free solder, but I know we were going to it where I work at that time (mostly due to new EU regulations and a cut-off date of July 1 2006), so it wouldn't surprise me if RIC was too and still in the learning curve phase. So, solder issues might well be the case...

[(jps)]

Those may be the Limited Edition HB-½ pickups. Very rare.

Or, maybe a previous owner did this as it sure is odd that both pickups would be the same.

[(8mileshigh)]

OK.......I've unwound the pickup......what next?

[(cjj)]

Carefully untangle the wire, rewind it on a spool, checking for defects as you do this. If you find any defects, resolder the wire together and dip in insulating varnish. Wait for the varnish to dry and then continue checking/spooling the wire. When finished, have a few beers to celebrate the work you've just completed, then start rewinding the pickup. Have a few more beers whilst doing this (it will help you do a better job if you have more beers). When finished, hit the pub and tell all of your friends about the job you've just completed (while having even more beers)...

[(jps)]

Yeah, I think CJ's got the right idea.

[(ozover50)]

Nice work, Graham!!

You're not a hairdresser by any chance, are you?

[(johnallg)]

Now what? Recycle the copper.....