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Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2003 9:52 am
by admin
Wim Vanderstraeten ask that the following text and photos be posted here. Thanks for the detail work Wim.
Kurt:
The coil wire in the pic sure is scatterwound isn't it? lol
I believe enough wire came off for another 2 7.4K Ohm pickups.
Jeff:
I did some measuring today.I must say that the values I previously posted aren't completely correct. I thought I remembered them correct, but this morning I recovered the notes I made then and they seem to be slightly different.The bridge pu started out at 15.54K Ohm, the neck pu at 15.51K Ohm. Especially the readings after the unwinding were wrong.I remembered I did the bridge pu to less than 7.4K but not as much as 210 Ohms as I thought.
I measured the coil resistance at 3 different places;
First I unsoldered the pu's:
Neck: 7.38K Ohm
Bridge: 7.355K Ohm
Next thing I measured the values (after resoldering the leads) at the selector switch.
a)Selector set for bridge pu
Bridge : 6.80K Ohm
Neck : 7.37K Ohm
b)Selector set for neck pu
Bridge : 7.38K Ohm
Neck : 6.82K Ohm
If you look at this picture it'll show you the place where I measured. The green arrows are for the Neck pu, the red ones for the bridge pu.
And third I measured at the end of a 15Ft. plugged in cable
Neck: 6.88K Ohms
Bridge: 6.87K Ohms
Both: 3.57K Ohms
Very strange readings aren't they?
Maybe someone can explain this??
This doesn't fall into the 1% error margin of my Ohm meter
Well, now compare this:
With this:
I guess your pickup must be somewhere in between.
I must warn you to pay close attention to the winding to avoid the following error. Note the error at the red arrow.The green arrow is the end of the wire.
I have taken the liberty of providing a closeup photo.
I guess this uneven winding was made within the first windings of the coil and such an error could result in breakage of the wire. Be careful not to break it, otherwise the whole pickup could be ruined.
Good luck, and let us know what you decided to do!
Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2003 1:54 pm
by paul_yan
Great pictures and helpful measurement infos, Wim!
Welcome!!!
Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2003 4:59 am
by milo
Thanks again for all the help and the pictures.
I ended up doing the neck pickup last night. It took quite awhile because there was a burr on the top corner of the bobbin and I could only get a couple of windings off at a time before it would hang up on the burr and/or break. After peeling the foam off of the pickup I could tell that the tape had never been removed, so apparently someone along the way had just added the foam to make the pickup fit tighter in the cover.
The neck pickup read 12.13K when I had the bridge pickup selected, 11.12K with the neck selected, and 12.18K once I unhooked it. I de-wound it to 7.48K.
I'm really happy with the neck sound now. It seems much more useable. It definately got clearer, and the octave strings are more noticeable. I also seem to have achieved the same results as your first try, Wim, in that the neck pickup is now much closer balanced in volume to the bridge pickup. All my Ricks seem to be much louder on the neck pickup than the bridge, as did this one before modding it. I wish I had done the bridge pickup at the same time, but I wanted to make sure that this one worked first and that I liked it.
I also dropped a set of Pyramid flats on it. The strings and the newly wound pickup sound great, but I'm not sure I like the way it plays now. It plays real "heavy". Maybe there is a bigger size difference between the main and octave strings than there was on the old Rickenbacker set, making it harder to play, but it doesn't feel as low and light as before. I have the Pyramid flats on my 330 and love them.
Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2003 5:07 am
by rickcrazy
Hmm... Yes, very interesting pics and discussion. The Forum at its best!
Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2003 1:34 pm
by paul_yan
Jeff,
The Pyramids might have greater tension than the RIC set, thus causing more neck relief and higher action. You may want to try straightening the neck to minimum relief to gain good playability. And since it's a different set of strings, minor intonation adjustment to the saddles might be necessary.
Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2003 2:01 pm
by wim
Jeff, i'm glad you like the modification.
The mix of both pickups already sound brighter doesn't it?
As for the strings, I'll give those flatwounds a try too; when I took the pictures yesterday I put on new strings also but err.. eh.. they sound like ****.
Too thin (very cheap .009 to .042 set) and WAY to bright now.. hmm.. I know, I know..
For distortion they sound great though
