I recently got a strat as a late Christmas present from my amazing wife. I had posted a NGD pre-crash. (MIM, LPB, SSS, maple fretboard) Anyway, I'm contemplating which mods I'm going to do, and one thing that's intriguing me is the idea of putting in a hum cancelling dummy coil, mainly for the bridge pup.
From what I understand, these can be pretty effective in reducing or eliminating hum, and have much less impact on tone than stacked humbuckers. In fact, a little treble suckage on the bridge wouldn't hurt.
Looking for opinions from anyone who has tried this approach. I know I could just put a humbucker in there. Don't want to.
I can recommend the L-290SL (L="lead"=bridge) pickup from http://wildepickups.com/Wilde_Bill_s_NF_Singles.html (http://wildepickups.com/Wilde_Bill_s_NF_Singles.html) (no affiliation). I think it's essentially what you're talking about design-wise ... and I wouldn't know how to DIY that :-[
I haven't been to Rob DiStefano's site for a loooong time, kinda out of the guitar building bug. I know that he recommended cheap import pick ups for this purpose. Read more here:
http://www.frettech.com/frettech/dummy/index.html (http://www.frettech.com/frettech/dummy/index.html)
Not necessarily what you are asking about, but I added a Mooer Noise Killer to my board to deal with my Strat Lead pickup noise. It is very small, only cost 75-80 bucks and works pretty darn good. I am fairly certain it is based on the ISP Decimator circuit.
I actually just tried doing a dummy coil a few days ago. Did not get results as of yet. I used a cheap pup that measured around 5.6k. Did not seem to make a difference...in fact it seemed to make it a little more noisy if anything. Gonna try working on it some more.
Quote from: madbean on February 04, 2016, 08:54:55 PM
I actually just tried doing a dummy coil a few days ago. Did not get results as of yet. I used a cheap pup that measured around 5.6k. Did not seem to make a difference...in fact it seemed to make it a little more noisy if anything. Gonna try working on it some more.
Did you try flipping the leads? I know one way should cut noise, the other way will increase it. Keep me posted as to what you find out.
Quote from: john_p_wi on February 04, 2016, 06:04:17 PM
I haven't been to Rob DiStefano's site for a loooong time, kinda out of the guitar building bug. I know that he recommended cheap import pick ups for this purpose. Read more here:
http://www.frettech.com/frettech/dummy/index.html (http://www.frettech.com/frettech/dummy/index.html)
That's an interesting read. I neglect playing my strat for noise issues, and it's so bright I normally play with the tone wound off a little. The dummy coil might be worth trying, thanks for the link :)
Ideal would be something like the Suhr Plate which is a larger coil, wound with thicker gauge so the impact on tone is minimal and still cancels as much hum.
I had done a little experiment on my jazzmaster here:
http://www.davidrolo.com/2013/10/24/dummy-coils-for-dummies/ (http://www.davidrolo.com/2013/10/24/dummy-coils-for-dummies/)
I am really happy with how it turned out.
I did the same on a tele, the coil had to be a little smaller but it still worked great
Sorry that I have not refreshed my memory on this, another issue if I recall is that you can not use the now normal reverse wound middle pup.
There's a lot of info on this subject here (https://sites.google.com/site/stringsandfrets/Home/noise-reduction-for-sc-pickups/s-500-hum-cancellation).
Note that I haven't tried this yet, I bookmarked the site a while back thinking I will get to it some day.
Quote from: john_p_wi on February 04, 2016, 10:11:10 PM
Sorry that I have not refreshed my memory on this, another issue if I recall is that you can not use the now normal reverse wound middle pup.
I'm not sure that would matter once the magnets are removed. All your left with is a coil. As far as direction of the coil making a difference, my memory is also kinda sketchy but maybe because magnetic fields run orthogonal to the coil? (yes it's been 20 years since I sat in college Electricity and Magnetism)
Quote from: drolo on February 04, 2016, 09:44:08 PM
Ideal would be something like the Suhr Plate which is a larger coil, wound with thicker gauge so the impact on tone is minimal and still cancels as much hum.
I had done a little experiment on my jazzmaster here:
http://www.davidrolo.com/2013/10/24/dummy-coils-for-dummies/ (http://www.davidrolo.com/2013/10/24/dummy-coils-for-dummies/)
I am really happy with how it turned out.
I did the same on a tele, the coil had to be a little smaller but it still worked great
Looks like you found the same article (https://sites.google.com/site/stringsandfrets/Home/noise-reduction-for-sc-pickups) I read: huge coil with fewer turns. Is there room to fit one in the trem cavity if I use fine enough wire?
I'll probably start with a crappy strat pickup and just pull the magnet and slugs for starters, but I kind of want to try the big coil idea.
the trem cavity seems to be a good idea. or even in the control pots cavity
Quote from: madbean on February 05, 2016, 12:29:33 AM
Quote from: john_p_wi on February 04, 2016, 10:11:10 PM
Sorry that I have not refreshed my memory on this, another issue if I recall is that you can not use the now normal reverse wound middle pup.
I'm not sure that would matter once the magnets are removed. All your left with is a coil. As far as direction of the coil making a difference, my memory is also kinda sketchy but maybe because magnetic fields run orthogonal to the coil? (yes it's been 20 years since I sat in college Electricity and Magnetism)
Lol, it's been 30 years for me...
The electrical guys (I'm mechanical) at work build the equivalent of the Qi charger into hand held medical devices. I'll have to see if I can grab a coil that is wound flat and stuck to a poly sheet and investigate. It would be super easy to stick to the inside of the trem cover, although I don't use them.
I'd vote for just copper shielding tape, if you do a good job with some star grounding it's really effective, my strat is silent with it.
I've got some good pictures of my recent cavity shielding and dummy coil attempt. I'd be happy to upload them if anyone wants to see.
There's also the Ilitch back plate system (http://www.ilitchelectronics.com/strat-bpncs-3/). I believe Ilitch is the actual mfg of the Suhr product.
Mojotone has recently introduced their "Quiet Coil" strat pickups, which they claim greatly reduces noise without using a dummy coil. Maybe they're internally shielded, or split into two coils? There's also the Zexcoil pickups with individual coils per pole piece, but they look unusual and definitely non-vintage, if that matters.
I replaced the stock ceramic pickups in my Agile P90 guitar for alnicos but I can't find the original pickups. If I find them, I'll pull one of them apart and put a dummy coil in that guitar. I think all the Gibson Blueshawks used dummy coils. I always thought those were cool guitars.
Quote from: john_p_wi on February 04, 2016, 10:11:10 PM
Sorry that I have not refreshed my memory on this, another issue if I recall is that you can not use the now normal reverse wound middle pup.
One of the first "mods" I'm going to do to the guitar is replace the cheesy electronics, including the switch. My thought has been that I would put a super switch in it so I'm covered for any creative switching I may want to do. I haven't drawn anything up, but I think with 2 extra poles, I should be able to have it switch the dummy coil out in positions 2 & 4. That would leave me with hum in position 3, but I'd be OK with it.
Quote from: madbean on February 05, 2016, 12:29:33 AM
Quote from: john_p_wi on February 04, 2016, 10:11:10 PM
Sorry that I have not refreshed my memory on this, another issue if I recall is that you can not use the now normal reverse wound middle pup.
I'm not sure that would matter once the magnets are removed. All your left with is a coil. As far as direction of the coil making a difference, my memory is also kinda sketchy but maybe because magnetic fields run orthogonal to the coil? (yes it's been 20 years since I sat in college Electricity and Magnetism)
TBH, I'm still a bit confused about wind direction. It seems like it would need to be opposite for the concept to work. I've seen youtube videos where the guy insists that it doesn't matter. I'm inclined to think he has to be wrong. In this article (http://www.frettech.com/frettech/dummy/index.html), the author mentions that wind direction is important, but then when he describes hooking up, he says that if the buzz is accentuated with the coil in circuit, to flip the leads. That leads me to believe that wind direction and lead orientation are both important.
Quote from: madbean on February 05, 2016, 03:14:06 PM
I've got some good pictures of my recent cavity shielding and dummy coil attempt. I'd be happy to upload them if anyone wants to see.
bring it
Quote from: Leevibe on February 05, 2016, 04:44:18 PM
TBH, I'm still a bit confused about wind direction. It seems like it would need to be opposite for the concept to work. I've seen youtube videos where the guy insists that it doesn't matter. I'm inclined to think he has to be wrong. In this article (http://www.frettech.com/frettech/dummy/index.html), the author mentions that wind direction is important, but then when he describes hooking up, he says that if the buzz is accentuated with the coil in circuit, to flip the leads. That leads me to believe that wind direction and lead orientation are both important.
(http://www.learnabout-electronics.org/ac_theory/images/right-hand-curl-rule-for-a-solenoid.jpg)
Wind direction will determine the polarity of the inductor... so it's 100% important. If the dummy isn't connected the opposite polarity it will introduce noise rather that 'buck' it
I picked up a cheap pickup (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B010ODIRP2/ref=sr_ph?ie=UTF8&qid=1455206855&sr=1&keywords=strat+pickup) from Amazon and I've started experimenting. I pulled the magnet off and knocked out the slugs. I've never done that before, but it took maybe 5 minutes.
I took the strings/pickguard off of a cheapie mini strat we have and started connecting stuff in parallel just by hand. I need to play with it more today, but my initial assessment is that it works! This is just listening to hum, not evaluating any tonal changes etc.
The thing that has me baffled is that it seems to work in all positions. I would expect that it would work in bridge/neck but not middle, or vice versa. And I wouldn't think it would work in the 2 & 4 positions. So far, this has all been parallel connections.
Today I'm going to wire it in as a series connection between the switch and volume pot. If it works, I'll wire in a toggle switch that I can hang out of the pickguard so I can A/B to listen for tonal differences. If this all works, I'll pop it in the real strat. This is pretty intriguing. The pickup was only about $6.
Does anyone got experience with this kind of dummy coil?? I was thinking about building one but i dont have the know how to do it.
(http://oi66.tinypic.com/1fz85i.jpg)
a guy have done a diy version of the surh BPSSC (backplate surh singlecoil canseling or somehting like that)
(http://oi67.tinypic.com/25z5sv4.jpg)
the original have some trimpots to finetune the humcanseling effect (and you have to contact them prior to your order to let them know about your pickups) ***Also i read that the position of the dumcoil plays significant role reagrding the result & that the Gibson cavity coils as shown below are less effective than the ones placed as shown in the red strat cavity***
here is some extra info
(http://www.tdpri.com/forum/attachments/just-pickups/221764d1393351689t-diy-silent-single-coil-la-suhr-bpscc-suhr-bpssc-jpg)
here is the patent
http://www.google.com/patents/US20050204905