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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on August 24, 2012 at 12:23am

Alnico magnets are appreciably weaker than rare earth ones of similar size an therefore need about twice as many winds.. Because they need a bigger coil they have more character IMHO. You can make a decent pup with neos for sure but sometimes they can come across a little sterile..
42awg is indeed what most people seem to use. You'll née some kind of winding counter, I made mine from a $1 eBay pedometer and a $2 radio shack reed switch. I'd suggest aiming for around 2500 winds with small rare earth mags or 4000 winds with Alnico slugs. Take your time and try not to get too frustrated. If you're repeatedly breaking the wire take a break. See that you have turned the spool on its side on the floor and that the wire has a nice clean path to the winder. Usually when it breaks it's at te spool in my experience.
Just go for it, contrary to popular belief it's actually much harder to make a bad sounding pickup than it is to make a decent one.

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Permalink Reply by Skeesix on August 24, 2012 at 5:12am

Basically what the Kid said, but I disagree with needing a counter if you make your bobbin about the standard size of commercial bobbins. In that case, you can just fill up the bobbin and it will be in the right ballpark. Assuming you're doing a Strat style bobbin, 8000 winds is more typical for 42 awg wire.

Instead of less winds for the neo's you can also try the same amount of winds, but smaller neo's. You can try using steel polepieces, i.e., steel machine screws, and sticking the neo's to the bottom.

I haven't had good luck with a homemade counter. The calculator I tried didn't count faster than 200 rpm, and my winder winds at about 800 rpm, so I ended up with a commercial counter.

What are you using for a winder?

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Permalink Reply by Ken Henry on August 24, 2012 at 7:33am

I haven't decided yet but I am thinking about maybe salvaging the motor and pulleys out of a VHS player or something or maybe getting a cheap sewing machine from GoodWill and maybe just sstealing the motor and foot pedal off that and building a custom job.

Thanks for the help you guys!! I am really excited!!

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Permalink Reply by the anonymous pick on August 24, 2012 at 7:46am

hell   yeah ..  go  all out  ;-) http://www.cigarboxnation.com/photo/steampunk-build-3

 

 

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on August 24, 2012 at 6:20am

That's good advice too about smaller neos. You can get em quite cheap on eBay, small discs only a couple mm thick. I've used nails on this one, snap one of those little discs on the bottom of each one. If you use screws for the pole pices the tape around em might be a good idea or the threads can cut thru the insulation and short the coil. The little pins you see there are for terminating the coils and soldering to. Just give em a quick kiss with the dremel to knock the tops off em and it makes em real easy to solder to. You definitely want to do something like this or soldering to the ends of the coil can be quite frustrating.

Some times I make pickup bobbins just out of cardboard, then you can punch a couple staples in after you wind it to solder to, wrap the whole thing in tape and cover it in veneer or something ;)

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Permalink Reply by Ken Henry on August 24, 2012 at 7:30am

Wow!!! How cool is that!! Thanks a lot man. The 1" Neo sticks are a bit expensive to use so this would be a great money saver!!! Thanks for the pic and the tips!!  BTW why do you have 5 pins????

Ken

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on August 24, 2012 at 8:09am

Thats a good question, you only really need two.

the first coil was tapped after about 3k of the 4k winds for a rhythm sound, so theres the third.

the other two are for a seperate coil i wound around the outside which drives a preamp for a sustainer unit, it doesnt get wired to the output jack but is amplified and fed into a piezo which is glued on the resonator cone for a controlled feedback / sustainer generator, this is a hidden extra pickup just sharing the other ones magnets and chassis..

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Permalink Reply by Ken Henry on August 24, 2012 at 12:44pm

Oh OK! Sounds way too complex for my tiny brain!!! Thanks for the explanation.

Ken

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Permalink Reply by Skeesix on August 25, 2012 at 6:17am

Yes you will want to cover the screws somehow if that's what you use. You can also make a bobbin core from plastic or wood, with holes drilled in it to accept the screws.

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Permalink Reply by joe cerroni on August 24, 2012 at 2:04pm

Listen to Skeesix, she knows what she's talking about. Her pups are totally smokin. One of these days i'm gonna get one of her scorch and twangs to put in a guit for my very own.

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Permalink Reply by Walter Cengia on August 26, 2012 at 11:25pm

Ant if you wanna get real technical about pickup winding an winders you can check out this place, these guys will blow your mind with what they know about pickups.

http://music-electronics-forum.com/f11/

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