Comment

Comment by BUGGY (C) on January 24, 2012 at 10:06am

Yes this works as a a piezo and like a coil pickup.

It has a spring metal arm that goes up the side of the body to the base, but doesn't quite touch at the base.

When you ping it it the pickup gives out a signal. Will demo with a video. That means this will work like an electric guitar pickup but can have a spring reverb detail too or it works like a Piezo.(Awesome gona try that next)

When you take off the magnet you loose the electric signal, but the piezo efffect still works.

So if you could make a switch on and off electro magnet at the base, you could have yourself a switchable electric or piezo jobby in one!. ( Think I should patent this!)

It's all in funny the little buzzer, forget all the non magnetic aluminium stuff.

(I will have to come back to alumitones later)

Well Mr Fender and Gibson, you didn't think of that one, but I just did!!!!

You saw history in the making on CBN.... on Planet Bug!

Thanks for watching......

Comment by BUGGY (C) on January 24, 2012 at 8:41am

Have uploaded "aluminium pickup tester 2a" video quick test and the answer is yes

Must be capabale of inductane on metal strings and turning vibration into voltage... a strange little beast this coil

Comment by The Phrygian Kid on January 24, 2012 at 7:24am

awesome.  does it work anywhere on the nylon guitars top then ?  it has nothing to do with the strings?

Comment by BUGGY (C) on January 24, 2012 at 7:05am

And the aluminium can is completely non magnetic and the strongest magnet falls off .
This buzzer coil must pick up vibration too as well as inductance!
This coil is working like a piezo!

Comment by BUGGY (C) on January 24, 2012 at 7:01am

Just tried it and it works on a nylon strung guitar
Work that one out!
Must be vibration driven!
Will upload in a bit to prove!

Comment by BUGGY (C) on January 24, 2012 at 6:14am

Hey these were 50p each!

Comment by The Phrygian Kid on January 24, 2012 at 5:57am

hey man chill out.  Sorry if i seem to be questioning anybodys credentials you know?

i reckon your can is part of the magnetic equation, just my opinion.  There must be some iron in it.  I doubt anythings pure in this day and age.  Even if the magnet doesnt wanna stick on it, that just means the attraction is not enough to bear the weight of the magnet it doesnt mean its not there.  Maybe theres iron in the label and printing on the outside.  Who knows. I totally agree with you about tins, cookie tins and stuff, if you see any of my cookie tin guitars and how they work i use some of these principles on a bigger scale again.

Pickup coils are strange beasts im sure you know.  Theres voodoo in em.  Magic.  I mean you can make one with a wallwart and a magnet from ebay, yet guys like seymour duncan and fralin and lollar are something like rock stars.

and they work even if the magnet falls off ! (just not nearly as well)  try it !

so you know, im glad you know how pickups work and all that, cos i make my own and i read lollars book and talked with ted and jim and Johnny Lowe about it for hours and still dont understand it completely.

tell you who you really want to ask about this Mr Bug is Jim.  he wont just come out and tell you, you'll have to corner him in chat and ask.  Jims real smart and hes been doing this a long time.  Ted also, you wanna ask him what he thinks.  BTW if you want to buy pickups and you like the sound of old fenders go to ted, his stonehenge and downunder pickups have the 60s Fender shimmer to crunch thing nailed

Comment by Ron "Oily" Sprague on January 24, 2012 at 2:14am

Kid,

 

I know how coils in pickups work. I misspoke, kinda, when I said "current is applied." What does happen is when a steel guitar string moves through that magnetic field, and perturbs it,  it generates a current, as I'm sure you know. Neither the magnetic pole pieces, nor the coil, are moving. That's what I should have said.

 

And I do understand about the aluminum can becoming part of the magnet; that's why I mentioned my Lace Alumitones (which do not magnetize the aluminum, btw; they are designed to reduce weight, but still use copper as the coil material, just a lot less of it than standard wound pickups). What I wondered was if the can was actually necessary; this would depend, partially, perhaps mostly? on the strength of the Nd magnets, as well as the actual material from which the can was made. And yes, as a geologist, I'm well aware that the Earth itself is nothing more than a large magnetic coil, with perhaps as many as 6 incredibly large pieces of iron rotating at its core, in a hot conductive fluid. You move a wire coil through the Earth's magnetic field, you will indeed get a very, very small current. In the high latitude Arctic, you can even light up a light bulb doing this when the Aurora Borealis is streaming overhead.

 

And I've replaced enough brushes on my Dremels to see how they work, too.

 

As far as your mints tin goes, it likely wasn't actually tin (we just call 'em tins for historical reasons, from back when they were actually made completely out of tin) or even completely aluminum (cf. partial Wikipedia entry for Tin, Sn:

 

"Because of its low toxicity, tin-plated metal is also used for food packaging, giving the name to tin cans, which are made mostly of steel."

 

And Aluminium beverage cans (or Aluminum, for us Americans), Al:

 

"Beverage cans are made of aluminium (75% of worldwide production)^[1] or tin-plated steel (25% worldwide production)."

 

So it is possible that your aluminium Coke can might actually be tin-plated steel, in which case, it would indeed be magnetic, and therfore, could be used as aprt of a magnetic pickup. Now do you see why I wondered? Easy test: See if one of those magnets sticks to the Coke can. It certainly (mostly) won't in the US, or anywhere else Reynolds Aluminum supplies 97% aluminum cans. As bug sez, Al ain't magnetic. But if  a magnet sticks to your can, it ain't actually aluminum; it's steel.

 

That's why your magnet stuck to your mints tin: steel - which is nothing more than carbonized iron with a few other elements added in. 

Comment by BUGGY (C) on January 24, 2012 at 1:32am

Hi it's a coil as it works as a one sting pickup
Aluminium is not magnetic
And vibration is making this work as well as electrics
Will prove it tonight by using on it's own
Coils give sound via movement
Or change to the magnetic field
Because it used to buzz it's working in reverse
No idea why but will prove it tonight.
This one does both jobs!
Strange but true.
Either that or some weird shit is going on!
And if it is vibration I plan to connect 2 via a spring
To make a spring reverb pickup! How cool is that !

Comment by The Phrygian Kid on January 24, 2012 at 12:52am

No No No..  the can is completely necessary..  you dont understand.  the can has become part of the magnet..

it doesnt matter wether you have one magnet on there or two what matters is their combined magnetism. 

tell you a little story.  I had a pickup that i wound quite recently.  I was a prototype of an open coil one that im working on, and it sounded great, but i was ugly to look at, so I didnt use it and it went in my bucket of stuff for a few weeks.  I kept thinking about it because it really did sound great.  This pickup was only really wide enough for a three stringer, maybe an inch and a half.  Anyway a couple of weeks ago I stuck it inside a little pocket mints tin, about humbucker sized.  The pickup stuck right onto one of the sides because of the magnet.  And what do you know?  the whole tin was now a pickup.  The end with the coil on it didnt sound any noticably different than the end without the coil in it.  Same thing

I cangratulate you and salute you for experimenting and sharing your findings.  great stuff..

Mr Oil, coils work both ways, but in this case there is no current being applied.  Movement of a ferrous material inside the magnetic field is generating current.  Now if you were to apply a current you could create electo magnetism, and generate movement in the string.  This is how your drill and dremel and sanders and stuff work.. next time you blow one up crack it open and see. 

one more thing.  A coil without a magnet is still capable of being a pickup !!!   check it out.  Why is this so ??  because we live on one big magnet thats why

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