Can one coil go out?

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cephus

cephus

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I suppose it could. I'm pretty sure that one of the coils isn't working in one of the pickups in my new crummy guitar. It has 3 wires. White Black and uninsulated ground. I assume I have to disconnect it to test it, right? I have a simple multimeter. Should I measure resistance between white and ground and black and ground?

One other stupid question. There is a coil splitting function to the controls and it seems like the coil being eliminated is the one that is working. What decides which coil you drop when you split a humbucker to single coil? DO they have to be identical for the hum cancelling to work (and therefore, the coil that still works may end up being good enough and is in no way inferior to the one that took a shit)?

OK, one other stupid stupid stupid question. This pickup is unique and for the guitar to be worth anything to the weird guitar fetishists out there, that unique pickup has to be still in it. can you take apart a chrome cover humbucker and actually do anything inside to fix it? If not some dumbass like me, are there people who do this kind of thing?

I nominate this thread for the perfect dumbass post of the year.
 
cephus said:
I suppose it could. I'm pretty sure that one of the coils isn't working in one of the pickups in my new crummy guitar. It has 3 wires. White Black and uninsulated ground. I assume I have to disconnect it to test it, right? I have a simple multimeter. Should I measure resistance between white and ground and black and ground?

One other stupid question. There is a coil splitting function to the controls and it seems like the coil being eliminated is the one that is working. What decides which coil you drop when you split a humbucker to single coil? DO they have to be identical for the hum cancelling to work (and therefore, the coil that still works may end up being good enough and is in no way inferior to the one that took a shit)?

OK, one other stupid stupid stupid question. This pickup is unique and for the guitar to be worth anything to the weird guitar fetishists out there, that unique pickup has to be still in it. can you take apart a chrome cover humbucker and actually do anything inside to fix it? If not some dumbass like me, are there people who do this kind of thing?

I nominate this thread for the perfect dumbass post of the year.
Click to expand...

I got my Gibson the Paul in the early 80's at a bargain price due to it having a bad coil in the bridge pickup. It sounded so wimpy, but it was a solid guitar otherwise and I knew a new pickup would cure that problem fast.
Strange twist of fate happened a few days later when I visited a friend that had a black Les Paul Custom that he had changed out his bridge pickup for some hot rod pickup. Out of the blue he asked if I needed it, he would sell it cheap. I snapped it up for $10 for a PAF Les Paul humbucker, I never had to change anything on that guitar since--well strings of course! :D
 
You can have that fixed if it is intrical to the value of the instrument. The coil would have to be rewound. If the chrome cover is soldered to the pickup, you are going to need some serious heat to get it undone. I have some contact info for people who do this, usually you would only see this being done on 50's les pauls and such where the guitar is worth 10's of thousands. Is it that important?
 
No. It's not at all that important. I just was trying to get a sense of scale of the project.
 
cephus said:
I assume I have to disconnect it to test it, right?
Click to expand...

You should be able to measure it wired up, just set all the pots full on.

I have a simple multimeter. Should I measure resistance between white and ground and black and ground?
Click to expand...

Measure 'em all.

One other stupid question. There is a coil splitting function to the controls and it seems like the coil being eliminated is the one that is working. What decides which coil you drop when you split a humbucker to single coil?
Click to expand...

Depends on how the pickup and switch are wired. Generally it's done so the inside coils are dropped.

DO they have to be identical for the hum cancelling to work (and therefore, the coil that still works may end up being good enough and is in no way inferior to the one that took a shit)?
Click to expand...

Well if you drop a coil, or if one isn't working, then there is no humbucking. Two coils don't have to be identical to cancel hum, but the closer they are to each other, both electrically and physically, the better the cancellation.
 
You can test a pickup by touching the pole pieces with a piece of steel, like the end of a screwdriver or allen wrench which will cause a loud pop in the signal when that coil is connected through the guitar's switching to the amp. That's how I keep track of all the switches on my Carvin. Or, if you have a small steel tuning fork, you can ding it and hold the end close to the pole pieces of the coil you're wondering about, being careful not to let it get into the other coil's field.
 
Taking the cover off a humbucker is no big deal. Yes, they are soldered on, but with just two drops of solder, one on each end near the "ears" that connect to the raising/lowering springs. Just melt them with an iron and the cover comes right off. A solder sucker would expedite matters, if you have one.

As to what's wrong with the pickup, it could be an open winding, in which case it would have to be rewound or replaced, but it could be a prob with the hookup wires, which you might be able to repair yourself. Pull the cover off and take a look.

Good luck to ya.
 
I may be wrong about the one coil being bad. It seems pretty weird to me that the phase switch is what makes it work or not work. Thanks for the advice, though, guys.

Apl gave me a good idea. It's tough to jiggle wires and see if the thing is suddenly working. I am going to put a couple aligator clips on the leads for the PU and eliminate the switching and posts from the equation to determine where the failure is.
 
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Screw it. I barely wanted it anyway. I'll just stick it under a bed for a couple years until I give a shit again.

The phase switch makes it make or break. The phase switch just reverses the polarity, right? So it if works one way, it shoud work the other way unless the switch is fux0red, right?

I am completely aggravated right now, but this is truly one of my favorite things about being a guitar player. It's like we can be really stupid and still poke around and screw this on or that on and upgrade parts. When you play out with a guitar you built or modded, it's like a hot rod '74 Cutlass that you can wear around your neck and wave in chicks' faces.
 
Is it a phase switch, or a coil-tap switch?

A phase switch would reverse the wiring to one pickup, making it in or out of phase with the other pickup. A coil tap would essentially disconnect or bypass one of the coils in a humbucker, giving you a single coil pickup.

Which scenario are you talking about?
 
The coil-plitting is through the tone control. The phasing is a switch. I guess my last thought was that reversing the polarity of a guitar circut surely would result in silence unless the problem was in the phase switch. The splitting thing may be related, or just coincidence. Probably just a distraction. I am gonna desolder the phase switch and bypass it and see if that makes the thing work. Just not any time soon. it must be banished to sleep under a bed for a few months.
 
Was this one of the T-40s?

If so, let it sleep with the fishes. :D
 
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