Only one coil working of new Suhr Humbucker,probably me at fault..

KevS

I researched before I did my work..
It said Suhr use the same wiring code as Seymour Duncan..
I done the Seymour Single Humbucker,One Volume,One Tone,,No Switch Circuit..
All the solder joints are strong and shiny..
I use good old poisonous rosin core solder..
Everything seems to be hooked up OK,apart from my Brain....

I got tired and slipped and sliced a knife right into my thumb and thumb nail..
i am on blood thinners..
There was Claret everywhere to use Arthur Daley talk..
So I had to stop..I was actually getting a bit light headed..
I skewered myself on string ends twice too..
When I get tired everything goes to crap..
So I am walking away from the guitar for today...

The working coil is the plain slug coil,not the one with screws in it....
Even then it is weak and I am getting touching Buzz,,,
Rather I appear to be grounding the guitar when I touch it..
It is buzzing when I am not touching it..
I'm not sure if this is consistent..
I am trying to relax just now..
I've just realised I've forgot my diabetes tablets too..Doh!!
Maybe the reason for the light headedness and my concentration drifting..
Nah!! that happens to me anyway..

That'll teach me for being too keen..

KevS

Well I was very careful,,I changed the magnet and my 2 week old Pearly Gates Pick up is dead..
I thought it was supposed to be easy..I guess it is to some people..
It certainly isn't to me..I watched guides etc...
So that is 2 total disasters today..
2 non working guitars..
Nobody seemed keen to help me with the first one..
I don't know if the Suhr pickup is faulty and I don't know how to check if it is that or the wiring..
Some help there would have been good...

I wish nobody had recommended that I change the magnet..
I could have at least sold the pickup on..
I won't try and do a magnet swap again,,I have learned my lesson..
People are too quick to make recommendations to people when they don't know if they can do the work or not..
Please not everybody is totally educated in this area.....
I have spent all my Money on that 12 string,,I just hope it is decent..

I will have 2 dead guitars for at least a month..

I feel gutted right now....

FelineGuitars

Is the suhr pickup simply suffering from the series link not being soldered together ?

I have seen this before or wires just twisted and not soldered

KevS

FelineGuitars said:

Is the suhr pickup simply suffering from the series link not being soldered together ?

I have seen this before or wires just twisted and not soldered

A bit over my head here..
is this Suhr not soldering it properly or me.. ?

Excuse me if I sound uninformed..I am basically..

Funkfingers

KevS said:

People are too quick to make recommendations to people when they don't know if they can do the work or not.

Please, not everybody is totally educated in this area.

Individual guitar modifiers must gauge their own skill level. 

Whenever there is uncertainty, the answer is, "no, I can not perform this task." 

KevS

Funkfingers said:

KevS said:

People are too quick to make recommendations to people when they don't know if they can do the work or not.

Please, not everybody is totally educated in this area.

Individual guitar modifiers must gauge their own skill level. 

Whenever there is uncertainty, the answer is, "no, I can not perform this task." 

Why do you recommend magnet swaps to people then.. ?

This includes me,,do you assume they have that skill level..?

You never recommended straight pickups,,you recommended modifying them..
You made no mention of needing a skill level..
I took your advice,,and you made no mention of skill level..?

How can a person gauge their skill if they haven't done a job before and are inexperienced..... ?

Why I had to ask others for advice..Inexperience..
Often even just to get reassurance before I go in at times..
So i don't ruin things like £120 pickups..

HMMMM!!! Comments seem to have went missing from past posts..

Maybe I imagined it all..I really don't think so..


Look I don't want to make enemies with anybody..
I'm not that type of person,,I am not Mr Competitive..
i am just a guy that pops on here sometimes for advice..
I'm not looking for an argument..It's the last thing I need in my present mindset..
I hope you aren't a person who always has to be in the right..
Then nothing constructive is learned from the situation..
It is a suggestion that came up and through me following that suggestion I lost £120..
I am not asking you for it,,I don't imagine I would get it anyway..
So let my £120 sacrifice make you realise that not everybody has your skill level..
Then .hopefully the same thing won't happen again to someone else....

Again,I don't want a stand off or to see who can pee the farthest...

normula1

Magnet swaps are generally easy I've done it more times than I can remember, but that didn't stop a screwdriver slipping on a particularly well stuck magnet and straight through a coil. We are however very fortunate in the UK to have several very good pickup winders (several of whom frequent these pages) who can fix accidents like this so all is not lost.

KevS

normula1 said:

Magnet swaps are generally easy I've done it more times than I can remember, but that didn't stop a screwdriver slipping on a particularly well stuck magnet and straight through a coil. We are however very fortunate in the UK to have several very good pickup winders (several of whom frequent these pages) who can fix accidents like this so all is not lost.

Maybe I should have just spoke to a winder in the first place..
It is so hard not to get taken in by the marketing talk and even sound demos of
pick up manufacturers..
Even non affiliated You Tube Demos..

I wanted a Pick up for a special Job..
Maybe a winder has more chance of making that Pick up..
Then again jusding by other Makers "Texas" Pickups"..
None to me sound that much like Texas Specials,,
they are very different..
Also pickup age seems to matter,or maybe they made them different in different years..
As I said in another post,,it could even be lucrative for them if they had a few Humbuckers
for HSS sets with the single coils coming from well known and bought commercial sets..

I would like a Bridge  humbucking pickup that will tonally match Fender Texas Specials in the 
middle and neck..This would need to work on a 250 K pot with .022 Cap.. 
Powerful enough for a bit of 80's hair metal shredding when no one is looking,
but able to do the Blues at lower gain settings...
Not too thin,not too trebly,but matching the 2 Texas Specials EQ wise..
I realise everything is a Compromise...
Coil splitting would be excellent,,for the  "Inbetween" sound....
Oh and I tend to take my Humbuckers quite far away from the strings..
F Spaced would be good...
Parchment coloured would match my guitar best if I had that choice..

Am I in fantasy land thinking this could be achieved..?
Is there enough information there..

Are we still playing Russian Roulette with these Parameters.. ?

Maybe everybody wants this pickup,but it is actually a different pickup depending on the person..
Or indeed what side of the bed they got out of...

I don't know enough again..
Is it better to start from a new pickup rather than sending the Seymour PG..?

PhilKing

Have you tried putting the original magnet back into the SD?  Ususally all you need to do is slacken the bottom screws a bit and make sure that none of the wrap is in the way.  Also, you have to push the magnet out at the opposite end to where the connection wires are.   It could be that you have broken one of them, but if you are not familiar with the construction of a pickup, then I would suggest going to a tech or sending it to someone like @OilCityPickups to have it fixed.

I have never used a Shur pickup, so don't know what that could be, but @FelineGuitars suggestion is something to look at.

FelineGuitars

KevS said:

FelineGuitars said:

Is the suhr pickup simply suffering from the series link not being soldered together ?

I have seen this before or wires just twisted and not soldered

A bit over my head here..
is this Suhr not soldering it properly or me.. ?

Excuse me if I sound uninformed..I am basically..

If the humbucker is being used in both coils in series mode then the white and red wires need to be soldered together - sometimes players overlook this and end up with a pickup not working right or intermittently if those wires are only twisted together and not soldered.

FelineGuitars

To be fair some of this stuff can either be technically challenging or physically tricky to do, and different people will feel confident to do some stuff while others won't.
What one person will feel happy to do with their own guitar, another may not or will need to recognise that they may be better taking to someone with a lot of experience in these maters.

That is why so many of us will take our cars to a mechanic and few amongst us would do our own dentistry.

I know that some people would rather have a go themselves than paying some other person for their experience, but having the sense of judgement of whether something is within their own remit or skill/patience levels is a tricky one to call.

For the OP there are a few techs in and around Edinburgh 

KevS

PhilKing said:

Have you tried putting the original magnet back into the SD?  Ususally all you need to do is slacken the bottom screws a bit and make sure that none of the wrap is in the way.  Also, you have to push the magnet out at the opposite end to where the connection wires are.   It could be that you have broken one of them, but if you are not familiar with the construction of a pickup, then I would suggest going to a tech or sending it to someone like @OilCityPickups to have it fixed.

I have never used a Shur pickup, so don't know what that could be, but @FelineGuitars suggestion is something to look at.

Yeah,that was the method I used with the pickup..
I pushed the magnet so it came out of the non wired side..
After slackening the screws and creating a gap..
Maybe Seymour has started making them a bit more tamper proof or something..
I checked magnet orientation by using magnet against magnet while the one in the Seymour was only partially out..
Oh and the Pearly Gates uses the 62 mm magnet,,not the 58 mm one..
I bought both.. 
I had to take some of the tape off to get at the space where the magnet was..
Maybe a wire got broken there...I of course put it back on,although the tape wasn't as tidy.
I don't think I was rough at any point...
I think I am a quite unlucky person,,shit goes wrong a lot with me..lol

I have put on new strings and the neck and middle single coils still work..
It is a 22 fret Fender neck,,so it is a neck or strings off situation,
I don't want to take the neck off too often..
I just intend on either getting a pickup made if it can be done..
A pickup designed to work reliably in that situation..
There seems to sadly be more chance involved whether a pickup will work in a situation or not.
Or a plan B possibly just putting in 3 Iron Gear Jailhouse Rails..
Hopefully they match each other tonally..
They have some extra balls..
You need 500 K pots..
You Tube Demos aren't everything,but they sound good for Rock etc on there..
I have full single coil Strats...
Sometimes at high volume with a drummer you find there isn't as much treble as you though with come pickups though..
I found that with SD Hot Rails,but it is saying there is more top with the Jailhouse Rails on a EQ Chart..
Again that could be marketing though..
There are potential pitfalls everywhere..

I thought with the Single Suhr Pickup guitar..
What could go wrong here..
No other pickups to match it with..
Just one pickup to do one specific job..
So it ends up being basically almost silent,,but not quite..
The Pickup Gremlin still got me..

Your brain gets tired thinking about what approach to use with multiple guitars..
I think I am thinking the right things for now...

Fitting will be done by a repair Man I know this time..
I've done many succesful pickup replacements in the past,,
but the pickup Gremlins are strong at the moment..
The guitars may be away for a little while but hopefully they will come back OK..
I am just wondering how long I have to return the Suhr pickup if it's that that is faulty..

KevS

FelineGuitars said:

KevS said:

FelineGuitars said:

Is the suhr pickup simply suffering from the series link not being soldered together ?

I have seen this before or wires just twisted and not soldered

A bit over my head here..
is this Suhr not soldering it properly or me.. ?

Excuse me if I sound uninformed..I am basically..

If the humbucker is being used in both coils in series mode then the white and red wires need to be soldered together - sometimes players overlook this and end up with a pickup not working right or intermittently if those wires are only twisted together and not soldered.

I have indeed soldered them together..
The Red and White..
Then taped them.. 

Same colour codes as Seymour Duncan..
The wires are soldered to the points stated on the diagram..
Every joint nice and sturdy and shiny..

The job is really neat..
I was quite proud of it until I discovered it didn't work..

The thumb slice when trying to shave back the too big Scratchplate is what made me have to stop things..
 

mrkb

Have you taken a multimeter reading of each coil just to check resistance is ok?

KevS

mrkb said:

Have you taken a multimeter reading of each cool just to check resistance is ok?

OK I don't know how to do that..
This is something I thought though..

Good Suggestion..
I do have a cheap digital multimeter..
I haven't used it for years..

I used to use it for a Triode Strapped Single ended Hifi Amp I used to own..

The other thing I am thinking with the Suhr Pickup is that the major signal would be coming through the Black wire..

There is signal but it is very weak indeed..

it would also be that only part of a coil is working..
Or is it a case of working or not working for a coil as one wire is either broken or continuous..?

mrkb

Check the resistance between the black and white wires - that should be about 7kohms
Do the same for the red and green wires - should also be about 7kohms
let us know the readings

KevS

mrkb said:

Check the resistance between the black and white wires - that should be about 7kohms
Do the same for the red and green wires - should also be about 7kohms
let us know the readings

Do I need to unsolder the wires..?
I take it I do...

I know what an Ohms symbol is,so I can do that bit..

Unsoldering can maybe wait a few days until I gather my confidence again.

I need to have a little break from taking guitars apart..
I have learned something new and very useful from you though...

mrkb

I don’t think you do if you’ve chosen a different pickup via the selector, then the humbucker won’t be seeing the volume or tone pots resistance , and you can read the pick-up coil resistance directly from the wires from each coil

normula1

For a full size HB in HSS, I've had good luck with a Bare Knuckle Mule paired with a pair of Kinman Woodstocks, in my other HSS, I have a Seymour Duncan Red Devil single coil sized HB again with Woodstocks. Both guitars with 250k vols. IIRC, the Mule has a 500k tone control. And for what it's worth they sound totally different to each other.

KevS

mrkb said:

Check the resistance between the black and white wires - that should be about 7kohms
Do the same for the red and green wires - should also be about 7kohms
let us know the 

Black and white 8.50
Black and red nothing ,, black and green nothing black and bare nothing. ,,white green nothing.
Red Green 8.48  All colours and plain nothing

Red Probe First,,Black Probe second..

I disconnected all the wires...Stripped them back again etc..

mrkb

So the two coils are working ok- black/white is the north coil, and green/red is the south coil (according to the diagram you posted). So the pick-up isn’t broken. So seem it was either the solder between north and south coils was not working (the white to red wire) or the ground (green) or hot (black) wires to the rest of the circuit were not working. Did you replace any other components or the wiring method when you changed the pick-up? What wiring diagram were you following?