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If you want to experiment more than that, it's probably better to fit a couple of trimmers rather than keep changing the resistors. 10K trimmers should be OK, or maybe 5K for the neck - the values aren't likely to be larger than this.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
(I haven't tried it on a rails either)
Trimmer sounds like a good idea though.
I thought they were only required in low output HBs...
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
https://www.fralinpickups.com/product/resistors/
I've not used trimmers, just flying leads and crocodile clips to try out different values, and have come to the conclusion the PRS values are pretty well judged. I once opted for a 1k8 (next value down from a 2k2 that I have in my box of resistors) on a Seymour Duncan Screamin' Demon in a 'superstrat' style HSS bridge position but, other than that, have found 1k and 2.2k to be pretty much spot on for the vintage wind humbuckers I gravitate towards.
But yeah a trimmer does give you a lot more tweakability.
Yeah agreed. You probably need them less, but they can still be helpful. Again, as usual, it's very dependent on the exact pickup.
Maybe that sounds best with his pickups? Or maybe he did some maths and came up with that value as getting closest within range of a proper single coil's resistance... except that's not necessarily how it works! A humbucker is different enough that I'm not sure the resistances are exactly comparable, and that's if you're even using the same wire gauges for the winds...
I've had a range of values... I've had some where I only had a few hundred ohms which sounded best. I ran out of room with a 5k trimmer on a bridge pickup, too- I was too lazy to wire in a 10k, but since that I started using 10k on the bridge pickup as @ICBM said! Up till then I'd been using 5k since I hadn't needed more than that before (or even anywhere close to that!), and 5k gives a bit more fine control. (Also it probably doesn't help that I constantly change my mind!)
It didn't always necessarily be completely proportionate to output, either. I'd say the tone of the pickup is more important than the output- a darker and/or thicker humbucker usually needs a lower value of resistor, if it even needs one at all. Those things tend to go hand-in-hand (hotter tends to be darker), but not always.
Going to highlight my lack of electrical understanding here but I've looked at 10k trim pots and they all seem to have 3 pins. Given that a resister has two ends how is the trim pot connected?
Can anyone point me to the ideal component and I'll grab a couple and wire it up..
Regards,
Simon
And (no prizes for guessing how I know this) make sure the actual trimmer bit is accessible once it's soldered in! It may well be easier to solder wires to the DPDT and/or ground and solder the appropriate trimmer legs to the wires if the trimmer is quite small. (Also it's a bit easier to solder wires to the DPDT and ground than the trimmer.)
I just got some Bourns ones on CPC which seemed to work fine.
Trimmer, 10K - Bourns | CPC UK (farnell.com)
Trimmer, 5K - Bourns | CPC UK (farnell.com)
But the problem with them is that you have to get over £21 or something like that (and that might not include VAT) to avoid paying a £5 handling fee and also postage. EDIT: Ooof, I just noticed, apparently you also have to buy a minimum of 5 of the 10k ones.
*Hopefully someone else can help with which one, if it matters- I forget! I had to google it myself to find out how to do it, lol (and the info I found, which I saved, doesn't specify which one- I suspect I had to do the following test with a multimeter to figure it out!). You can test it if you have a multimeter, though, you just attach the multimeter to the middle lug and one of the end ones and turn the trimmer and make a note of the resistance- if it goes from 0 to (roughly) the 10k then I think that should be ok. But someone will be along presently to say I'm wrong, I'm sure!
I usually connect the spare leg to the centre, I tend to use the CTS push pulls and solder the trimmer directly to it and then a blob of hot melt glue to keep it in place.