Coil Split Question for Fender Wide Range Pups

[Ted Mawson]

I'm building a partscaster that is aiming to be like a Fender Telecaster Deluxe American Professional II and I have purchased Fender Telecaster Neck Humbucker Pickup Custom/Deluxe Wide Range from Amazon. They came with a 2-wire cable (see pics) and I'm looking to upgrade them to 4 wire (+ ground) so that I can split them (see pic of 4-wire wiring).

I've done coil splits before but only by shorting the central link between the N and S coil to ground meaning that I'm only using the N coil. Given that these wide-range Pups have 3 exposed poles on the N coil and 3 on the S coil, if I just ground the center link, won't that result in me only getting signal from 3 strings?

Maybe I need to do a series or parallel switch setup? My volume pots have DPDT push/pull switches on them.

Any ideas?

 

[AAT65]

Each coil of a WRHB has 6 poles: it’s just laid out so that 3 face upwards and 3 downwards on each coil (for cosmetic reasons only I think). You can see the adjustment screwdriver slots on the underside ones in your photograph. So just ground the link between the coils as normal.
Whether half a WRHB sounds any good is another question but it’s easy enough for you to try it.

 

[TimTam]

To be clear, the "WRHB" you bought is the Fender reissue they have sold for some decades that is a regular HB in a WRHB case (ie not the more recent CuNiFe pole magnets, like original 1970s WRHBs). The exposed wiring underneath in your pic is the definitive external indicator of that (CuNiFe WRHBs look very different underneath). So the poles are not magnets - it has a bar magnet under the steel poles (of which there are 6 in each row, although only 3 are exposed through the pickup cover).

Having said that, it is obviously possible to wire them in a split coil configuration (in fact it's easier than for a CuNiFe WRHB). When a single coil is selected, you will get a single regular-HB coil with 3 (non-magnet) screws extending closer to the strings than the other 3 (non-magnet) screws in the same row/coil ... that terminate further from the strings (ie under the cover). Whether that will be a useful sound ... is up to your ears.

 

[bender66]

The OPs image is cropped that you cant see the lead ends. I have one of these Fender stamped faux WRHB in my parts as well as a Cunife. I think the faux pickup is already 4 wire for splitting. Not 100% sure.

Op- How much was this amazon purchase?

 

[Ted Mawson]

Each coil of a WRHB has 6 poles: it’s just laid out so that 3 face upwards and 3 downwards on each coil (for cosmetic reasons only I think). You can see the adjustment screwdriver slots on the underside ones in your photograph. So just ground the link between the coils as normal.
Whether half a WRHB sounds any good is another question but it’s easy enough for you to try it.

Thanks

To be clear, the "WRHB" you bought is the Fender reissue they have sold for some decades that is a regular HB in a WRHB case (ie not the more recent CuNiFe pole magnets, like original 1970s WRHBs). The exposed wiring underneath in your pic is the definitive external indicator of that (CuNiFe WRHBs look very different underneath). So the poles are not magnets - it has a bar magnet under the steel poles (of which there are 6 in each row, although only 3 are exposed through the pickup cover).

Having said that, it is obviously possible to wire them in a split coil configuration (in fact it's easier than for a CuNiFe WRHB). When a single coil is selected, you will get a single regular-HB coil with 3 (non-magnet) screws extending closer to the strings than the other 3 (non-magnet) screws in the same row/coil ... that terminate further from the strings (ie under the cover). Whether that will be a useful sound ... is up to your ears.

Thanks, that matches my understanding but I think that the sound from the poles that are covered by the chrome case will be muffled at best - switching into parallel rather than shorting the center link to ground should solve that issue in that all uncovered poles will be providing a signal.

The OPs image is cropped that you cant see the lead ends. I have one of these Fender stamped faux WRHB in my parts as well as a Cunife. I think the faux pickup is already 4 wire for splitting. Not 100% sure.

Op- How much was this amazon purchase?

The neck and bridge Pups were bought through Amazon but they both shipped from a company called Guitar Audio. They were just over $60 each. They are also listed on Reverb by the same company at the same price. They come in Fender packaging so do you think that these are fakes and not Fender Pups?

 

[Tuxedo Poly]

The Am Pro II Deluxe pickups are DoubleTap humbuckers with the WRHB-type covers
Fender don't seem to have any concerns about loss of signal from the covered poles when split.

Your pickup is a genuine Fender WRHB style pickup as used in the Mex Deluxe and other guitars. The '95' is Fender identification short hand for the full part number shown below. They are usually 2 wire (brown and black).

One question, which service manual did the CunifePup.png image come from?
The current Fender 'real' CuNiFe pickup looks like this underneath

 

[Ted Mawson]

Thanks for all the information guys.

My (incorrectly-named) CunifePup.png picture was taken from the Pawn Shop Fender Mustang diagram in this thread on squier-talk and clearly this guitar doesn't come with CuniFe pickups. The other 2 are my own pictures. I too think my new Pups are genuine Fender MIM, they came with 2-wire cables (I've ordered some 4 wire) and the picture of them in packaging is shown below.

I watched 2 Scott Haskitt YouTube videos this morning comparing Fender CuNiFe vs Vintera, Squier & MIM 2014 - Wide Range Humbuckers; the first video compares them being played and, in the second video, Scott says what he thinks. I thought that there wasn't a huge difference between the Pups although the Squiers sounded worst.

I'm thinking that I might do a temporary wiring job with wires trailing from under the pickguard so I can trial serial/parallel/center short/treble bleed.

 

[Ted Mawson]

If I rewire my Fender WRHB style pickups, what is the correct layout for the red, green, black, white wires please? I have found pictures but it's not clear which way is 'up'.

[EDIT] I think the picture below is correct????
[EDIT2] I deleted the picture as I think it was wrong.

 

[Ted Mawson]

The picture I snipped from above is attached to this post as a whole page. It's highly relevant to my case as the Fender Pawn Shop Mustang has the same WRHB MIM pickups as I have bought for my Telecaster Deluxe partscaster. The Mustang wiring diagram below also shows a slide switch for each pup that changes each pup wiring - I need to study it more but I think it's a serial/parallel/center shorting coil switching implementation.

When seen from the front of the pickguard, both the Mustang pups have the word 'Fender' (on the chrome front) the right way up with the neck pointed at the ceiling so that gives me the reference orientation for the red/green/black/white wires that I will attach when I rewire my pups to 4-wire. I also read a great 4-part article on the WRHB pups on Gitec and that's interesting because it does point out that, although the original shiny covers for the CuNiFe pups were "non-magnetic" (meaning, I think, that they were non-ferrous and magnetic fields can pass through them unhindered), the later MIM clones of the WBHB pups that I have have ferrous covers. Either way, the 3 poles on one bank and 3 on the other is mentioned in the article as likely being a marketing gimmick and having no significant effect on the performance of the pups so any of the normal coil switching approaches should work fine with these WBHB pups.

 

[TimTam]

The picture I snipped from above is attached to this post as a whole page. It's highly relevant to my case as the Fender Pawn Shop Mustang has the same WRHB MIM pickups as I have bought for my Telecaster Deluxe partscaster. The Mustang wiring diagram below also shows a slide switch for each pup that changes each pup wiring - I need to study it more but I think it's a serial/parallel/center shorting coil switching implementation.

When seen from the front of the pickguard, both the Mustang pups have the word 'Fender' (on the chrome front) the right way up with the neck pointed at the ceiling so that gives me the reference orientation for the red/green/black/white wires that I will attach when I rewire my pups to 4-wire. I also read a great 4-part article on the WRHB pups on Gitec and that's interesting because it does point out that, although the original shiny covers for the CuNiFe pups were "non-magnetic" (meaning, I think, that they were non-ferrous and magnetic fields can pass through them unhindered), the later MIM clones of the WBHB pups that I have have ferrous covers. Either way, the 3 poles on one bank and 3 on the other is mentioned in the article as likely being a marketing gimmick and having no significant effect on the performance of the pups so any of the normal coil switching approaches should work fine with these WBHB pups.

The pickups in that Mustang are 'WRHB' looking but in a regular HB-size case (as Fender has done several times), not like the bigger case of most Fender reissue WRHBs and the CuNiFe ones (original and latest).

The pickup part number on Amazon that you originally linked and said you bought is 0054595000. That is the reissue in the big case, the same size as the originals (but a conventional bar magnet HB not CuNiFe poles).

Fender 72 Telecaster FWR Wide Range Humbucker Neck pickup 0054595000 005-4595-049

Fender 72 Telecaster FWR Wide Range Humbucker Neck pickup 0054595000 005-4595-049 for '72 Tele Custom or Deluxe. Includes correct mounting screws & springs.

darrenriley.com

So the pickup you bought is not the same as that Mustang pickup. The wire colour convention may or may not be the same as yours. However it should be straightforward to discern which wires belong to which coils from the layout of their terminals on the back of your pickup.

 

[Ted Mawson]

Thanks TimTam, I think I understand the winding arrangement of the pickups pretty well (I'm an EE and my Associates degree was in industrial electronics - think large electro-magnet type stuff). To me, the weirdity of the WBHBs is that there are 3 exposed cores on the North winding and 3 on the South winding so shorting out either winding leaves you running on 3 open poles and 3 covered poles. The Gitec article I linked to above says that this is probably a marketing gimmick and that one winding would probably work OK anyway. That leads me to think that I will try a switching system where the N & S coils change from being in series to being in parallel just to see what difference that makes.

 

[Peegoo]

@Ted Mawson

You can split the coils and you will still hear all six strings. Even though three of the screws are under the cover it will work fine.

This design was not conceived for tonal qualities. Fender hired Seth Lover away from Gibson with the intent of getting him to develop a humbucker for Fender. According to Lover, the reason he used a 3+3 screw top cover scheme was to avoid patent infringement litigation from Gibson.

 

[Ted Mawson]

Thanks Peegoo for that clarification. Yesterday, I rewired the pickups for 4 wire and then wired things up so that they were switched between series and parallel plus I added a treble bleed consisting of a 47k resistor and a 1,000 pF capacitor on both volume controls. The wiring looks like this although the treble bleed circuits are not included...

I've never done the parallel switching so I'm curious to hear what it will sound like.

I'm also slightly concerned that the pickup poles won't sit exactly under the strings, especially for the neck pup; does anyone think this going to be a big problem? The pictures of Telecaster Deluxes appear to show the poles sitting right under the strings - did I buy the wrong neck pup?

 

[merseymale]

I'm building a partscaster that is aiming to be like a Fender Telecaster Deluxe American Professional II and I have purchased Fender Telecaster Neck Humbucker Pickup Custom/Deluxe Wide Range from Amazon. They came with a 2-wire cable (see pics) and I'm looking to upgrade them to 4 wire (+ ground) so that I can split them (see pic of 4-wire wiring).

I've done coil splits before but only by shorting the central link between the N and S coil to ground meaning that I'm only using the N coil. Given that these wide-range Pups have 3 exposed poles on the N coil and 3 on the S coil, if I just ground the center link, won't that result in me only getting signal from 3 strings?

Maybe I need to do a series or parallel switch setup? My volume pots have DPDT push/pull switches on them.

Any ideas?

I would do the series/parallel thing anyway over coil tap and I think, unlike 'Real WRHBs', your 'Fake Types', so to speak, would benefit MORE from this

A Genuine CuNiFe WRHB is bright enough for most folks that series mode rarely warrants bothering with but your Non-US type, which is pretty much a normal PAF under a WideRange cover, would be better suited IMHO

Cork Sniffers often scoff at pick ups like yours BUT they are still good pick ups; look the part and are MORE versatile than the 'Real Thing'

 

[merseymale]

Thanks

Thanks, that matches my understanding but I think that the sound from the poles that are covered by the chrome case will be muffled at best - switching into parallel rather than shorting the center link to ground should solve that issue in that all uncovered poles will be providing a signal.

The neck and bridge Pups were bought through Amazon but they both shipped from a company called Guitar Audio. They were just over $60 each. They are also listed on Reverb by the same company at the same price. They come in Fender packaging so do you think that these are fakes and not Fender Pups?

R E A L

 

[merseymale]

Thanks for all the information guys.

My (incorrectly-named) CunifePup.png picture was taken from the Pawn Shop Fender Mustang diagram in this thread on squier-talk and clearly this guitar doesn't come with CuniFe pickups. The other 2 are my own pictures. I too think my new Pups are genuine Fender MIM, they came with 2-wire cables (I've ordered some 4 wire) and the picture of them in packaging is shown below.

I watched 2 Scott Haskitt YouTube videos this morning comparing Fender CuNiFe vs Vintera, Squier & MIM 2014 - Wide Range Humbuckers; the first video compares them being played and, in the second video, Scott says what he thinks. I thought that there wasn't a huge difference between the Pups although the Squiers sounded worst.

I'm thinking that I might do a temporary wiring job with wires trailing from under the pickguard so I can trial serial/parallel/center short/treble bleed.

Good Plan

Let us know your opinion…?

 

[merseymale]

Thanks TimTam, I think I understand the winding arrangement of the pickups pretty well (I'm an EE and my Associates degree was in industrial electronics - think large electro-magnet type stuff). To me, the weirdity of the WBHBs is that there are 3 exposed cores on the North winding and 3 on the South winding so shorting out either winding leaves you running on 3 open poles and 3 covered poles. The Gitec article I linked to above says that this is probably a marketing gimmick and that one winding would probably work OK anyway. That leads me to think that I will try a switching system where the N & S coils change from being in series to being in parallel just to see what difference that makes.

It should be quite a bit of a difference

 

[merseymale]

I think you bought right

 

[Caffiend]

The poles not being exactly under the strings is a problem that has been blown out of all proportion. 'F spaced' humbuckers weren't a thing until sometime in the 80s. Looking at what you have, you certainly don't seem to have 'fake' pickups, just not the CuNiFe units. Fender made pickups that looked like wrhb's for ten plus years before they reintroduced CuNiFe and it looks like that's what you have. Opinion is mixed about them but opinion is mixed about all pickups so I'd not lose too much sleep over it. Get them hooked up and see if you like them.