What to expect with A5 neck @ 10k; A3 Bridge @ 8k

[newminglewoodblue]

I have never paid much attention to magnet types, wire gauge or number of winds. I've read as much as I can, but would like to hear from people with more pup swapping experience. I have a new partscaster being assembled, the wiring and pup specs describe as:

Tele Controls Full Size 250k Pots.
Volume & Tone W/.047 Orange Drop Tone Cap
Gavitt Vintage Style Cloth Covered Wire.
Dome Top Knobs, (3) Way Switching W/ Barrel Knob.

A Set Alnico Tele Pickups
Alnico-V Neck Pickup W/Chrome Cover About 10 k
Alnico-III Bridge Pickup W/Base Plate About 8 k
Vacuum potted in beeswax and paraffin.
Made in S.Korea

Is this "hot" wiring? A little noisy maybe? Pros & cons? It will stay in the guitar until I know I hate it, I'm hoping for a loving LTR

Thoughts?

 

[schmee]

That neck pickup is quite hot. I wouldn't set it up too close to the strings. You may or may not like the .047 tone cap. It will likely have a pretty minimal change using the tone knob until it changes very rapidly to mush. A .015 or maybe .022 would just change the highest of highs and hopefully in a more gradual manner.

 

[old wrench]

The first thing that comes to mind is that the neck pickup is most likely going to over-power the bridge pickup.

Ordinarily you might see similar output pickups switched around the other way, with 8K at the neck and 10K at the bridge.

Another way to look at it is if you had two identical pickups in your Tele, the neck pickup is going to sound louder than the bridge, because the strings have more movement or greater excursion in the way they oscillate at the neck position.

So you can expect to be working your volume control a little more than you normally might.


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[Boreas]

I agree with @schmee regarding a lower-value T cap - especially if you are using 250k pots. I generally use 500k V pots. But one often needs to swap pots to match overly bright or dark pickups.

The pickups are likely going to be a black box until you install and set them up. As others have mentioned, the neck pickup may need to be set a little low. But the power and performance of the magnets will tell a lot. But I am reasonably sure you will be able to get an acceptable balance. Enjoy the journey!

 

[misterdontmove]

The other issue is wire gauge. Are they both 42AWG? A pickup with 43AWG wire, and the same number of turns will give a higher resistance, but not necessarily a higher output. Tele pickups, depending on the model being emulated sometimes used different types of wire in the neck and bridge pickup. Here's some interesting information on gauge and number of turns.

Electrical differences by wire gauge, practical demo. | GuitarNutz 2

I finally got around to making some pickups for testing purposes. I made three singles coils, each are 8,000 turns, and each is wound with a different gauge of wire, 41, 42, and 43 AWG. The goa

guitarnuts2.proboards.com

https://vintagevibeguitars.com/dox/CoilWireAndDC_Resistance.pdf

Like Boreas said "enjoy the journey down the rabbit hole.

 

[pbenn]

When you say chrome neck p/u, do you mean chrome plated brass?
That's the more muffled sounding cover.
The nickel silver cover is the less muffled sounding one.
Believe stock F was brass/chrome but not sure.

 

[newminglewoodblue]

Thank you for the replies! I thought the same regarding hotter at the bridge. I got a very good price on the loaded body, so I decided to string it up as is and see how I like it.

Not sure exactly about the chrome cover, I will report back when I have her later this week.

 

[rigatele]

Rule of thumb that is 95% or so accurate... if it isn't specified as "nickel silver", you can assume it's plated brass. That applies to both some high end, and most low end Tele neck PUs.

If it's unspecified, you have to either test the pickup electronically, or disassemble the PU and scrape off some of the plating flash on the inside. There is a noticeable sonic difference, but if you have nothing to reference it to, it's easy to kid yourself.

Nice thing about cheap pickups, you can replace them with a good set and gain some fridge magnets.

Another thing, and especially with imports because they use whatever wire they have on hand and the winding tension varies quite a bit, the DC resistance is not especially meaningful. DC values are only useful in an "all other things equal" scenario. It's mainly the turns count that matters.

 

[Antoon]

The other issue is wire gauge. Are they both 42AWG? A pickup with 43AWG wire, and the same number of turns will give a higher resistance, but not necessarily a higher output. Tele pickups, depending on the model being emulated sometimes used different types of wire in the neck and bridge pickup. Here's some interesting information on gauge and number of turns.

Electrical differences by wire gauge, practical demo. | GuitarNutz 2

I finally got around to making some pickups for testing purposes. I made three singles coils, each are 8,000 turns, and each is wound with a different gauge of wire, 41, 42, and 43 AWG. The goa

guitarnuts2.proboards.com

https://vintagevibeguitars.com/dox/CoilWireAndDC_Resistance.pdf

Like Boreas said "enjoy the journey down the rabbit hole.

Yes the neck pickup is obviously wound with something resembling AWG43. No way 10k of AWG42 would fit on a Tele neck pickup bobbin.

With that in mind the bridge pickup (likely AWG42, otherwise it would be a bright ear kicker with 8k) is in fact hotter than the neck pickup in this set. These are just a set of heavily overwound Tele pickups.

 

[old wrench]

A Tele bridge pickup wound with 10,000 turns of 43awg measures right around 10K when measured at around 70*F


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