18 gauge wire

[Watchie]

Any downside to using solid as opposed to stranded?

 

[Cagey]

Generally speaking, no. But, copper is a fairly soft metal, so it work hardens easily. What that means is if it gets stressed a lot (read: bent back and forth repeatedly), it hardens, gets brittle and breaks. Of course, that's NFG, so in applications where the wire is going to be worked hard, you usually use stranded wire as it has much smaller cross-sections. By bundling a bunch of smaller strands together, you end up with a thicker wire or cable that can stand being bent around quite a bit and still have some ampacity. It doesn't eliminate the problem, it just reduces its frequency.

In applications where the wire isn't going to be stressed, it doesn't matter. A good example would be building wire, such as in your house. That wire is put in place and never gets moved, so 99.9% of the time it's solid. Usually, inside a guitar the wire should never get stressed, either. But, some people like to take their instruments apart repeatedly to experiment with different wiring schemes, pickups, pots, etc. In that case, a solid wire could conceivably get hardened and break, so you might want to use the stranded variety.

 

[Watchie]

Great answer.  Much appreciated.  I do like the idea of the solid wire, simply because one can bend it to stay and as you noted in your earlier post, create a very clean look.  That said, I suspect no one will be looking at mine other than me, and even then once the cover is on I doubt it will come back off unless I make some dramatic changes to my planned pups.

I do like, however the idea of a slightly stiffer material to work with in respect of the soldering required.  As a rank amateur I will take any help in that regard that I can get.

 

[Watchie]

Cagey:

As to the pots, I am using P90 PUPs (GFS) and they have recommended 500k pots.  I want to use CTS, but am having a hard time finding 500k long shaft LINEAR pots. The audio version are easily available. I can, however, find the 300k linear CTS pots. Will these work with a 500k volume pot?

 

[Cagey]

You want audio taper pots. Linear taper pots have what sounds like a very rapid transition from "all off" to "all on" when used for volume controls, whereas audio taper pots will gradually go from "all off" to "all on" and vice-versa. It has to do with the logarithmic response curve of the human ear.

You could use linears for the tone, and some guys swear by them, but linear/audio taper curves are less of an issue there.

 

[Watchie]

Understood as to the volume pots, but I need two tone pots, and can't find the CTS long shaft in 500k linear for the tone pots.  Can I substitute 300k linear for these two pots?

Alternatively, does anyone ever do V-V-T with a two p90 setup (so as to knock out any buzz when in the center switch position, but allowing the player to emphasize either the neck or bridge PUP using the volume controls? 

 

[Cagey]

Understood as to the volume pots, but I need two tone pots, and can't find the CTS long shaft in 500k linear for the tone pots.  Can I substitute 300k linear for these two pots?

Sure. Lotta folks even use 250K pots, particularly on single coils like P90s.

Alternatively, does anyone ever do V-V-T with a two p90 setup (so as to knock out any buzz when in the center switch position, but allowing the player to emphasize either the neck or bridge PUP using the volume controls? 

I'm not as familiar with P90s as I could be, but I don't think you can buy them configured properly to get a "noiseless" configuration out of them. You can reverse the wiring and wire them in series easily enough, but you can't reverse the magnetic polarity without disassembling them and flipping the magnet or poles yourself. So, they're just noisy no matter what you do.

Additionally, if you wire each one with its own individual volume control, then when both pickups are selected together you'll have both volume controls in parallel, so you're going to get a level shift that'll depend on where the individual pots are set. It's a good way to get surprised, and if one of them happens to be all the way off, they'll both be all off. The whole thing will be much more predictable/controllable/simple with a single volume and tone.

 

[Watchie]

Thanks.  The GFS Mean 90s (P90 in a humbcker size) are indeed reverse wound to cut any noise when played together.  Here is the proposed wiring:

http://www.guitarelectronics.com/product/WD2HH3L21_00/Guitar-Wiring-Diagram-2-Humbuckers-2-Volume-Controls-1-Tone-Control-3-Way-Lever-Switch-View-Download-Free

Would this possibly result in the surprises you reference?

 

[Watchie]

And to be clear it's okay to use 250k or 300k pots for the tone side, and 500k for the volume (i.e., mix the two)?

 

[Cagey]

I looked up the GFS Mean 90s and none of them are listed as reverse wound/reverse polarity, so you're not going to get a noiseless setting no matter how you wire it. It's not impossible to do what you want, I just haven't ever seen it. Maybe they're on a different page?

That wiring diagram you cite will work, but yes, it will surprise you sometimes. It's just something that people who want multiple volume controls have to live with. The pots end up in parallel when you're in the middle position, so unless both pots are all the way up or at least one is all the way off, you can't predict what the output level will be.

Finally, yes, it's ok to use 500K pots for volume and 250Ks for tone.

 

[Watchie]

Sh**!  I could have sworn I had read that they were reverse wound.  In any case, I will take  your counsel regarding the V-V-T issues and go V-T-T as originally planned but using 500k audio for the V and the 300k linear for the T.  .022uf for the caps or .047 given the 250k or 300k pots for the tone?

And thanks again for all the assistance.

 

[Cagey]

.022 vs. .033, .047, etc. is a matter of taste. The larger the cap, the more high end you roll off and the sooner it happens. Myself, I always use .022 caps and could probably use .01 for as much as I use the onboard tone control(s). But, anything larger than the .022 just turns the output to indistinct mud, at least to my ears.

 

[Jusatele]

noise, or as we call it here in the states, 60 cycle hum
it is easy to understand why it happens if you have studied transformer theory

but let me give you a few examples of the phenom, go to an electrical room in a building and stand next to a transformer, now remember that thing has no moving parts and listen to it hum, notice it is sitting on thin rubber pads.  go and put your hand on a charger for a automobile and listen to the small hum.

remember that signal it is setting up we put into a amplifier, so it gets louder,  now notice if you play under a ballasted light, such as florescent of any HID it is worse, or near some electronical device with a high draw. Electrical fields they are putting out the pickup is picking up, in other words it is doing it's job real well. Yes humbuckers have less trash signal as it is canceled by the reverse of the second coil. Higher out put pickup you use the harder it is to control noise.

So the holy grail is to have perfectly quiet pickups, but at what cost? Cutting part of the signal and losing some tone? Filtering the signal and filtering some tone? Using humbickers and not having as bright of a tone? Making so called noiseless single coils that do not really sound like the single coil they are emulating?

now look at a boutique pickup manufacturing company, and how they try to get the exact sound of the 19?? P 90 in the les paul.  Never claim humbucking prowness, just tone.

Quiet pickups are the holy grail of guitars, seems we sacrifice to get it. or learn to put up with a little noise.

 

[Alfang]

Theres a thing in electronics called eddie currents that can distort a signal, thats why you see the cores of transformers built from laminated metal. Basically a large solid core acts as a capacitor and creates a lag effect on the current flowing in and out. using laminated plates eliminates or reduces this effect.

I don't know if this will happen using solid wire in a guitar, I'm sure theres a small effect, But given the choice, I'd forget how nice solid wire looks and go with stranded

 

[pabloman]

The GFS P90 neck pups are rwrp. It says so in the descriptions. The solid wire will not inject any eddy currents. It is not an induction device in this particular installation.

 

[Cagey]

Theres a thing in electronics called eddie currents that can distort a signal, thats why you see the cores of transformers built from laminated metal. Basically a large solid core acts as a capacitor and creates a lag effect on the current flowing in and out. using laminated plates eliminates or reduces this effect.

I don't know if this will happen using solid wire in a guitar, I'm sure theres a small effect, But given the choice, I'd forget how nice solid wire looks and go with stranded

The core in the transformer that is made up of the string/magnet/coil of an electric guitar's signal generation system is the string. The magnet is the primary, and the coil is the secondary. So, eddy currents aren't an issue at all. Use all the solid wire you want.

 

[Cagey]

The GFS P90 neck pups are rwrp. It says so in the descriptions. The solid wire will not inject any eddy currents. It is not an induction device in this particular installation.

He's talking about the "Mean 90" pickups. There's no mention of RWRP on the neck (or bridge) pickups in the descriptions of those.

 

[Watchie]

Update - if I had it to do again I would go with the 22 gauge.  The 18 is just too stiff, and can break the lugs on the switch if you are not careful.