Combined Singles Output ?

I know this may have been covered before but I couldnt come up with any good search strings to find any posts.Does combining SC's in the humcancelling positions actually increase the ohm resistance if you could take a reading with them like that? I know splitting an HB cuts it to the output of the individual coil,so does it work the other way when combining SC's? Say you have two 6k Sc's ,do you have a 12k HB when theyre together?

I dont believe so b/c the two coils are of the same magnetic polarity where as on a humbucker both of the coils are out of phase, kind of like two buckers in the middle position that doesnt equate to 4x the power, but then again i really know nothing.

Or that in a humbucker is wired to a single circuit for both coils, and then the two sc's are on seperate(ish) circuits.

A humbucker is two coils of opposite polarity wired in series.

A standard wiring of single coils is in parallel. I believe the output when both pickups is selected should be only as great as the highest-output of the two.

(bad example)Sorta like how tone-controls on a strat work, when you have the middle neck coils active. The tone control set lowest is where your control is quot;setquot;.


Originally Posted by kjrocksI know this may have been covered before but I couldnt come up with any good search strings to find any posts.Does combining SC's in the humcancelling positions actually increase the ohm resistance if you could take a reading with them like that? I know splitting an HB cuts it to the output of the individual coil,so does it work the other way when combining SC's? Say you have two 6k Sc's ,do you have a 12k HB when theyre together?

When they are wired in series, then the resistance increases. When wired in parallel, the resistance decreases. Single coil guitars like Telecasters amp; Stratocasters typically combine their pickups in parallel in the hum canceling positions. They can be modified to allow for series combinations. Fender sells a 4-pole switch that will provide series and parallel combinationsin a Tele, and a 5 position 4 pole Super-switch will allow to do all kinds of series-parallel weirdness.

Unless otherwise specified, guitar pickups are always wired in parallel, so when combined you get the DC resistance by adding the two and then taking a square root of the total. (That's for two pickups, of course. With three pickups you take the cube root and so on...)

So if you have two 6k pickups in parallel, the resistance is:

6 6 = 12

Square root of 12 is 3.46.

3.46k is the resistance of two 6k pickups in parallel.

THREE 6k pickups in parallel:

6 6 6 = 18

Cube root (the number that multiplied by itself twice gives you the number) of 18 is 2.62.

2.62 x 2.62 x 2.62 gives you 17.98 -- close enough.

2.62k ohms is the resistance of three 6k pickups in parallel (or any 3 pickups that add up to 18).

OF COURSE, an easier way if you have a multimeter is just to plug a little cord into the guitar and put one probe on the tip and the other on the sleeve of the other end of the cord. Dime all the knobs and flip the switch around for your various measurements.

Wow Zhang! Thanks for the crash course,I definitely understand a litle better now.