re measuring resistance on pickups

surfguy13

Apologies for the stupid question but......when measuring the resistance of a pickup do I set the meter to 200 (the lowest setting on my meter under) or one of the higher settings?

Ta!

ESchap

Pickup will be kilo ohms resistance Guy.   I'd set my meter at 20k ohms

John_P

Higher - the resistance will be in kohms

surfguy13

Brilliant......many thanks!

John_P said:

Higher - the resistance will be in kohms

surfguy13

Thanks Gordon!!! 


ESchap said:

Pickup will be kilo ohms resistance Guy.   I'd set my meter at 20k ohms

OilCityPickups

Mind you ... I have to add, that measuring a pickup's resistance will tell you practically nothing apart from if it's working ... and then you'll get a perfectly good resistance figure from a pickup with no magnets that can't possibly work!
As a diagnostic it can tell you if there is a broken winding or an internal short in the coil ... but beware of using it for any comparative purposes between pickups for 'power' etc.
Resistance is both a measure of the length of wire used ... that is how many turns, and the gauge of wire used. Turns count for power not gauge ... so when very fine wire is used the resistance figure is very high ... though the actual loudness may be not much greater than a pickup with, for example, half its DC resistance.

fretfinder

Do you mean turns count for 'power' in terms of high resistance, or in terms of loudness of pickup?

OilCityPickups

Turns count as far as the eventual subjective loudness and 'output' of the pickup. Resistance means nothing without being referenced to the gauge of the wire used. Then of course the type of magnet used will also change the subjective loudness.
Resistance has bugger all to do with 'power' or loudness, that is better referenced by millivolts output and inductance.
Note: subjective loudness can also more to do with what frequencies a pickup is allowing through than sheer millivolts grunt.

Adam_MD

I've got a 12.8k pickup in my prs and a 8.7k in my les paul (both bridge position) and they're very close in volume.  Though the coil split on the 12.8 is miles better than the paf style.

OilCityPickups

Adam_MD said:

I've got a 12.8k pickup in my prs and a 8.7k in my les paul (both bridge position) and they're very close in volume.  Though the coil split on the 12.8 is miles better than the paf style.

Yup ... you can't get 12.8k worth of 42awg wire on a standard humbucker bobbin ... so to get the number of turns we want for a design we go down to the next size: 43awg which is higher resistance ... but as you say ... not a whole pile louder in actual terms.