How to tell if a single coil is Reverse wind?

[crankster]

Hey guys,

Just purchased some Suhr V70 pups middle and neck, just curious to know if anybody can tell whether the middle is reverse wind or not? What should one expect tone wise regular vs reverse wind?

 

[SpiderWars]

This article https://www.fralinpickups.com/2017/01/23/whats-deal-polarity/ from the Fralin site may help.

 

[just42dave]

Yes
The wires are reversed as in the middle pickup.. At least for most ML and V60.

 

[scottosan]

Yes
The wires are reversed as in the middle pickup.. At least for most ML and V60.

You can tell that they are reversed by looking at the leads. The colors are reversed between the neck and middle

 

[SpiderWars]

You can tell that they are reversed by looking at the leads. The colors are reversed between the neck and middle

Since these are same mfr and appear to be from a set I agree. But in other cases I would check the other side too. I know I had one set where the wires were crossed on the other side of that plate so you couldn’t actually tell from the bottom.

I had ordered a different bridge pickup from Fralin and Lindy actually called me to make sure the polarity was right. But I was looking at already installed pickups and we got it wrong. Lindy was extremely helpful during the whole process and I was impressed with his attention. And the Steel Pole 42 sounds great as a Strat bridge pickup.

 

[SpiderWars]

Other than the hum canceling in the 2 and 4 positions, they sound the same AFAIK.

 

[GOHOINC]

On an sss config it should be the middle, so you get noise cancelling in pos. 2 and 4 . That said, in hss config, Tom Anderson recommends putting the rw/rp pickup in the neck to maximize noise cancel options.

Generally, if buying separately I tend to see rw/rp pickups marketed as middle pickups, but also plenty of mid pickups not sold/labelled as rw/rp.

The pics you posted look like u lifted them from reverb seller in asiapac? If so they have all three pickups listed and the photo of the mid has wire colors reversed from.bridge and neck photos, so I'm guessing it is rw/rp even if not labelled that way.

 

[scottosan]

Since these are same mfr and appear to be from a set I agree. But in other cases I would check the other side too. I know I had one set where the wires were crossed on the other side of that plate so you couldn’t actually tell from the bottom.
I had ordered a different bridge pickup from Fralin and Lindy actually called me to make sure the polarity was right. But I was looking at already installed pickups and we got it wrong. Lindy was extremely helpful during the whole process and I was impressed with his attention. And the Steel Pole 42 sounds great as a Strat bridge pickup.

Sometimes it’s hard to see, but from the top you should be able to see a lead wire from each eyelet. One will angle toward the inside of the coil and the other to the outside of the coil. Then you need to look at which lead is connected to the outer lead. In the image you’ll see the white hot lead connected to the outer coil on the left, so the wind direction is counterclockwise, but the hot wire is connected to the finish of the coil, so it’s clear that the signal goes clockwise.

That said, reverse wound isn’t enough. It also had to be reversed polarity. A magnetic compass is cheap and can help determine that. Unfortunately there’s no standardization among winders. If the polarity is opposite, but not the wind direction, swapping the hot and ground leads will fix that most of the time.

As for humbuckers, I recommend 4 conductor if mixing with other vendors for that very reason. Here’s a chart that shows just how inconsistent winders are. For wind direction/polarity. I follow Gibsons design since it was the original.

Here’s a list of a few winders standards;
http://www.skguitar.com/SKGS/sk/Pickup color codes.htm

 

[just42dave]

On an sss config it should be the middle, so you get noise cancelling in pos. 2 and 4 . That said, in hss config, Tom Anderson recommends putting the rw/rp pickup in the neck to maximize noise cancel options.

Generally, if buying separately I tend to see rw/rp pickups marketed as middle pickups, but also plenty of mid pickups not sold/labelled as rw/rp.

The pics you posted look like u lifted them from reverb seller in asiapac? If so they have all three pickups listed and the photo of the mid has wire colors reversed from.bridge and neck photos, so I'm guessing it is rw/rp even if not labelled that way.

Yes to this

Sometimes it’s hard to see, but from the top you should be able to see a lead wire from each eyelet. One will angle toward the inside of the coil and the other to the outside of the coil. Then you need to look at which lead is connected to the outer lead. In the image you’ll see the white hot lead connected to the outer coil on the left, so the wind direction is counterclockwise, but the hot wire is connected to the finish of the coil, so it’s clear that the signal goes clockwise.
View attachment 151621
That said, reverse wound isn’t enough. It also had to be reversed polarity. A magnetic compass is cheap and can help determine that. Unfortunately there’s no standardization among winders. If the polarity is opposite, but not the wind direction, swapping the hot and ground leads will fix that most of the time.

As for humbuckers, I recommend 4 conductor if mixing with other vendors for that very reason. Here’s a chart that shows just how inconsistent winders are. For wind direction/polarity. I follow Gibsons design since it was the original.

Here’s a list of a few winders standards;
http://www.skguitar.com/SKGS/sk/Pickup color codes.htm

 

[just42dave]

Correct. The 2nd position will sound lil wonky.