3ight8all
Morning ?
I would like to replace the pickups on my M600 at some stage, but it has a coil tap.
Is it possible to split any humbucker or do you need one wired for a coil tap? I'm pretty much looking for as little work as possible.
Cheers
J
tonerider
You can create your own coil tap point on a 2-wire humbucker but you have to work carefully and with a lot of patience. It is relatively easy to do and I've done this a hundred times myself.
Tools required: soldering iron, solder, a single multi-stranded piece of wire similar to one of the pickup's existing wires connected to the toggle/volume/earth, and of similar length.
Here's how you do it:
1) Take the humbucker and gently unwrap the cloth tape from around the outer bobbins and place this in a safe place. Do this slowly so as not to damage the tape or to lose its adhesive properties - remember that you will have to put this back like it was when you're done.
2) Next look for the point where the first coil's end is soldered to the second coil's end (wired out of phase) This joint will be soldered and taped together (or with heat shrink), probably encased in some wax and it will be pushed into the little gap in the center of the 2 coils. Just look - it will be there!
3) Next - gently (with a tweezers if you can find one) pry these wires loose and expose the connection. Take care not to damage or break the very thin coil wires attached to the connection.
4) After exposing this coil tap connection, all that is left to do is to carefully solder your new piece of wire to it, then gently tape it up and push it back between the 2 coils like it originally was, push your new wire through the same hole as the pickup's main lead and tape or PVC strap the two together.
5) Lastly, gently re-apply the original saved cloth tape and Voila! - you've just created a coil tap for your humbucker.
This procedure will allow you to connect the coil tap wire through a push-pull switch, mini-toggle or no-load pot to earth and operate the pickup in single coil mode.
Good luck!
