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Hello all! New here, so i hope i came to the right place.

I just wound my first single coil pickup and when i put it on my Ibanez between the 2 humbuckers already on the guitar the volume level of my single coil is about 60-70% of the humbuckers. Too quiet.

It did have a single coil in that position before and i wired it in the same.
Does anyone have any idea why the low volume level?
I did 8000 turns with 42 AWG wire
reverse wound/south up
and measured it at 6.4 k ohms

Hi Matthew, and welcome to the forum!
The humbucker probably measures about twice the resistance of the single coil (two coils verses one), so the humbucker will have more output.

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

could be weaker magnets than the original pickup

Did you charge the pole pieces after winding?

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Mike Hoenerhoff
Elderly Instruments

Single coils are typically about half the output of a humbucker. The original pickup in there may have been overwound or had a stronger/ceramic magnet, or both, or something.

But the result you got is what would be expected typically.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Ok. Thanks guys. That sounds like a reasonable explanation.
I just wondered if i went wrong somewhere.
And Mike i did charge the poles after winding and then potted with wax.

Also, would it make any difference if the original pickup was north up/normal wound? I did the new one south up/reverse wound.

That shouldn't make any difference in output when the pickup is by itself. It MAY put it out of phase when the other pickups are involved.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

You could adjust the pickups (lower the HB's) and get an output balance.

CW or CCW N/S changes will not help with noise cancelling unless the HB's (or one) can be split.

If adj. pups height to string doesn't give you the balance then you may want to rewind a pup
with 10,000 winds of 43-A5. That should get you around 10k. That should make it easier to balance
them out.

Tried adjusting the HBs further away from strings and that did help alot.

I'm going to make another pickup with 10000 winds anyways because it's pretty good fun making them so far.
Hopefully will make alot more in the future.

I would still try re-magnetizing the pole-pieces first. You probably won't like the hum from a 10kohm single and a 6.4K is going to give you sparklier combos with the HBs.

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I've got a mind like a steel......whatsername!!?

Sorry Ed- I was thinking 42ga while I wrote. Might be hard to get 10,000 of 42 but with 43 you may hit 8k.
I too have fun winding and the cool thing is you're finding out for yourself...the results tell the story best. Keep good notes.