cheap and easy guitar pickups

Step 3 Experiments ive tried and rough results

now before we start none of the following pickups have as good {loud} an output as even a mediocre real guitar pickup but some of them are surprisingly good.
now pictured here is the solenoid pickup i made for the 3 string slide guitar thats been featured on this site a while back.( i didnt remove it for a closer look as its hotglued in place and i dont want to break it)but it is a coil that was found in the filter paddles of an old one hour photo printer{i know thats not common junk but copper coils are everywhere} a magnet from an old car stereo speaker has been positioned in the centre{wrapped with a bit of vinyl tape to make a nice tight fit}
the two leads from it run through the back of the guitar to a 1/8 phono jack near the end .
plug it into your amp and get it within about half an inch of a vibrating guitar string and you will hear it .
its a little quieter than a real pickup but it works

Comments

[acdc126]

[johnnyx9]

Do you know if a newdymium n50 magnet would be too strong?

[lennyb]

im not familiar with the size and strength of that magnet.
but it should still work.
though if the magnet is hugely strong it may dampen down the vibration of the strings some .
let us know if you try it and how it works.

[mdog93]

Hi, in the 3 string slide guitar (which i am plannin on making hopefully) you used a speaker magnet to make the pickup weell i took a magnet out of a radio speaker but the speaker wasn't large so i dont know if the magnet will be big enough to work. What kinda diameter did the magnet you used have? thanks mdog

[lennyb]

it was less than an inch across.
if you have a small but very powerful magnet you can just stick it to a bigger bit of iron or steel and it will all be magnetized.
also check out this instructable that i did after the 3 string one.
it may answer a lot of questions you might have and save time on your experiments.
http://www.instructables.com/id/cheap-and-easy-guitar-pickups/
try to get a working pickup made before you build the guitar that way you can build around whatever shape you come up with.
also document what you do and make a posting of it .
the more the merrier i say.
after all there have been about 40 knex sniper guns on here but mine was the only slide guitar.
id like to see yours. cheers.

[mdog93]

kk the magnet i had was encased in a chunk of heavy metal but that wasn't magnet at all so i took it out, and the magnet is only about 1 cm wide so not large. And also if i can't find a coil and am goin to make one should i use about 40 gauge copper wire? thanks mdog

[lennyb]

oh ya 40 guage should work ok. real pickups are made with 43 so 40s not that far off. i think the coil i used was about 36or so. yours should sound even better for the same size.

[mdog93]

kk its cus thats the highest gauge wire i cu find wen browsing the internet, well on the maplins site anyway, btw just so i no, i think it wud but would a roll of 40swg wire thats 2200m long be enough, :S im sure it would be, right? mdog

[lennyb]

it depends on how many turns you can get around your magnet. 6 to 8 thousand turns should be ok. i think you can do that in 2200m easy enough. should be enough for several i think.

[mdog93]

kk thanks man mdog

[rowdy_riemer]

If your pickups seem to be a bit quiet, it may because they have a higher impedance than typical pickups(I'm kinda guessing here). Try building a fet buffer amp to put between the output of your homemade pickups and the input of your amp and see if that helps.

[electronic boy]

thanks it worked way better after doing that i don't know why i did not think of that

[lennyb]

actually the resistance is much lower than a commercial pickup (2k ohms as oppossed to 8 k}because my coils wire is shorter . the idea is to induce a current in the wire by coiling it around a magnet and vibrating a ferrous metal string in the magnetic feild to generate the current. the more wire the higher the current is. if a heavier wire is used the same effect can be acheived but will require a longer wire again. using a more powerfull magnet can also boost the signal but may dampen the vibrations of the strrings.

[Rishnai]

So I've never had a clue what I was doing when it came to electricity, so correct me if I'm wrong here. If your pickup has 2k ohms and the pickups from the factory have 8k, putting in 6k of resisotors somewhere along the line would fix the volume issue? Or would it make things worse?

[rowdy_riemer]

It would make things worse. If the pickup impedance is lower than the input impedance of your amplifier, it shouldn't be too big a deal. Of course, there is maximum transfer of power when the impedance of the pickup matches the input impedance of the amplifier(doesn't matter though with voltage controlled devices like FET's and Vacuum tubes), but adding resistors to compensate doesn't really compensate at all. I think the key is to add more windings of wire. Or better yet, maybe use a booster amp between the pickup and your amplifier's input.

[Rishnai]

Okay, that makes sense.

[acdc126]

Hi!! nice work! you have good idea but miss some knowledge. A resistor will make things worse, dont forget its not the same thing at all, coil is made for inductance its not a resistor. The resistor will never take any sound its not an inductor and i think not to be near the strings anyway, in contrary it will reduce the signal because of resistance. Make a little search on google to find some schematic about pickups and you will find how to build your project with maximum results.Also see how lace build their pickups its not totaly different but enough and it work very fine. the use of the polarity of your magnet (and maybe metalic parts with it) and the way you use your coil will change the output signal, some possibilities can give you more gain.

[electronic boy]

it works quite well + you can power a small electric motor with it and make a home generator only problem is that you have to spin a piece of mettle pretty fast to get any output at all if it dose not work then try a low power led