Humbucking Guitar Pickup Wire Colors
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All humbucking pickups are manufactured with
the pickup wires beginning at the coil center (the 'Start" position) and then wound with the appropriate
number of turns until reaching the 'Finish' position. Humbucking pickups on guitars straight from
the factory, will have their 'Finish' wires connected to each other. (see Diagram 3). It is not necessary for the 2 coils to have opposite winding
directions when the 'finish' ends of each coil are connected in this way.
(Incidentally, the two wires that are soldered together to make a series wired humbucker connection is called a series
link).
The above table shows all pertinent information about humbucking guitar pickups manufactured by twenty different
companies. There are many such charts on the Internet but they don't always show all of the above
information nor do they show the information arranged in the same way.
Some companies and websites list the wire color order differently.
For example, in the chart above, DiMarzio's wire colors are shown as Red Black White Green but
this chart says the color order is
Red Black Green White.
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Why are the 3rd and 4th colors in different order?
The chart at the top of the page lists the wire color order as Start Finish Finish Start (S F F S) (see Diagram 1) which is basically the standard wiring
for a humbucker in series.
That other chart lists the wire colors in order by Start Finish Start Finish (S F S F) (see Diagram 2).
The "S F S F" wire color order is still very popular and some additional examples are:
Dimarzio Forum
Humbucking Pickups
SK Guitar
Caparison Pickups
To add to the confusion, websites that list the coils in "S F S F" order will also assign letters
to the coils in the same order.
Again using DiMarzio as the example, the "S F S F" lettering for the coils would be
A Red
B Black
C Green
D White
These sights also say to connect 'B' to 'D' to make the series link.
Still, doesn't it make more sense to letter the wire colors so that the "middle" wires
for the series link are called B & C?
Anyway, there are some sites that show wire colors in the same order that they are in my chart.
Here is a listing of those sites listing wire colors in 'S F F S' order:
Guitar Electronics
Seymour Duncan
So to summarize, this chart lists pickup wire colors in "Start Finish Finish Start" order. The 2 wires
for the series link will always be the middle two wires.
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