Greco pickups under a Microscope ..........

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MIJvintage

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had two sets of Greco pickups under a microscope recently; a set of UDs(?) from a 1980 EG-450 & a set of Double Trick 1982 from my June 1982 MSV-850

The magnets on the UDs looked black = ceramic

The magnets in the Double Trick 1982 looked silver = Alnico

both exhibited signs of potting thru' the spacers & slugs
 
NICE WORK MIJ,A big thumbs up for your effort ,worthy of CSI!

You do not have a pair of screaming 82s and dry 82s you can can do the same with!
As far as i know with my limited MIJ knowledge Screamers were ceramic and Dry 82s were alnico,is this correct!
What i really what to know is how to Id these two pickups correctly,there seems to be so much to confusion making out which is which!

CERAMIC should measure diffferent from ALNICO! Is this correct?



MOJO HOBO
 
Hi Mojo, funny you should mention CSI because that is where I work; really, it is.
http://www.csi360.com/home.html

I think you are correct about the Screamin' being ceramic & the Dry being Alnico, from post I have read here on the TF.

......... the only reason I took the pickups to work is so, I could trim the leads under a scope.
It works great :D I could actually see what I was doing :lol:

while I was at it I looked at the two sets of pickups, and I noticed the color of the magnets, and to my surprise I noticed the pickups were actually potted :eek: to some degree.

To actually see the magnets, and also to see the potting material that has worked into the spaces near the slugs & spacers, the covers have to be removed.
The Double Tricks are from my 1982 MSV-850 so, they never had covers.
The UDs came out of my long gone 1980 EG-450; I removed the covers because they are going into the MSV so, they had to look the part.
The guts in the UDs look just like the DryZ set in the below link; wood spacers and all, except the magnets are charcoal black, not silver metallic.
http://www.tokaiforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=14150
Check the second & third photos of the ends of the magnets; clearly Alnico.

I think member japanstrat mentioned that the ceramic pups may not even read/register, if I recall correctly.
I have never put a meter to any of my pickups ...................


I have a set of PU-0, a set of PU-2, two sets of DryZ, the Double Trick set, two or three sets of Screamin', and a set from an '89 EG that I assume are comparable to the Screamin' pups.
 
Hi MIJ, could you post close up pics of those ceramics? I've noticed people sometimes mistake black for ceramic. I had a conversation with another forum memeber about late 80's VH1's being ceramic, where he thought they were ceramic because they were black but, really they were just roughcast, unpolished alnico magnets, that are typically black. If there shiny they tend to be newer polished. most old pickups were the earlier type. I suspect the ud probably are ceramic being a lower model but, was always wondering about the screamin pups?
 
NWOBHM said:
Hi MIJ, could you post close up pics of those ceramics? I've noticed people sometimes mistake black for ceramic. I had a conversation with another forum memeber about late 80's VH1's being ceramic, where he thought they were ceramic because they were black but, really they were just roughcast, unpolished alnico magnets, that are typically black. If there shiny they tend to be newer polished. most old pickups were the earlier type. I suspect the ud probably are ceramic being a lower model but, was always wondering about the screamin pups?

Hi New Wave ......... Sorry, but the set that I suspect has ceramic mags has already been installed into a guitar.

Since the two sets mentioned above are from guitars dating to 1980 & to 1982 respectively, I doubt that the manufacturing process for the magnets changed much at all during this period.

I could be wrong on that point, as there was the change from Maxon to Greco producing these pickups that has been previously discussed in this forum.
Having said that, I know what I saw under the scope.

I do have a set of Scream'in 1982 from a very early 1983 EG that I also plan to check under the scope.
I will need to remove the covers first & once done, I will post the info here :)

We don't have cameras attached to any of our optical scopes at work.
The SEM has a camera but I can't put the pickups in the SEM; it only takes 'black & white' pics any how :lol:
I'll try and get a shot here at home; cross your fingers .................
 
hi
i got a set off dry 1982 ,,,, and 2 guitars with pickups with a 5 first in the number on back off the pickup ,,,, i will try and test them to see what they are ,,,, i allso got a eg700 from 77 with u2000
and a fv from 1980 not sure witch pickup that is but i will test them and be back
all the best
otto
 
hi
the dry 1982 ,,,, is alnico ,,,, dont know how old they are
they came in a egc from 1982 but i dont think the were original to the guitar :D :D
the pickup from the fv from 1980 is ceramic
the pickup with a 5 first is from 82 and is ceramic
i still need to pull the u 2000 but i will do it soon
all the best
otto
 
NWOBHM said:
I've noticed people sometimes mistake black for ceramic. I had a conversation with another forum memeber about late 80's VH1's being ceramic,

I think I made the same mistake once. I swapped a cover on an old VH-1 for a guy and noticed the black magnet. It appeared to look the same as the other ceramic MIJ magnets I have seen. The way the pickup sounded though I thought that it couldn't have been ceramic. I should have tried to measure it. Anyway it would be good to know.
 
hi
got the U 2000 out now ... and they are alnico ... they are from a 1977 eg 700 ....
all the best
otto
 
Good work muccax.

I've only got U-1000's at the moment so I can't test anything else.

I think the U-2000 are Alnico 5 and the U-1000 are Alnico 8.
The Dry Z and Dry 82 are probably Alnico 3 the same as the Ibanez Super 58's.

Alnico magnets are a conductor, like a wire for example and Ceramic magnets are not a conductor, like a brick for example.

Very easy to test with a multimeter with a signal/continuity function for a conductor check or just by using the ohmmeter, Alnico will give a low steady ohms reading and Ceramic will not.
 
Just another data point:
I swapped the mags in my Screamin' 82s. They had black ceramic magnets (which are now on my fridge - hold the mail there very well).

(I replaced them with AlNiCo IV ones.)
 

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