I made a sustainer recently, as per Pete/PSW's guides. Pete is a great guy. I pm'd him before i started this build, and he's been emailing me back and forth for the last while giving me help, tips, advice, general discussion etc. I understand now why he sometimes gets a little frustrated with people, but, I do value his help. Really though, his tutorial is good, and you'd be surprised how many questions you answer yourself just by working through the project. I'm getting pretty good results, but it's a pretty tricky project that neads lots of tweaking. I'm still not 100% there on it, but, i am getting lots of sustain on the vast majority of frets. I'm hoping to have it 100% completed this week. Like i said, it can be tricky at times, but, it's not as difficult as i thought. Thought I'd post up a few pickchurs!
Firstly, a few shots of the driver whilst being built. I used balsa to block the bobbin up to 3mm. I used 0.21mm wire, and wound it to 8R. According to pete, you've a tolerance of anywhere between 7.5-8.5R, but 8 on the dot is the best. I think it took me somewhere between 160-180 winds. I used the same magnet that was originally in the pickup, and i used the coil with the screw pieces. Pete suggested i go with the other one, cos there's more steel in it, BUT, he did agree with me that the adjustable screws do provide a certain degree of extra adjustment. When the driver was done, I used the other coil as a dead slug, just for aesthetics. I wrapped it all back up like the original humbucker, and the finished product looked just like a humbucker really!
Finished Driver
As for the amp board, I used one based on the Fetzer/Ruby. I made a couple of little adjustments to it though. Pete recommended changing the output cap to 100uF, which does definitely make a big difference. My pickup in the bridge is really high output, and i find it's often a bit too bassy, so the circuit has a bit more treble in it than bass, just to compensate for the higher strings. The amp board was vero'd specifically to fit in the pickup toggle cavity. I've only 1 pickup in it now, in the bridge, so there's no need for that toggle switch. The battery also fits in there, and the switch, board and battery are all seperated by layers of foam. Also, the small piece of stripboard you see in the control cavity is just for organisation. Things like the amp pot that's there, common ground etc etc. Not the neatest of wiring jobs, i know, but it works.
http://i48.tinypic.com/17tfux.jpghttp://i50.tinypic.com/72uc6w.jpgAnd then this is what the final product looks like:
http://i49.tinypic.com/2ezll03.jpg
