The Electra Forums

I've got an Electra Avenger (strat copy) and the middle pickup is bad. It's a single-coil maxon, and I can't seem to find a replacement anywhere. Furthermore, the magnet appears to be dead according to my tech, so it can't be feasibly repaired.

Does anybody have an idea of any other single-coil that might fit? My guitar technician hasn't been able to find any standard single-coils small enough to fit the stock pickup location I got this 2275n off ebay and I still have never played it, starting to go a little crazy here...

Thanks in advance!

Do you have an ohm meter to check the coil, I would expect it to be around 5-6K ohms resistance. If it measures that it is a good coil. It is it way off you have problems with the coil or a wire leading to it. You can check a magenet (to some degree) with a piece of metal. Does it stick to that pickup like it does to the working ones? If so, it is likely good.

Magnets can be replaced or recharged. You can recharge them with some supermagnets. It isn't hard, but you might need a few tools - the magnets, a N or S pole magnetic polarity checker, and a gauss meter - all easy to use but may be expensive. You can do without the most expensive part, the gauss meter - but you'd not really know if your charge was sufficient or too much.

rewinding one, well, that is another story too. Winders are expensive. After a while you just replace it. I would look for a similar part on ebay used or from another member. I didn't see a pic, do you have one to show what it looks like? Do you have measurements of it or the other two pickups?

Artec, dragonfire, and GFS have good general replacement pickups. One might have a style close to the ones that are in it at a reasonable price. But I would make sure the tech gave you good information first before I replaced anything. I don't know your tech, but sometimes they are good, and sometimes they are not. Making sure does not hurt anything.

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Thorny

Take measurements. Some pickup makers make a tele sized strat style pickup - it is smaller, and many are just regular smaller looking pickups with a chrome cover on them (take the cover off).

You could replace the whole set with a larger standard sized set, and enlarge the holes to fit. Should not be too hard. Better that it work as far as I am concerned if you can't fix your pickup easily.

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Thorny

the older Maxon single coils had a tendency to disconnect where the winding met the lead that went to the solder post for the actual wires.
I've repaired 2 of them by carefully unwrapping the tape around the coil (usually it was already falling off) and finding the loose winding/lead. you can attempt to resolder it to the lead wire or solder spot, or as I did once, was to unravel 1 winding (wire had broken and was too short) and then cut to the right length to reach the lead. and solder in it. the windings are coated obviously, but the solder will melt it away for a good connection.

I have also had others that I could not get that to work as it appeared the break in the coil wire was buried in the windings somewhere.

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