Hola a todos, os traigo una duda que no sé resolver dado que no tengo conocimientos avanzados de electromagnetismo. Se trata sobre el apantallamiento o shielding de aparatos electrónicos, en concreto, hablo de una guitarra eléctrica. He hecho un hilo en el foro de All About Circuits:
https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/t.../#post-1539882
Lo he escrito en inglés, aunque creo que no será un inconveniente para muchos de vosotros. Estoy buscando respuestas que me pueda dar alguien que sepa bastante de física y resuelva mis dudas sobre cómo penetran las ondas EM en los objetos, y lo apliquéis a mi esquema.
EL MENSAJE:
Hi, I want to understand exactly how EMI works and how I can prevent them. The exact thing I'm doing is a work in my electric guitar, I want to shield it against EMI/unwanted noises (common practice), I've seen thousands of videos about how to do it, I know how to do it, but I really don't understand it theoretically, or better, the parameters that might affect its purpose, I don't know if the shield must be 100% enclosed without any gap, like air tight closed, or if a conductive mesh would do the work just as fine (as in any Faraday cage experiment), or how thick the shield must be. I was watching the other day videos about Faraday cages, and there's one where a man puts a radio inside an aluminum bin which had a lid. If the lid was slightly opened, like leaving 1 mm open, the radio would just work. So that "scared" me because it made me think to shield properly anything you must seal it very precise and tight.
Anyway, as you might correctly guess, in guitar building there are not a lot of electrical or electronic engineers, luthiers are artisans, they might explain what shielding does but they really don't have the slightest idea of physics, magnetism, electricity, let alone electromagnetism, so they will use terms they don't understand and repeat what they've been told. They will cover every area with copper tape, check continuity and that's it, job's done.
Before proceeding to do so, I'd like to understand how to do it properly from the physics perspective. First, here's how I understand an electric guitar works. Please, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong in my explanations or if they are a little lousy:
There are 2 basic elements: a string and a coil. I simplified the insides, in reality there are more cables, 3 pickups instead of one, pots, etc...
The coil is not powered, first of all, so I believe it simply acts as a receptor. There's a permanent magnet inside it (green), and I know you do that to strengthen the magnetic field produced by the coil. However, since we are not powering the coil to produce a magnetic field, I believe the magnet serves another purpose. I believe it needs to be there to create a permanent, constant magnetic field, which does not induce current in the coil per se, but that is "disturbed" by the string, which makes the magnetic field not constant, hence varying magnetic field value, hence you induce current in the coil, and voila, you get your electric wave in your coil terminals.
I think the string must be ferromagnetic (and not necessarily conductive, right?), that is, forms a permanent magnet or is attracted by one, or both. In this case, I believe the string is simply attracted by a magnet. So, once you make the string vibrate, it oscillates at a certain frequency. The magnetic field gets "disturbed" by the string vibrating, it changes its value, and a varying magnetic field induces a current in the coil. The coil cables go to a volume potentiometer, then to a jack plug, and that to an amp with a speaker via cable.
So, that's the basic idea of how an electric guitar works. To be honest, I don't really get how the string oscillating at 440 Hz for example can disturb the magnetic field, how can you read that and how that can create a perfectly defined 440 Hz electric wave which I hear through the amp. If somebody could explain it to me better...
Now, the real problem here: shielding all that.
First, from what? I don't even know. I don't really have a clue about what can a guitar pick up, I'm not an expert on interference at all, all I know is vaguely what I've read from magazines and broad stuff like "everything causes an EMI". What I know is that sometimes guitars "hum", or sometimes they emit a "buzz", which stops if you touch a string (you ground it?). I want to stop that, as much as I can.
I don't really get what is an electromagnetic wave, it's hard to believe it doesn't need a medium. I don't know if an ultra thin copper foil is going to do anything, I guess it transforms the EM wave in Eddie currents?, I don't know if the pickups should be shielded from behind (no one does it), so an EM wave can penetrate through the coil inside, etc...
https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/t.../#post-1539882
Lo he escrito en inglés, aunque creo que no será un inconveniente para muchos de vosotros. Estoy buscando respuestas que me pueda dar alguien que sepa bastante de física y resuelva mis dudas sobre cómo penetran las ondas EM en los objetos, y lo apliquéis a mi esquema.
EL MENSAJE:
Hi, I want to understand exactly how EMI works and how I can prevent them. The exact thing I'm doing is a work in my electric guitar, I want to shield it against EMI/unwanted noises (common practice), I've seen thousands of videos about how to do it, I know how to do it, but I really don't understand it theoretically, or better, the parameters that might affect its purpose, I don't know if the shield must be 100% enclosed without any gap, like air tight closed, or if a conductive mesh would do the work just as fine (as in any Faraday cage experiment), or how thick the shield must be. I was watching the other day videos about Faraday cages, and there's one where a man puts a radio inside an aluminum bin which had a lid. If the lid was slightly opened, like leaving 1 mm open, the radio would just work. So that "scared" me because it made me think to shield properly anything you must seal it very precise and tight.
Anyway, as you might correctly guess, in guitar building there are not a lot of electrical or electronic engineers, luthiers are artisans, they might explain what shielding does but they really don't have the slightest idea of physics, magnetism, electricity, let alone electromagnetism, so they will use terms they don't understand and repeat what they've been told. They will cover every area with copper tape, check continuity and that's it, job's done.
Before proceeding to do so, I'd like to understand how to do it properly from the physics perspective. First, here's how I understand an electric guitar works. Please, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong in my explanations or if they are a little lousy:
There are 2 basic elements: a string and a coil. I simplified the insides, in reality there are more cables, 3 pickups instead of one, pots, etc...
The coil is not powered, first of all, so I believe it simply acts as a receptor. There's a permanent magnet inside it (green), and I know you do that to strengthen the magnetic field produced by the coil. However, since we are not powering the coil to produce a magnetic field, I believe the magnet serves another purpose. I believe it needs to be there to create a permanent, constant magnetic field, which does not induce current in the coil per se, but that is "disturbed" by the string, which makes the magnetic field not constant, hence varying magnetic field value, hence you induce current in the coil, and voila, you get your electric wave in your coil terminals.
I think the string must be ferromagnetic (and not necessarily conductive, right?), that is, forms a permanent magnet or is attracted by one, or both. In this case, I believe the string is simply attracted by a magnet. So, once you make the string vibrate, it oscillates at a certain frequency. The magnetic field gets "disturbed" by the string vibrating, it changes its value, and a varying magnetic field induces a current in the coil. The coil cables go to a volume potentiometer, then to a jack plug, and that to an amp with a speaker via cable.
So, that's the basic idea of how an electric guitar works. To be honest, I don't really get how the string oscillating at 440 Hz for example can disturb the magnetic field, how can you read that and how that can create a perfectly defined 440 Hz electric wave which I hear through the amp. If somebody could explain it to me better...
Now, the real problem here: shielding all that.
First, from what? I don't even know. I don't really have a clue about what can a guitar pick up, I'm not an expert on interference at all, all I know is vaguely what I've read from magazines and broad stuff like "everything causes an EMI". What I know is that sometimes guitars "hum", or sometimes they emit a "buzz", which stops if you touch a string (you ground it?). I want to stop that, as much as I can.
I don't really get what is an electromagnetic wave, it's hard to believe it doesn't need a medium. I don't know if an ultra thin copper foil is going to do anything, I guess it transforms the EM wave in Eddie currents?, I don't know if the pickups should be shielded from behind (no one does it), so an EM wave can penetrate through the coil inside, etc...
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