Finally tried stew mac stuff

[Zhangliqun]

All valid points! I can see where alnico might arrive in a different condition than when it left the warehouse.

I imagine it's cheaper for them also.

So that brings us to using Neo magnets for charging. Does it work well?

All well and good if you're talking Alnico 2, 3 and 4, where it doesn't matter which end you charge it from. Alnico 5 is uni-directional so you have to have some indication which end is south or north or you'll charge it from the wrong direction and it will be very weak.

[ken]

I found a circuit in a book on model railroads for a 'capacitive discharge' power supply for moving many track switches at once. I am going to try to design a bigger CD supply for a magnet zapper from this circuit and see how well it works.
If it works OK, I should be able to zap almost any kind of magnet with no problems.

Ken