Neos

[automan]

So I just got my first Neodymium shipment in today. Holy crap, these things are strong. I got 2 4"x.5"x.25" bars to use to charge alnicos and a bunch of small ones to test some new designs with.

The 2 big ones came with a .25" plastic spacer between them. It still took me a vise, 2 flat head screw drivers and a hammer to get them apart and my Schatten polarity tester can register the poles at 2 feet away.

Let the fun begin.

[David King]

I can usually twist them at 90º and then slide them apart from there. I'd recommend keeping the spacer between them and gluing them to your vise jaws and using the vice to separate them and set your gap. That PC-7 paste epoxy seems to work pretty well but wipe them down with acetone or isopropyl first.

[Dave Kerr]

I just stuck my magnets to the jaws of the vise, didn't bother with adhesive of any kind. They're not going anywhere easily, I don't close the jaws of the vice beyond the magnet length.

[Possum]

....

The vise jaw charging thing really only works well with oriented magnets like A5. I had some Harry magnets made like in the old Kay solid tops in alnico 2 and 5. Using magnetic viewing paper I could see that A2 wasn't getting charged right because as you pull the magnet out of the field the field is reorienting the charge as you draw the magnet out. The only thing that will charge nonoriented magnets like that is a real charger that can be shut off. Not that you can't get away with charging them that way but its not ideal. I wonder when the Chinese are finally going to make magnet chargers for cheap...

[RedHouse]

You only have to saturate the target to charge it.

A pickup magnet doesn't know (or care) if it's a Neo or a transformer based system that charges it.

[Possum]

...

You missed my point. A vise neo charging set up is a north south set of poles pulling on eachother. If you stick an alnico 3 magnet in there to charge it, because alnico 3 is NONORIENTED type of alnico it will charge in the direction the charging force is pulling on it, you can charge it in any direction. So if you attempt to charge alnico 3 in a neo charging vise set up, as you PULL the alnico 3 magnet out of the field the magnet will be charged in the direction the last bit of the charging field is oriented in. So your A3 magnet isn't getting a very directional charge because when you pull it out you're hitting the edge of the charging field and that field will pull off axis of your A3 magnet and you won't get a directional charge in the axis you want. With A3, A2, A4, you're better off charging it off one single bit neo magnet, charge one side, pull it straight off, then charge the other side. Still using that method one pole of the magnet will be charged hotter than the other. For non-directional alnico its better to charge them in a field that can be shut off to avoid charging them off axis. Hope this is more clear? You can see this with magnetic viewing paper if you try to charge a big fat bar magnet like the Harry magnets I have.

[SonnyW]

neo vise charger

For what it's worth here's a photo of my vise charger. I replaced the removable vise jaw faces with some clamps I bent up out of flat bar. This also prevents the neos from getting stuck to each other. I did this after I let them get stuck one time and it took me an hour to get them back apart. (btw next day I was late to work because it also stopped my watch for half an hour while I was trying to get them apart) I've only really used this on A5 single coil strat magnets but it works fine for that. Sometime back when I first got the neos I fooled around with the viewing sheets and I have seen the kind of thing you're talking about, Possum. I was just experimenting on rubberized bars but I never could get them magnetized back evenly like they were to start with.

[David King]

Possum, you were perfectly clear. What about opening the vise jaws in the same orientation as the charge until you can safely lift the magnet out?

I see evidence of tweaked fields even on oriented magnets including A5 rods when they get slid past the sharp edges of the neos. That trailing edge will have the strongest gauss measurement.

[Possum]

...

I suppose if you have long travel jaws it could work if you could hold the magnet in between them as they seperated. Even the electrical chargers like mine don't charge equally both sides so they're not perfect either but its nice to be able to turn off then remove the mags.

[Mike Sulzer]

There are a couple of other things one could try with the neos.

1. Reduce the size of the magnets until they are just strong enough. This would reduce the strength of the off angle field as well, and so the magnetization would set at closer to the proper orientation as it comes out of the field.

2. Instead of using a vice, make a structure with a much longer path length. Use strong magnets at one end of the path (the entrance) and make them weaker towards the other end (the exit) so they would be quite weak right at the end. Then you would have a gradually weakening field across the "jaws" and too weak at the end to affect the magnetization as the pickup magnet comes out and experiences the off angle field.

Neither of these ideas is probably as good as an electrical charger, but they might work well enough.

I suppose if you have long travel jaws it could work if you could hold the magnet in between them as they seperated. Even the electrical chargers like mine don't charge equally both sides so they're not perfect either but its nice to be able to turn off then remove the mags.

[RedHouse]

You always say I miss your point when I disagree with you Possum.

But seriously, I do agree with someone who said in another thread to apply the Neo's in a way that draws them together and apart on their polar axis, rather than sliding the magnets by each other perpendicular to their polar axis, when using the "vice" method.

When charging an unoriented magnet type, I would think one might want to use the Neo's a little differently. Applying the target magnet to either side of the a single Neo, one side at a time, or using the sliding carriage system to keep the magnet polar aligned during charging. Could easily be done moving the vice jaws apart as far as they can go.

Perhaps Elepro will make us a CNC magnet vise for charging magnets!

[Mike Sulzer]

Applying the target magnet to either side of the a single Neo, one side at a time,

You get the straightest field lines in the desired direction by using both magnets together.

[RedHouse]

You get the straightest field lines in the desired direction by using both magnets together.

Well of course Mike, but we were chewing the fat about moving the target magnet out of the field w/o altering polar orientation.

It actually doesn't matter much, these Neo magnets have enough strength to do the job using either method, the target (bar) magnet will always need to go onto a jig to evenly distribute the charge (refrigerator) before degaussing to the appropriate level required for the pickup one is making. as theres more to preparing the magnet than just charging.

[David Schwab]

2. Instead of using a vice, make a structure with a much longer path length. Use strong magnets at one end of the path (the entrance) and make them weaker towards the other end (the exit) so they would be quite weak right at the end. Then you would have a gradually weakening field across the "jaws" and too weak at the end to affect the magnetization as the pickup magnet comes out and experiences the off angle field.

That's a good idea. You can have something with either steps on it, or that angles out away from the magnet being charged as you move from one end to the other.

[RedHouse]

That's a good idea. You can have something with either steps on it, or that angles out away from the magnet being charged as you move from one end to the other.

Yeah, much better idea, maybe like this: