Finally tried stew mac stuff

[madialex]

I broke down and figured I'd try Stewmacs uncharged magnets and bobbins. Well first impression is great. I really like the Neo charging mags, I like the fact I can charge any pickup any orientation I want and uncharge any I have in stock now and change them around. I have been expeirementing with degaussing with them as well and getting great results. Just need to fix some sort of apperatus to properly distance the pickups i'm degaussing from the magnet and do them in varying thickneses for more or less degaussing. So far so good, this is really cool, I should have done this long ago.

[Zhangliqun]

I like the neo's too but I don't like their rod magnets. Couldn't get them to charge properly.

Other stuff I like from them is their slugs and polepieces, their double-black bobbins (their zebras have a horrible pink/tan shade to the cream bobbin), keeper bars, baseplates and even the plastic spacers. I also like their Tele and Strat flatwork pieces which work well and are really cheap, especially the Tele bridge considering the included baseplate. Wish they made P90 parts and a better shade of cream on the zebra bucker bobbins.

Their price breaks come at pretty low quantities too.

[JohnnyAtomic]

I've only used their tele flatwork. I like it as well or better than the allparts flatwork and it's cheaper too, especially considering the baseplate is included. The only problem I've encountered is the pre installed rivets stick up too high above the surface of the flat work which can catch the wire when winding.

I bought the neo charging mags too. I was wondering something about how to use those. The instructions says don't touch the rods to the neo mags while passing through the magnetic field. This seems like a difficult procedure, and was wondering if you could isolate the neo mags somehow by putting plastic or a thin piece of wood over them. This would keep the rods being charged from touching the neo mags. Or does it matter if the rods touch the neo mag.

Johnny Atomic

[madialex]

Hi Johnny and Zahng. I too like the tele stuff, actually it's all I have tried as of yet. What I do when charging mine is, I take 4 of the plastic spacers or shims as some call them and double stick tape them to the bottom and top. I put 2 across the top on either side if the slugs and the same on the bottom.

This way when I pass it through between the neo's if it pulls to one side or the other the plastic shim keeps it from hitting.

Zhang, I too had trouble with charging the slugs what I found was when I passed it through the neo's without the spacers I was slightly touching one or 2 of the slugs causing those to be magnetically opposite from the others, Why? I have no earthly idea. But I put the shims on, passed it through again and they wetre all the same then.

[WolfeMacleod]

I don't trust charging magnets with Neo.

Get one. You won't regret it:

[Zhangliqun]

I don't trust charging magnets with Neo.

Get one. You won't regret it:

How much is one of those?

[ake]

Where can i buy one

[jason lollar]

those are expensive no matter where you get them at if you buy one new- 4 to 5 hundred dollars
I got mine from master magnetics- call and ask for renelle 800 525 3536

As discussed neo does work if you have the proper size and get it lined up correctly but you better have a gauss meter- might as well get one even if you have a big charger.

Who bought my old battery powered charger? hows it working for you?

[David Schwab]

I wonder why Stew-Mac sells their magnets uncharged? It just seems like such a work around to use neo magnets to charge alnico. I'm sure the regular magnet makers don't do something like that! Didn't someone post saying they don't charge well all the way trough?

[Mark Hammer]

They sell them uncharged because:

a) it's a real bear to ship magnetic stuff
b) it's sometimes tricky to assure that the magnets arrive as charged initially
c) lots of people want their magnets charged differently

Most straightforward thing to do is just sell the blanks and let people do what they do with them. Much less hassle for the seller.

[David Schwab]

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?

[EtLa]

Didn't someone post saying they don't charge well all the way trough?

Yes i post a reply from a magnet supplier

Even using two of Rare Earth magnets and placing Alnico magnet in between you still do not get the full saturation in same way as using DC Discharge magnetizer.

anybody try a electromagnet for charging magnet?
http://www.coolmagnetman.com/magdcem.htm

[EtLa]

I did a quick test with a bolt, a coil and car battery and i did recharge a alnico 5 magnet... is it saturate anought? i don't know, oh! and the coil got really hot

[ken]

Hey Wolfe,

Is your magnet charger a capacitor discharge (transistor) unit or a regular
one? I was talking to a magnet supplier, and he said that if you can find a 'CD' charger that may be the way to go. This is because when you charge the magnet with one of these units, the switching transistors in the CD unit make the power capacitors all discharge at once sending huge amounts of energy to the electromagnets, making recharging Alnico 5 and above magnets possible. Supposedly, a 'regular' unit (coils, rectifier and power capacitors only) slowly build up their magnetism in their duty cycle, and do not generate enough total energy to saturate high grade magnets.

Anyway, I'm looking for a good charger, and I was looking at one like yours.

Ken

[David Schwab]

I bet you could make one using a photo flash circuit... that's how they work. Use a cap to build up the charge, and then... ZAP!