Magnetic spacers orientation

[WDeeGee]

Hello,

I opened up some B&G humbucker (Michael kelly PAF plus), it had a central magnet and two magentic spacers. I wanted to swap the ceramic magnet with an alnico, nnoticed the spacers were magnets too, took everything out and forgot to check the magnets' orientation.

Are they supposed to form one big field, NS-NS-NS ?

[Clint 55]

Re: Magnetic spacers orientation

No, ns-sn-ns. The spacers oppose the center mag.

[WDeeGee]

Re: Magnetic spacers orientation

So that if you put them side by side they repell each other?
Won't they degauss each other then over time? Weird.

[Clint 55]

Re: Magnetic spacers orientation

Yeah I guess. I don't think it's a big deal.

[Bowtomecha]

Re: Magnetic spacers orientation

A bunch of pickups use multiple magnets. Bare knuckles Juggernaut, Gibson Dirty Fingers, mojotone Black Magic, a few more are out there. From what I can gather, p90 magnets take decades to noticeably degauss and they are full bar magnets placed opposing each other. Ceramic resists it the most so that’s probably one purpose for it being used like this. A few searches on the topic show that Alnico resists it more when it’s thicker.

I bought some flank magnets to use in my Pegasus with the original Alnico 5 but I’m still undecided over doing it. I have an Alnico 8 that gets the tone mostly where I want it but I was looking more for in between Alnico and ceramic attributes that brought more of the Alnico 5 top end instead of the Alnico 2 rounded kind as the a8 delivers. The Pegasus is rounded enough as it is.

I noticed that the mojotone black magic humbucker uses one ceramic spacer magnet on the side and a full sized Alnico 5 in the middle. I’m strongly considering doing this to my pickup. Relocating the pickup wire on the underside of the baseplate and installing the spacer magnet on the screw coil side. I already replaced the fillisters with hex screws so I’m hoping to get some middle ground between the Pegasus and the Omega. I’m a bit tired of opening my guitar up for things and magnet swaps are a pain in the butt when you don’t even have much time to play guitar. I just want some more output, definition, tightness, and brightness with versatility, somewhere in between the Pegasus and the Omega.

I don’t think I need to use both spacer ceramics as I’m not trying to get anything too over the top. I’ll never know until I try but I still look for inspiration from others who might have done this.

[DavidRavenMoon]

Re: Magnetic spacers orientation

So that if you put them side by side they repell each other?
Won't they degauss each other then over time? Weird.

If you mix ceramic and Alnico, the ceramic will degauss the alnico. You can’t easily degauss ceramic magnets.

The pickups pole pieces might help a bit to stop this, but I wouldn’t use the flanking (spacer) magnets with an alnico.

Plus the reason for the flanking magnets is to increase the magnetic field. You are reducing the magnet strength putting in the alnico, so you probably don’t want the extra magnets anyway.


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