Advice on flank magnet placement

[Bowtomecha]

So I’m ready to experiment with a ceramic flank magnet in my a5 Pegasus 7. I have two but I feel that I only need one to up the output a bit and tighten/brighten the sound. I intend to use prs style wiring to get inner and outer coil combinations along with my sentient.

Which coil do you recommend I use the flank magnet on? I can replace the plastic spacer on the slug coil with it. Or I can move the 4 conductor cable and mount it to the outside of the baseplate, and put the magnet against the screw coil spacer.

Swapping the slug coil spacer with the magnet is easier. But outside of changing the pickup height, it’s not adjustable. Installing the magnet next to the screw coil spacer is harder overall. But I can alter the polepiece height and fine tune it better.

The wiring I’m going for is neck series, outer coils parallel, inner coils series, inner coils parallel, bridge series. I’m thinking that having the magnet on the slug/inner coil of the bridge will give me decent results for the two inner coil options, especially with the slight volume drop they have in parallel. But having it on the screw/outer coil of the bridge might get me a nice full range like sound with the outer coils in parallel.

So which coil is the logical place to mount it on? I’m leaning towards inner slug coil and using the screws to alter the a5 more. I’ve researched several pickups with flank magnets but have only seen a single humbucker with one, the mojotone black magic. Never any examples of coil splitting like the prs switching.

 

[Bowtomecha]

Re: Advice on flank magnet placement

That was a failure. The ceramic spacer magnets I got from mojotone are not the same width as the plastic spacer in SD pickups and even with reseating the coils and prying the baseplate, they broke and never sat properly. I’m only out like 6 bucks though.

 

[Bowtomecha]

Re: Advice on flank magnet placement

So I’ve tried the original A5, which didn’t have a healthy output and the top was too round and the bottom was too flabby. I installed shorter hex screws on the lower stings that tightened the low end.

I swapped in an A8, which sounded good. Solid bottom, broad midrange boost, more power. Top was still pretty rounded but louder. Installed the rest of the hex screws and that helped with the pick tracking a bit.

So I have a ceramic magnet to try. I know to expect a sharper treble and harder bass. I’m hoping this will lift the blanket that’s on the pickup.

I have another set of hex poles that I can cut down to be flush with the baseplate if that will help with the treble end and a swap back to either a5 or a8.

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Re: Advice on flank magnet placement

Are you just experimenting, or going for a particular goal?

 

[Mincer]

Re: Advice on flank magnet placement

I have to say, I love reading the results of experiments like this.

 

[Bowtomecha]

Re: Advice on flank magnet placement

I was so sure that this would work. I scored a line around the magnet to the right length, wrapped some tape just below it and held it with a large wrench right where the line is and hit the end of the magnet to break it off. Very clean break if you score it and do a quick whack or snap. I managed to find measurements for the plastic spacers online and they said .125 which matches the magnet width. But one or the other is wrong. I cleared out any wax on both channels on either side of the pickup, moved the 4 conductor wire to the outside, tried installing the spacer magnet before the main magnet, tried the reverse, removed the coils, placed the magnets, and then installed everything, bent the lip of the baseplate to accommodate the spacer magnet... just couldn’t get it to fit in without damage or wonky angled coils sticking out.

If the magnets were just narrower by the thickness of the baseplate lip it would fit just fine. Grinding the magnet to fit would probably mess up the charge or break it. I don’t have the tools to flatten and bend the baseplate lip further out nor do I really want to mar it up anymore than I did prying it. I doubt there is a baseplate that can accommodate the space needed on one side. Unless mojotone has one for their 7 string black magic which might be designed for this. I’ve asked mojotone questions but haven’t gotten any response.

A last ditch attempt might be to use a screw spacer on the screw coil but placed on the bottom of the baseplate. My hex screws have 1/8 length past the bottom. Then maybe I can attach the longest broken ceramic I have which just touches the first and last poles to it. I mean it’s something to do lol. It’ll be on the outside coil so I’ll settle for that.

https://www.mojotone.com/guitar-parts/Magnets_x/Ceramic-8-Bar-Magnet-3-125-x-250

 

[Bowtomecha]

Re: Advice on flank magnet placement

Are you just experimenting, or going for a particular goal?

My goal is to have a reasonably stronger output from the pickup (a5 Pegasus) along with a firmer bass and more treble. The a8 came close except the high end it just too rounded still. I wanted something truly between an a5 and a ceramic but the a8 sounds like it’s between an A2 and a ceramic. I like having a good amount of high end snap when I dig in and the a8 is like being hit with a big chunk of clay instead of a rock. Lol.

 

[Bowtomecha]

Re: Advice on flank magnet placement

I had a thought that I could grind down the keeper bar on the screw coil that faces outwards and away from the main magnet. That might give me enough clearance to install the spacer magnet there. I have one flank magnet that broke with enough length to straddle the pole distances. The thing would be to get it entirely flat and parallel to itself. Maybe a block of wood with sandpaper would do the trick with the keeper bar in a vise?

 

[Bowtomecha]

Re: Advice on flank magnet placement



Such a small difference in width. I moved the 4 conductor wire over and put the plastic spacer on the screw coil side to see if it fits and it does. So both channels are the same. So I need to remove the width difference from the outside face of the screw keeper.

 

[Bowtomecha]

Re: Advice on flank magnet placement



I’ll need to desolder the ground from the screw side of the baseplate, move the cable across to the slug side, solder the ground to the baseplate there, clamp some kind of small grommet on the cable to keep it from pulling off the pickup, and feed the cable through the hole. Same cable length in the end, just more of it not traveling through the pickup.

 

[1b4n3z]

Re: Advice on flank magnet placement

I put ceramic spacer magnets along with an A8 in a JB just now (amazing pickup btw) and I had to pull the cable out of the hole and just let it run outside the base plate, in order for the spacer to fit properly. I also soldered the ground connection on the bottom of the base plate. Worked out great in the end

 

[Bowtomecha]

Re: Advice on flank magnet placement

I put ceramic spacer magnets along with an A8 in a JB just now (amazing pickup btw) and I had to pull the cable out of the hole and just let it run outside the base plate, in order for the spacer to fit properly. I also soldered the ground connection on the bottom of the base plate. Worked out great in the end

Where did you get your spacer magnets from? I’m not able to get .125 inch wide magnets to fit.

 

[1b4n3z]

Re: Advice on flank magnet placement

I got them from Cermag (in the UK), also posts on this forum. The spacers are 3.2 mm tall, as is the center magnet, so it's the perfect fit once I cleaned up the baseplate floor. 0.125 inches is 3.175 mm, I guess it would be an unnoticeable difference in the end.

Funnily I disassembled a Duncan Nazgul, and the flipped-up regular plastic spacers were quite a bit taller than the magnet, causing the bobbins to cave in. I filed the spacers down in that case. If it was the magnet being too tall, I'd just shim the spacers with something

 

[Bowtomecha]

Re: Advice on flank magnet placement

I got them from Cermag (in the UK), also posts on this forum. The spacers are 3.2 mm tall, as is the center magnet, so it's the perfect fit once I cleaned up the baseplate floor. 0.125 inches is 3.175 mm, I guess it would be an unnoticeable difference in the end.

Funnily I disassembled a Duncan Nazgul, and the flipped-up regular plastic spacers were quite a bit taller than the magnet, causing the bobbins to cave in. I filed the spacers down in that case. If it was the magnet being too tall, I'd just shim the spacers with something

Maybe I have the dimensions wrong.

 

[Bowtomecha]

Re: Advice on flank magnet placement

I’ve decided to continue with this project. I’m not going to buy the magnets from the companies in Britain because of the expense and international shipping. Not to mention that the longest magnet isn’t long enough to make contact with the outermost poles. So I’m going to shave down a small amount of the metal keeper to make it fit. It’s very little material and shouldn’t affect the threads at all. Also, since it’s the outside facing side, it won’t matter if I end up abandoning this project afterwards since it won’t affect the clearance of the main magnet.

I just need to keep the side parallel throughout the length. You can see how little the magnet piece is just past the width of the plastic spacer.