I've found some very small but powerful magnets that should work to build pickups. They are the tiny magnets found in the myriad of earbuds used for ipods and personal MP3 players. They are a little labour intensive to salvage but I have never seen such powerful little magnets. I've started collecting a few to try.

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I'll have to check this out. I've been wanting to give a shot at winding a few.
Love the photo.....LOL. Yes they are really powerful and about the size if a small pill. I find busted headsets and earbuds all over the place.
Good idea.
you might want to avoid using magnets that are too strong. i was watching an interview with seymore duncan...the creator of seymore duncan pickups he said that using magnets that were too strong would affect how much the string would vibrate decreasing resonance. i don't know alot of the math behind it but you might want to keep that in mind. the idea behind pickups is that if you cause relative motion across a magnetic field that is wrapped in a coil a voltage will be created so you can increase that voltage or signal in two ways. increase the magnetic field strength( which inhibits the vibration of the string) or you can increase the number of windings...which is better because your string can vibrate freely... that is what it meant when people say that a pup is hot...lots and lots of windings hope that helps a little
Salty,

May I ask you a question? It sounds like you know alot about the subject. Do you think we could build an easy gauge to test the strength of the feild. If we could then we could adjust the magenet strenght or number of winds to get what we are looking for. What do you think?

Cheers
Bob

Salty Sea Empire said:
you might want to avoid using magnets that are too strong. i was watching an interview with seymore duncan...the creator of seymore duncan pickups he said that using magnets that were too strong would affect how much the string would vibrate decreasing resonance. i don't know alot of the math behind it but you might want to keep that in mind. the idea behind pickups is that if you cause relative motion across a magnetic field that is wrapped in a coil a voltage will be created so you can increase that voltage or signal in two ways. increase the magnetic field strength( which inhibits the vibration of the string) or you can increase the number of windings...which is better because your string can vibrate freely... that is what it meant when people say that a pup is hot...lots and lots of windings hope that helps a little
I think if you are careful how close your strings are to the magnets the dampening effect with these little magnets would be minimal. Especially if you used them with steel rods or machine screws for adjustment? I'm not sure but it's worth playing with.
I heard that too but not from the same source.

-WY

Salty Sea Empire said:
you might want to avoid using magnets that are too strong. i was watching an interview with seymore duncan...the creator of seymore duncan pickups he said that using magnets that were too strong would affect how much the string would vibrate decreasing resonance. i don't know alot of the math behind it but you might want to keep that in mind. the idea behind pickups is that if you cause relative motion across a magnetic field that is wrapped in a coil a voltage will be created so you can increase that voltage or signal in two ways. increase the magnetic field strength( which inhibits the vibration of the string) or you can increase the number of windings...which is better because your string can vibrate freely... that is what it meant when people say that a pup is hot...lots and lots of windings hope that helps a little
I say use any magnets you can find, the stronger, the better......why you ask. Well, yes, strong magnets can affect your string. But with this mind, and winding our own pups, we kinda want this to happen. Espically with a diddley bow, because if you don't use enough wire sometimes, and use a good strong magnet, then you will kinda get the same affect.....beware, winding your own pup can be kinda a bumber when you don't get it to work for the first, strong magnets are great, but if there is not enough wire on that bobbin, you will get a weak pup and might not be able to hear it...before you give up on it, try to run it through a effects pedal or hit the gain on your amp and then try. Alsomake sure it is coated enamel wire....any thing else, your just winding wire around a magnet for no reasn. You can get this at radio shack, or you can salvage it from a lot of different junk. Check out my pickups on the cheap vids for more info. Hope this helps.

Salty Sea Empire said:
you might want to avoid using magnets that are too strong. i was watching an interview with seymore duncan...the creator of seymore duncan pickups he said that using magnets that were too strong would affect how much the string would vibrate decreasing resonance. i don't know alot of the math behind it but you might want to keep that in mind. the idea behind pickups is that if you cause relative motion across a magnetic field that is wrapped in a coil a voltage will be created so you can increase that voltage or signal in two ways. increase the magnetic field strength( which inhibits the vibration of the string) or you can increase the number of windings...which is better because your string can vibrate freely... that is what it meant when people say that a pup is hot...lots and lots of windings hope that helps a little
Here's my take on the Subject - if you use a Magnet that is to Strong (Neodymium) it will dampen the string vibration i know because i tried it - still sounds good but not as tunefull as a pickup made with Alnico magnets which lets the strings vibrate a lot more also with the Neodymium magnet you get a higher tonal range but not as warm sounding as a Alnico this may infact be due to the Strings movement being restrained by the magnet - i'm still working on testing these magnets myself - at the end of the day they both work - i've got to the stage now that i'm using Neodymium magnets but very small ones - here 's a pic of a new slimline Pickup i've just made - it's a rail pickup which covers either 3 or 4 stringers and it uses a Neodymium magnet that measures 50mm x 10mm x1.5mm -

if you check out this video you can hear it in action
http://www.cigarboxnation.com/video/trytone-demo
Nice looking pup, I love that slim design!
If the magnets are really strong couldn't you just mount them further from the strings? Would adjustable poles help.

Johnny Lowebow said:
If they are so strong they make the strings stick to the top for sure. No vibrations. Following this line of resoning though we would still be using Huge horseshoe magnets. Their is a realtion between Gauss, windings and proximity. All Strong mags do is make athe same guass in a smaller package. For the Mega rich duncan whos claim to fame is ripping 50s designs might be a limiting factor.

T Tomlinson said:
Nice looking pup, I love that slim design!
Yes I think some machine screws used as poles would be perfect for adjusting height.

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