mag'n a reel

[Fiskadoro]

I've been spending some time looking at rare earth magnets as I'm thinking about magging an older SX, Saltist 30H, and possibly a Abu 6500c .Looks pretty easy to do, I wonder if any of you have you ever tried it?

I'm fishing only straight spectra with short tops these days and almost only use mag reels in response to it. My favorites magged out the box are the Penn 525 and Abu Revo STX. but I'd like to have a few more options, something between the two and possibly a reel with a better drag. I was looking at the Revo Toro 50 but it's not magged. I then I came up with the idea of making some modifications myself. I know it's been done... Got an opinion?

I guess I might as well post what I have learned so far, and some of the ideas I have come up with.

The idea is you put a flat rare earth magnet at on end of the reel in the side plate and that it produces a magnetic filed that slows the spool down, but I have not seen anyone with a good explanation how this works. Some say it magnetizes the spool etc.. but that does not make any sense because the spools are aluminum and can not be magnetized. They say it only works with metal spools which I think gives a hint of what's involved.


Here's what I think is going on, but you might want to take it with a grain of salt since I never looked into it until recently.

The rare earth magnets are flat disks like a coin that have extremely powerful magnetic fields. One side say "heads" is the north pole of the magnet, the other side tails is the south pole side. When you "mag" the reel you attach a magnet with either flat side facing the spool in the side plate of the reel.

Since the magnetic field that the magnet produces extends furthest from the magnet at the poles the spool ends up in either the Northern or Southern pole of the magnets magnetic field.

Aluminum spools have no iron so they are not attracted by the magnet but they do have electrons that have a negative charge and they are influenced by a magnetic fields.

The rare earth magnets magnetic field pushes around the electrons around in the spool as it turns. You could say that it essentially turns your spool into a tiny generator because as the spool turns the electrons in the spool get pushed around by the magnetic field of the magnet much like the electrons in a generators rotor. Just like with a generator the faster the spool turns the more the electrons move, and the faster the electrons are moved around the spool the more resistance they encounter. As the spool spins faster and faster resistance in the spool starts to slow the electrons down, then you get a feedback loop that acts like a electronic brake (Dynamic braking) to slow the spool down. When the spool is spinning slowly there is virtually no resistance, or braking but as the spool speeds up to a high speed the magnetic field coupled with the moving electrons in the spool starts to brake the spool. Simply put it's an ideal way to brake a reel spool and prevent backlashes because as the spool over speeds or over rotates the feedback between the electrons, resistance, and the magnetic field slows the spool down.

I could be wrong but that is what I think is going on.

So you have electrons spinning around the spool but the faster they spin the more resistance builds up in the spool itself, until there comes a point where the electrons in the metal act as a brake and slow the spool down. Pretty cool.. Huh!!

The stronger the magnetic field the more electrons are being pushed around so stronger magnets cause the braking effect sooner at a lower spool RPM.

Additionally the closer the magnet is to the spool the greater effect of the magnetic field on the spool as well.

Now that's all just my own thinking but I think that is how it's got to be doing all this, or how this all works. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Like I said these are just ideas that I came up with one evening so I'm not really all that attached to them...LOL

So basically the trick is to put in enough of a magnetic field at the end of the spool to keep it from spinning too fast, without slowing it down so much that it effects your casting in a negative manner.

You want it to stop a backlash, but not slow it down so much that it keeps you from getting the maximum distance from your casts.

I don't know about you guys but I'm not a tournament caster. Like with my Penn 525 mags: I do not have to adjust them mid cast to get the best results as I just set them and leave them. If I was surf fishing I could see the benefit of adjusting them mid cast but I do not need that option.

So I think the trick will be to find out how strong a magnet I'll need and then figure out where exactly to place it correctly so it will do the job.

Placement wise kinda like I said I think the closer to the spool the more effect it will have on it, and also I think the closer to the edge of the spool the more effect it will have do to simple mechanical leverage. I could be wrong but that makes sense to me.

So I'd say you want the magnet between the shaft and the edge of the spool probably closer to the edge, fairly close to the spool.

Now the simplest way to do this would be just to super glue a magnet into the side plate near the spool and then be done with it, but the problem with that is once it's there you're stuck with that adjustment. I think you'd want to be able to adjust the amount of braking to tweak it until you figure out just how much braking you need for the fishing your doing with the reel.

What the guys on the east coast have been doing is instead of gluing in one magnet they instead glue in galvanized washers and then stick a variety of magnets to them. That way you can buy a bunch of magnets and then change them out till you get the exact amount of braking you want.

This is not brain surgery mechanically, anyone could do this.

All you do is glue in some washers and stick magnets on them. You do not epoxy the magnets in place, but just epoxy in the washers. Then you can attach the magnets top of the washers by just sticking them on, and play with various magnets until you get the amount of braking you want. If you dcide you do not want the mag effect you take the magnets out and the reel performs just like it always has.

Let me remind you this is not a friction braking set up. The magnets have no effect at all when the spool is not moving at a high speed. so it's not something that's going to hurt the performance at low speeds or effect your reeling, it should just effect the spool at high speeds while casting.

Here's a pic of some Avets (a SX MX and JX) I found on a East coast surf fishing board, you can see the washers in place and magnets stuck to them.




Here's a place you can get the magnets:

http://www.kjmagnetics.com/products.asp?cat=10

Of course I'm not ever satisfied with the standard way... LOL.... So I'll probably use thin galvanized sheet metal instead of washers. I'll glue it in place then coat it over with a thin layer of rod finish epoxy, so it's sealed from salt, and then stick my magnets to that.

I think I'll then buy a dozen or so magnets (they are like 20 cents each) and then try various combination's until I get what I need.

Bottom line though.... I'm still in the theory stage on all this, and I'm no engineer... LOL... So I would appreciate any ideas or info you guys have on this.

Jim

[driftwood]

Hey jim.

Have you ever heard of NEODYMIUM magntes?

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by driftwood

Hey jim. Have you ever heard of NEODYMIUM magntes?

Yeah that's the type of magnets I'm talking about. Like said you can find them here:


http://www.kjmagnetics.com/products.asp?cat=10

But there are many sources for them.

Only rare earth magnets have a strong enough magnetic field to work in this application.

Jim

[driftwood]

Im no expert... But, even if you make that thing fly you still have to deal with oxidation. Expose to air and salt water triple nickle neodymium plating will still rust quickly turning neodymium into a powder. (unless its gold plated) The composition is neo,iron and boron. If you could find a powerful magnet made from pure aluminuim problem solved... no such thing.

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by driftwood

Im no expert... But, even if you make that thing fly you still have to deal with oxidation. Expose to air and salt water triple nickle neodymium plating will still rust quickly turning neodymium into a powder. (unless its gold plated) The composition is neo,iron and boron. If you could find a powerful magnet made from pure aluminuim problem solved... no such thing.

If man was meant to fly he'd have wings... LOL

Then again I don't have to make it fly, since this all is a known principle, that already is known to work.

As to oxidation.... the idea of coating the magnets and sealing them off from saltwater comes to mind.... tricky technical stuff.... huh!!!

Gold plating sounds pricey, maybe I'll just use grease until I figure out exactly which magnets I'll need and then seal them with epoxy

Don't take it wrong I actually appreciated your post. I use similar magnets in my hoop floats to hold the LED's I use for a light source. Always wondered why the rusted so fast. Now I know

Jim

[-scallywag-]

i was also thinking that the increased friction due to the magnet horizontally loading the spool bearings would also slow it down.
i like the generator theory but wouldn't u need a load between the mag and the spool to complete the circuit, without it where would the energy go that gets sapped from the spool? heat up the mag/spool i guess?

tantalizing subject....

by the way hows "alumayak" coming

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by -scallywag-

by the way hows "alumayak" coming

In progress, but I've had to work on some other things lately. A updates coming!!

Jim

[T Bone]

My Dad has done it to all of his avets.Ended up being a lot of trial and error with shimming and magnet size.Helps immensely and he has the extra magnets for me to do mine.He said a larger size he didnt even need to put his thumb on the spool but ended up being too much brakes and went with a smaller magnet.Very manageable casts like a nice bass baitcaster, instead of the usual avet birdnest factory.

[T Bone]

hows that kayak coming?

[Fiskadoro]

So thanks to driftwood I realized I already had some magnets sitting around that would work for my Avet SX, as I get D61 neodymium magnets that are each 3/8 in diameter and 1/16 thick with the blinking magnetic micro lights I use to light my hoopnet floats.



On initially reading up on this concept I found that a number of guys were using those exact magnets for their SX's usually in groups of three, glued in a row, flat to the side plate with quite a lot of clearance.

I was actually going to order those exact magnets but since I have maybe a dozen of them sitting around my shop left over from lights I've discarded I figured why not just use what I already have.

I checked the clearances and realized I could mount two stacked on top of each other with enough clearance to glue in 18 gauge sheet metal base plate for them.

Normal I would of thought I'd have to use coated or galvanized steel for this but on testing I found the magnets adhered to almost any metal I put them on as they produce such a strong magnetic field.

So I choose the most corrosion resistant metal I had in the right gauge some polished stainless stock I had left over from a Frank Gerry building downtown (The Disney Concert hall) I don't remember the exact specification but the stuff is bullet proof when it comes to corrosion, and since this is the only part that can't be changed out easily I wanted something that would never corrode.

You have to wonder what Frank would think of metal from his multi-million dollar project going into a reel I bought on eBay for 150 bucks. Hey... what can I say it works fro me. This is why I keep junk like this around from old projects.

So basically I stuck I piece of stainless alloy in the side of my SX, glued it in place then stuck a couple of the magnets from the lights I had sitting around on to it.

I wish I could say this was some profound feat of engineering but in all honesty this is probably the easiest mod I have ever done on a reel, as it only took maybe 15 minutes, and I did not even bother to take the reel off the rod.

I just sheered the stainless with my foot sheer. Cleaned it and the sideplate with some acetone, and then glued stainless tab in place with super glue.

The magnets just stick right on it.





They are on there good, hard to pry back off once on, and they do not seem to want to shift or move, so it should be fine. The only issue I can think of would be corrosion of the magnets themselves, but since I can change them out and have an endless supply this should not be a big deal. They are chromed and I greased this set, but they may still rust so I'm going to be looking at various ways to seal them in the future.

I did some casts with it in the parking lot with a 1 ounce sinker and it may be a bit over magged but it did not seem to want to backlash which is good as far as I'm concerned. I'm using the reel right now for fishing live six inch mackerel so I have no problem with it being a little over magged at this part of the season. If I want to reduce the effect I can just remove one of the D61's and I'm also considering buying a few D601-N52 which are half as thick so I can remove one D61 replace it with the D601 which should create a setting somewhere between two D61s and just one D61.


It will be interesting to see how it behaves with real casting out on the water with larger baits and Iron. It's definitely going to work, now it's just a matter of figuring out how much mag effect I want and what works best for the most applications. As to changing the magnets out all I have to do with the SX is pull to screws and then pry them off the strip. Like I said once on they like to stay on, but you can get them out... LOL

So there you have it... My high tech solution to better casting through advanced micro magnets and somewhat primitive installation technology. Hey it looks cooler then washers... LOL

Since it cost me nothing as I already had the parts sitting around in the shop, and I'll have an endless supply of these magnets since I go through maybe twenty or more of the micro lights a season... Well all I can say is it was a modification definitely worth doing, at least for me.

I'm kinda surprised you don't see more of this being done, pretty easy stuff.

Jim

Originally Posted by T Bone

hows that kayak coming?

Good but slow, I stalled out on it because I had to do another project in the shop, so I had to clear the floor and hang it up for a while... So it's been sitting, but I should have some pics to put up on it shortly. It's going to pretty cool.

Jim

[driftwood]

No worries Jim. I din't mean that your idea would literllay fly, but it was more like in the context of- even if your idea would work/fly. Backlash/birdnest is the thing i hate the most! Especially on a kayak. pls keep us updated on your projects. Your post always keeps my mind stimulated.

P.M. sent.