by Tom Carnegie
You've probably heard someone say something
to the effect "my mag puts out 'x'
number of volts". You probably also know
that this doesn't mean too much. At what
speed does the mag put out 'x' volts? Does
the number of volts really even matter?
Another popular mag test is to attach some
load (such as a small lightbulb) to the mag
and then somehow judge its condition,
maybe by observing how brightly the bulb
glows or maybe by how many volts the
mag is putting out.
Again, the measurements
are useless at worst and subjective at
best. There are better ways to test the efficacy
of a mag. One of these is with a mag
tester such as the one described in Dykes
manual. (see next page) This is a very
handy instrument if you can come up with
one. If you can't, there are ways to obtain
similar meaningful results.
