Permanent magnet question

Your gauss meter is not symmetrical through zero gauss, I suspect. Try measuring a single pole with the the probe turned each way, to see its asymmetry.

it's possible but there's no rule that favours either pole.

most likely.

build (or find) a solenoid (eg take the secondary winding of a dead wall-wart transformer) and measure the gauss it produces with the same known current flowing through it in either direction.

Be aware that the earths magnetic field has a vertical component in most locations.

Bye. Jasen

I calibrated at zero gauss. So when there is no magnetic field present I took this value as zero Gauss, then I use 1000 gauss as the highest value for 4.8v using the linear formula y=mx+b .

Ken

Have you checked the linearity? I think I would try to compare the signal to a current that produced the magnetic field with a gapped inductor, with the probe in the gap, and the inductor fed with AC. A scope Lissajous pattern would display the linearity very simply.

What is an air gap inductor?

Any magnetic structure that concentrates the magnetic flux of a coil into an air gap.

You place the flux probe in the air gap. The presence of the air gap tends to reduce lots of any nonlinearity (between instantaneous current and instantaneous flux) caused by the magnetic properties of the core material in the rest of the flux path, while using that core material to reduce the amperes it takes to reach a given flux level (that is below the saturation flux of the core material).

A pair of E cores with a gap between the middle pair of legs and a coil bedside that gap on each middle leg would be an example of such a structure. Another would be a toroidal core with a slot cut in it (to make an air gap). But even placing the probe between a pair of solenoidal coils wound around straight bars of permeable material would produce a significant increase in flux, compared to air core coils, especially if the cores extend out the ends of the coils by at least the coil length. A pair of bundles of iron welding rods (or cut pieces of coat hangers or floral wire) could form such cores.