Magnet Management

Everything Else
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I had a surplus of 3/4" diameter 1/8" thick disc neodymium magnets with a countersunk hole in the middle.

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So to use them as hold down magnets in the Glowforge I put orange duct tape on one side and black duct tape on the other. It made a handle to pick them up form the GF grid and the colors let me know what the magnetic polarity was.

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As you can see the duct tape started to tear. I also found myself placing the magnets on the grid with just the edge on the material. The magnet wasn’t strong enough to hold down thicker material or if it was on top of the material it got in the way of the laser. So I thought I should make a plastic enclosure to allow the magnet to be next to the material and hold it down.

–This is where this turns into a 3D printing post–

I designed these 3 parts in Fusion 360

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The peg and disc get glued together to encompass the magnet.

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The disc has a protrusion that will fit into a chamfer on the ring and it gets glued together.

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Here you can see the lip that holds down the material and that the back of the magnet is exposed. It allows the magnet to tilt up and hold down thicker material.

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I think the next step is to design the clip to hold 2 magnets (for more power) and have the lip be higher to hold thicker material.

Here are the stl files to print your own clips.

MagClip.zip (55.8 KB)

These are the magnets I used.

53 Likes
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I think you could go into business selling these useful items!

5 Likes
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Nice work!

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So I made the double thick version (2 magnets in there). The orange one is good for 1/8" and the red one is good for 1/4".

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19 Likes
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I love these! I’ll have to pick up new fillament for my 3D printer!

1 Like
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Well, that’s fantastic! Thanks for sharing!

Seriously…not a bad idea. Look into Shapeways…you can have a “storefront” and have these designs in there, and they can print and fulfill them with many different materials. I know a couple of people doing that.

6 Likes
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Great design, thanks for sharing!

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That is very clever. I need to do some of these for my magnets. They are a fuss to use as is without any handles. And having the thick one with a clip for holding down is brilliant!

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Awesome!! One question, why three separate parts instead of just making the bottom and side thing from one piece? Is it so you can easily swap the side thingy in case it breaks?

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While I was designing the parts and trying to account for tolerances to perfectly fit the magnet I fount it easier to deal with the three pieces separately. I probably could have combined them in the end

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Great idea! Sell them! I’d totally buy them too!

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Me too!!!