Material Fasteners (Hold Downs) - Sick of Using Duct-tape

Its cool we can remake them as we need, Thanks for your reply.

This rolled pin seems to fit perfectly, it was the exact same size as crumb tray holes.

Is there a plan out there or for sale?

If you don’t have them yet, this might be of interest:

Most people wrap the magnets in duct tape to make little grabby tabs, it’s easier than trying to wrangle them bare. Also, neodymium magnets are brittle and will shatter if they smack together too hard. Tape cushions them a bit and keeps magnet bits from falling off if they do crack.

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This is really good advice. My cardboard almost caught on fire. Go faster and put card board in fridge prior??

Cardboard is flamey. Go fast, don’t cut super complicated jaggy lines with lots of fiddly details. That’s what’ll set you on fire faster than anything.

BTW, that thread I just posted has pics of the magnet tabs:

I doublestack my bars, they hold down all but the most stubborn 1/8" wood.

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Magnets work thru 3/16" warped cardboard?

Cardboard? Easily, it bends like a punk. Just be careful about total stack height. The air assist fan is about 0.5" above the tray. 3/16" only leaves you with 5/16" at most. You’ll probably be ok with a doublestack of thinner magnets, but just keep the total height in mind as you consider all this.

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Also this might be of interest:

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If you have a prying tool or dental pick type thing then you can dip the tip into a hole in the honeycomb and slide the magnet up the shank a bit until it’s easy to grab.

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Not a bad idea but the duct tape method works so well and requires no tools… I’ll probably stick with it.

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I use the pick to see if the parts have all cut out the whole way so it’s no extra effort to use it to slide a magnet for pickup.

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When stacking magnets, or using them on thicker materials, be careful that the head of the glowforge doesn’t “drag” your magnet. I bought some very powerful magnets, 25lb of pull iirc, and they work great. But if I stack them and the laser head goes over them they sometimes pull the laserhead and cause its alignment to go all to heck and I wind up with a very interesting cut, or it can drag a single magnet with it leaving it somewhere it is not supposed to be. Later it goes over the magnet doing a cut or score and I now have a big uncut area in my design. I’ve learned to use these larger magnets unstacked and don’t place them on thick material where their attraction to the laser head will be greater than their attraction to the steel crumb tray.

But as evansd2 said, magnets will easily flatten cardboard.

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That magnet dragging thing has been kicking around for a while. I personally haven’t had it happen, and just judging by the physics of the thing I have always been a bit skeptical. While I don’t doubt that your alignment got screwy, I wonder: have you verified that the magnetic field was the issue and not the air assist scoop? It hangs really low, it could catch a magnet pretty easily.

In any case, so far so good on my end.

One of the PRU users caught a video of it happening once…the little magnets were just jumping up and catching the head for a ride as the head passed over. (It was totally cute/funny/scary simultaneously.)

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Not only had a magnet move but had one jump off of the material and attach itself to the air assist port behind the head.

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i have to wonder how tall the stack of magnets is or how close to the head thicker materials with thick magnets are. i’m using pretty strong magnets, so they’re never stacked or that tall.

I’m not sure…I won’t use them. (Not just for that reason, but because I tend to hurt myself with them too.) :roll_eyes:

Magnet movement will only be a problem when the distance between the magnet and the head, or port, approaches the distance between the magnet and the honeycomb. A thin magnet and material less than 1/4" or so will never be an issue.

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Maybe that’s why I’ve been in the clear. I don’t screw with anything over 1/8" really. Like I sad, the physics just never seemed right to move the head without the magnet straight up jumping to the head.

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