Need Suggestions: What to do with neodymium magnets? (and other hard drive parts)

I totally ripped it off from the radiology dept at the local hospital. Ramped it up a tad, but the same idea.

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I use blue painters tape on the round ones and they look like Hershey Kisses :slight_smile:

But, you have to be careful they’re not going to get in the way of the head. If I need them close in to the cuts/engraves I use thin untaped ones and just slide them off the wood/leather/chipboard onto my fingertip so I don’t have any chance of the head smacking into them.

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Ok… I’m not visualizing this well. I can’t see a situation in which the GF head would ever get close enough to hit a 1/4 inch thick magnet. Even on top of material that is 0.44" thick (current focus limit), the head wouldn’t impact the magnet (perhaps the air assist shroud?).

By the same token, I can’t think of a material that thick that would need a magnet on top, but that’s probably lack of imagination on my part. :wink:

Actually, I use magnets around the edge of wood, tile, acrylic, etc. to hold them in place after I’ve squared them up. Nothing like getting everything just so then banging them out of place with your hand. :rage:

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If you haven’t disassembled all of them, save a couple to make speakers (instructions the usual places). Sound quality is lousy, but weirdness factor is high.

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Agreed. I found an easy way to separate them. I hit the metal part with a hammer causing it to bend. The magnet comes right off.

Then cover them with sugru and sculpt a handle.

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That nickle plating underneath will fracture when you break them loose, be aware the plating can be sharp like a blade. I have broken them just letting them slap down from their edge onto steel. Hack sawing the ends of the bracket off and leaving them mounted to the steel will protect them from fracturing.

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Technically correct. But they’re in the same part and the air assist shroud/nozzle extends a bit below the main head unit (lens assembly). Still don’t want it whacking a magnet or having the magnet potentially jumping from the bed to the head (close enough and the attraction between the head will overcome the force holding it to the bed through a piece of wood).

I’ve done that - attach the magnet directly to the bed so it keeps things in place without a jig. But I’ve used magnets in the field of a piece of plywood where there’s a warp in the middle.

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With a function generator, one can make hard drives do very strange things:

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I’ve found them! I just havent extracted them from their homes. That is a project for when I get a day free

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I was planning on covering any areas where the coating flaked off with clear nail polish. I figure that would give it a nice strong protective coat

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sort of, but it won’t stop it from breaking pieces off if it strikes something even softly in that spot.

Saw this on indestructables. Any good?

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lol

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oops :smiley:

You can also list any parts you want to find a new home for on https://levitada.sharetribe.com/ . . . I’m sure someone out here will take you up on them!

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That is a super good point! I know I’m going to have at least 50 hard drive cases I’ll not know what to do with

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Soooo… a SanDisk disk sander?

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You could take up aluminum casting

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We’re just poking all kinds of rabbit holes into this place, aren’t we? HAHA! :slight_smile: We’re all gonna be too busy zapping stuff to dig into other projects pretty soon!

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Ok, first, you’re going to need a crap ton of stuff more than the magnets, so this is probably a terrible idea. But you should embed a magnet in a wooden or leather bookmark. The bookmark will go in a book. The book will sit on the base of a lamp. The lamp will turn on when you pick up the book. There’s probably a reed switch or something in there. And wires. Might need a couple magnets. Or a thin book. I don’t know. I’m not making this for a reason.

And voila, worlds most over designed reading lamp, probably. And probably useless, because your phone or ereader is backlit, and you havent bought a real-life book since, like, 2013. What even is life anymore? But you should still make it because it sounds awesome.

Also, I may or may not be projecting about my reading habits. Also, also, sometimes I listen to audio books and then pretend I read them.

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