'Free' Rare Earth Magnets

[Kevin Post]

I don't know how many of you are familiar with rare earth magnets. They are VERY strong for their size and available from the Lee Valley catalog in various sizes. I use them for a variety of things in my shop.

What many people are not aware of is they can be obtained free. I've gotten most of mine from discarded hard disk drives. If you take the time to disassemble the drive before tossing it, you can get them free. There are usually 4 of them in a normal drive mechanism, regardless of the size. The catch is they are normally an odd shape rather than the nice shiny round ones you'll order from Lee Valley.

I have one on my drill press to hold the chuck key. I have several on the side of my shaper to hold various wrenches. When I open a new box of nitrile gloves, I slide three or four into the bottom so I can stick the box on the side of a metal tool cabinet. I put one on the electrical panel leading from the house to the gara.. er shop and I stick the keychain remote for my dust collector to it. Below is a picture of my tablesaw with a push-stick hanging from a magnet. I drove a screw into the handle... Normally, I hang the mitre gauge from one as well. They are surprisingly strong.

http://fp1.centurytel.net/sawdust/images/ts_front.jpg

-Kevin

[Scott Greaves]

Thanks Kevin! It makes me think about where I could come up with some hard drives - without people being PO'd with me! ;-)

So is this true of old hard drives as well? Very cool!

Scott.

[Mark Hulette]

Kevin,

Good information!! Now I have to find a source where the hard drives won't be missed! :D

[Jason Roehl]

Originally posted by Mark Hulette
Kevin,

Good information!! Now I have to find a source where the hard drives won't be missed! :D

I think a trip down to Los Alamos might solve that...:D

[Kevin Post]

I'm a bit of a pack rat so I had a bunch of old computer hardware lying around that I couldn't bring myself to toss until just recently. You know, when you spend thousands of dollars on this computer crap, it's difficult to accept the fact that it's worthless just a few years later. The botom line is the spce they were occupying was more valuable than the junk I was hanging on to.

It finally hit me when I purchased a 40 GB hard drive for my wife's computer for $65 that I would never have a justifiable need for the numerous hard drives I had lying around with capacities of less than 500 MB.

While I was at it, the 286 and old Macintosh hardware went to the dump too. That old monitor I was going to fix... trashed. The box of thin ethernet cards... history. Along with countless boxes of books and old software designed for technology that has long since become defunct. It was refreshing and painful at the same time.

In contrast, that old DeWalt RAS that was built before me is still going strong.

-Kevin