Creating a simple magnetic base

[Paul McDonoughParticipant @paulmcdonough43628]

Here’s a daft question, I’m putting together an articulated grabber arm for soldering electronics parts and I have made a small base 62mm in diameter, I was going to drill 3 holes at equal intervals around the conical base to bolt it to a metal sheet base plate, when it occurred to me that I could fix some disc magnets to it and make it ‘moveable’.

The thing is I’m not sure what power or size magnets to use, I could experiment but I wondered if anyone had experience of selecting magnets for this application? Some web sites offer small disc magnets with 3kg hold force, if I put three of these on the base I’m not sure if I will be able to move it!

Because I won’t be able to ‘switch it off’ I will need to be able to slide it off. The base will be a sheet of mild steel 1 or 1.5mm thick. I’m not holding heavy objects just chunky electronics components like a potentiometer for instance.

As I type this i suppose I could just glue it :0)

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

You can make it switchable – doesn’t have to be 3d printed

Rod

[Paul McDonoughParticipant @paulmcdonough43628]

Clever.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

You can get a mag base for dti for as little as £12 from ebay. It has the articulated arm as well. By yhe time you buy 12 magnets to make one it hardly seems worthwhile

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

A speaker magnet should do it ! Noel.

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

Any small, round  flat rare earth magnet will be adequate. Ideally you want a holding type which has both poles on each face. Or if the base is magnetic (looks like alloy) you can make a “pot” by using a opposite face pole magnet centered in a oversized pocket in the base.

 

[Mark RandParticipant @markrand96270]

What happened to the days when we salvaged the focusing magnets from the CRTs of television sets?

[Paul McDonoughParticipant @paulmcdonough43628]

Thank you Robert for your helpful advice, I guess I’m going to have to buy a few and try.

Duncan, I did think about buying a magnetic dti stand, but my initial preference was to thread the arm on to a flat base.

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