FYI: Regarding rare earth magnets

Hypothetical situation:

- You have a bad hard drive and decide to harvest it's magnets for a stir plate.
- You get the stirplate all set up, proto-board soldered, wiring/case all done.
- You go to remove magnets from the metal brackets they are on, but realize they're glued.

** DO NOT HEAT the bracket to melt the glue **

This will result in demagnetization of said magnets and result in much screaming an cursing.

This has been a public service announcement.


Once again...this a completely hypothetical situation.

I found that bending the metal bar that they are fastened too will break them free... Sorry this advice is too late for you but maybe someone else out there wil benefit - or have an even better technique.

The glue seems like it'd come off with soaking in acetone now that I look it at. It's not much underneath.

Really I should've known better. I just was in a hurry, not thinking, and love to play with my torch

15 years or so ago, one of my jobs was to tear apart hard drives to destroy the platters. For the fun of it, we'd take the magnets out. We found that if you put a screw driver against the magnet where it's glued and gave it a good whack with a big hammer, they would break free. About 1 out of ever 10, one of the magnets would break.

Warning, when they break, the edges are really sharp. Also, when they break, they tend to slam together and send shards of magnet flying.

D2T said:

Really I should've known better. I just was in a hurry, not thinking, and love to play with my torch

Click to expand...

Fire, Fire, fire, fire,... hm,hm,hm,hm,hm,hm, yeah..yeah..yeah..hm,hm,hm,hm,hm..! Whoa!.. he said he plays with his torch! Cool! :cross:

Seriously, bending the metal works better. But it depends on how well that damn glue is on there. Try the acetone, I'm curious on how well it will work. Made need to be soaked for a while.

Yup, just use a screwdriver or similar prying device.

I've general info about harvesting magnets from hard drives here: http://onebeer.net/magnet_howto.shtml

Cheers.

Thanks for the link! I've already got feelers out to all my co-workers/friends to see if I can scrounge up another HD.

i tried and tried but mine never came unglued without breaking the magnets so i just bought a bunch off of ebay for about $12.

I'd like to add I got mine off by using a flat head screwdriver and hammer earlier today

Scratch that question, I found the thread on here.

Yuri has one in his sig

cardiac_cadet002 said:

I found the link!!!!

Click to expand...

Do a search on "stirplate" the look for the DIY procedures...

If only I had read this thread about three hours ago....good thing I have some extra neodymium laying around

FWIW this banner was in the bottom of this thread when I read it:

http://www.rare-earth-magnets.com/?gclid=CO3vq66bp5ICFQx7PAodrDVPRA