Magnet tipped srewdrives safe to use or not?

Corasik · 12 Jul 2006 at 10:21

Wear depends somewhat on the quality of the screwdriver. You can also convert most screwdrivers to mag tip, by stroking a strong permanant magnet along the shaft a few times. Most of my best screwdrivers have enough magnetism to hold computer screws.

TheVoice · 12 Jul 2006 at 11:36

NightmareXX said:
Well have you ever had a look inside a HDD and the strength of the magnets in it? They can hold a 1KG bag of sugar against a fridge door

Haha, really?!

NightmareXX · 12 Jul 2006 at 13:45

Yea my mate decided to take a HDD apart, took the magnets out to see how strong they were.

Got a 1KG bag of sugar, put it inside a plastic food bag and voila! 1KG of sugar suspended off a fridge by a HDD magnet.

How can a HDD have that a magnet that powerful in it and not be affected by it?

Corasik · 12 Jul 2006 at 14:09

Because a static magnetic field has very little effect, think about how you magnetise an iron nail. You have to stroke a strong magnet from 1 end to the other 10+ times to have a good effect.

If simply being exposed to a magnetic field was enough, then all disks would be blank. We're sitting on a huge magnet called planet earth.

Clarkey · 12 Jul 2006 at 14:18

i wouldnt be concerned with the hard drives, in fact an old case I have has the pc speaker mounted directly underneath the hdd bay.

markeh · 12 Jul 2006 at 14:28

Corasik said:
Because a static magnetic field has very little effect, think about how you magnetise an iron nail. You have to stroke a strong magnet from 1 end to the other 10+ times to have a good effect.

If simply being exposed to a magnetic field was enough, then all disks would be blank. We're sitting on a huge magnet called planet earth.

So what your saying is that its unadvisable to rub your HDD against the earth?

jonorigin · 12 Jul 2006 at 14:49

I rummage around PCs all day at work and always use a magnetic screwdriver - never ever had any problems from it

benjo plz. · 12 Jul 2006 at 14:54

Corasik said:
We're sitting on a huge magnet called planet earth.

Yes, but the earth is huge too, so the actual flux density is very low, so any hard drive movement would have a very low flux linkage.

quadboi · 12 Jul 2006 at 15:15

Andre said:
Got a nice screwdriver with my EPoX motherboard, it is a magnetic one - so I don't think mobo manufacturers are that bothered

Very true, I think they are fine never had a prob in 3 years..

Corasik · 12 Jul 2006 at 15:36

Phnom_Penh said:
Yes, but the earth is huge too, so the actual flux density is very low, so any hard drive movement would have a very low flux linkage.

True, but its field is strong enough that many old Largescren CRT monitors have to be configured for N/S or E/W orientation. My ancient NEC 6FG actually had switches to configure it.

I've got a fairly powerfull 240V elecromagnet, designed to degausse CRT's, just for fun I tried to degausse a hard disk, but even that had no effect on the drive at all. It still worked perfectly... at least until I hit it with a sledgehammer, I was trying to destroy the disk

benjo plz. · 12 Jul 2006 at 17:38

Corasik said:
I've got a fairly powerfull 240V elecromagnet, designed to degausse CRT's, just for fun I tried to degausse a hard disk, but even that had no effect on the drive at all.

hehe a degaussing wand, good fun

(although afaik you just turn the monitor upside down or something and the earth degausses it for you). They can't be overly powerfull because I remember some old boy on a tv program who wired up a coil to the mains and it levitated :cool:

helpimcrap · 12 Jul 2006 at 18:34

locutus12 said:
10 years using them, no problems. 1 driver i have can drag a screw from 4 inches away

christ lol.... ive just got this image of you walking past a door handle and your arm being dragged to it lol.