Sunday, August 14, 2011

Strong Magnets are dangerous.

I just blew $30 on magnets. I want to make my three phase generator work and upgrade my old generator. So I bought several disk magnets and two bar magnets and ten cubical magnets. The bar magnets are plastic coated so I don't have the typical problem of chipping when something gets pulled too fast towards the magnet. The cubical magnets are going to be used to build at Halbach Array which I am hoping to use in a future project to build a model maglev train.

Anyways, I just looked at Amazon reviews for a $30 magnet. Wow. I think the 12-25lb pull force on the magnets I bought is as much as I am going to play with.

"The first time they flew together my finger was in the middle. Before I got my finger out it had pinched and pulled about a quarter inch of skin with a little meat off. "


"One last thing. You will pinch your fingers between them no matter how careful you are. You will see what I mean if you get a couple! "


"I also bought a few of these, and also lost part of my finger. I bled more than I have since I was about ten and fell off my bicycle, way back then.

That's not really significant, though. What's significant is that I read all of the other horror stories about people losing small pieces of their fingers to these magnets, before I even ordered mine. So I planned a lot and I really tried to be careful. I wasn't careful enough, though. I used some plastic pieces pieces to separate my magnets, out of their original packaging, but I didn't use long enough plastic pieces, and so, snap."


And that is only a $30 magnet. Some magnets are for sale for more than a thousand dollars! That thing could probably crush your skull!

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