Among the Hoard of many makers are seemingly magical devices.
this tool holder has amagnetic base that can be switched on and off with a switch. there are no electronics at play even thought the switch looks like it.
There is no electromagnet or other high tech magic at works it is a simple physical principle that does all the heavy lifting ( got it?).
When looking closely at how the device works we can recreate the mechanism and use it in our own projects.
The yellow 3d print in the video is part of an upcoming element14 presents video and it uses the same working principle to tightly lock together two plates, but also with almost no force it can be unlocked and taken apart. no fasteners or electromagnets needed.
the trick is a clever alignment of the magnetic fields. the magnets are evenly spaced and 3 of them face with the north pole up, while only one has the south pole orientated upwards.
this configuration means that there is only one position where the plates can have all magnets attract there counterparts in the other half of the mechanism.
by aligning them correctly we can lock them together magentically, but if only one of them is not aligned this pair will repell an therefore lift the plate unevenly which in turn forces the other aligned magnets further apart making the bond so week it is not noticeable when you lift the device. Because the magnetic filed s act perpendicular to our turning axis it is also very easy to turn the plate to align or misalign the magnets, which is exactly the same principle the switch on the commercial magnet base uses.
next time you were supposed to throw a thing out...make sure you learned everything it has to offer from it first.
