Switchable magnets! (Loring?)

[RodKirby]

Saw these demonstrated at our WW Show in October - bought (ordered) 2 - took 6 weeks to reach me! I suspect they had to be manufactured.

Anyway, fascinating items - have no idea how they work (Loring?), I just know they REALLY work - with 2 in action, I can't move them sideways on my TS table




Check them out...

http://www.magswitch.us/

[Handy Al]

Interesting. I wonder how they work. Too bad the BT3 has an alumumin top.

[LCHIEN]

Magnetic base

Well, this is a typcial magnetic base used by machinists to support a dial gage. If you look at the base there's a knob which says ON/OFF and you turn it 90 degrees to release the base from the tool (or table saw) top.



I'm going to go out on a small limb and suggest that this basic technology is what you have got there. You can also buy these bases with out all the gadgets on top to hold the gage, then you just have the solid block at the bottom, which can be used to hold down or mount items.

Now you ask, well how do those work? There's a battery inside and an electromagnet and you cut off the power from the battery and it lets go. Turn the switch on and it holds...





just kidding

I'm not 100% sure but I'm going to go out on a big limb and say, I really think is that there are two magnets, one attached to the rotating knob and the other fixed. I believe that the field of the two magnets cancel out in the off position and thereby lose hold on the table, and add in the other direction, thereby providing strong holding power.
If the magnets are positioned right then they won't grab each other.


I'll tell you for sure when you send me one that I can take apart, Rod...

[Jim Boyd]

From the magnetic base I have that the "on/off" dial fell of of the magnet in the inside is mounted on a eccentric cam. When you turn the knob it moves the magnet toward or away from the bottom of the base.

[TheRic]

From playing with magnets. I can say Loring is correct. The two poles won't cancel out 100% but enough to make the magnetic attraction minor.

It sounds like the eccentric cam is used to gradually move one magnet closer / farther away, verses a sudden movement. It's easier to peel one side of the magnet up then it is to pull the whole up at once.