Be careful, you might accidentally create a black hole. Hahaha!

I love to tinker around with stuff like that.  Once you magnetize something, does the magnetism wear off over time? 

Waaaay back when I had my first car (rust bucket ‘62 MG Midget) I read somewhere about an easy way to magnetize a screwdriver.  I took an old screwdriver that I knew not to be magnetized and tried what I read.  Our driveway pointed north/south, so the expansion joints went east/west.  I placed the tip against one side of the expansion joint either the screwdriver pointed north and delivered a couple of good whacks on the handle with a hammer.  To my amazement it worked.  While not super strong, it would hold a screw.  It’s weakened over the intervening 46 years, but it still has some residual magnetism.

Wait... you still have a screwdriver from 46 years ago?

You are my new idol.

I buy Stanley 6-in-1 screwdrivers by the case (I'm not kidding) when they go on sale at Menards. My theory is that if I continue to lose one on every service call, eventually everywhere I go will have one I lost from another call and the circle will be complete.

Gordon,

Any motor will do. What you have there is a PSC motor, which is why the capacitor is dangling off to the side. If you got an old shaded pole motor (we scrap about 2 a week), you wouldn't have the capacitor hanging off in space.

Good luck.

I've actually done that with a crowbar on an anvil - Hit it really hard with a hammer and  it magnetizes.  Never figured out how to un-magnetize it, though, and my uncle wasn't thrilled that his crowbar picked up all sorts of trash.

THIS gizmo let's you mag or de-mag anything that'll fit in it at will and once something is magnetized it usually stays that way until de-mag'd.  Any coil of wire will work - Using a motor winding is just a handy way and not have to wind your own coil - And it's more effective if you use DC voltage but I haven't played with that aspect yet - should be interesting to be able to magnetize something with DC and then de-mag it with AC.  Some old oil burners used a full-wave rectifier that was pretty common (and cheap) and can handle the current draw so that may be a way to go to get to cheap DC - Gives me something to play with once the weather turns too cold in the shop and drives me indoors. 

BTW:  A guy I once worked with once ran a ship degausing facility for the Navy.  He was telling us about it at lunch one day and I guess he could magnetize or de-magnetize an entire ship at their facility.  Can't imagine why a ship would become magnetized unless a lightning strike would do it, but there you go. 

Stan get some printed with your business name at least it would advertise for you

Or you can manage to drop a screwdriver into a live panel box and it too will magnetize, I know this works ~

Stan Galat posted:

Wait... you still have a screwdriver from 46 years ago?

You are my new idol.

I buy Stanley 6-in-1 screwdrivers by the case (I'm not kidding) when they go on sale at Menards. My theory is that if I continue to lose one on every service call, eventually everywhere I go will have one I lost from another call and the circle will be complete.

Dude just bring a big magnet with you and your lost screwdrivers will come right to it.

@Stan Galat:  So does that mean I can eliminate that capacitor with a jumper and get the same magnetic result since I'm only using the coil and not spinning a rotor?  Can the coil(s) take it?  I realize the Cap is there either to start the motor turning or to keep it turning, but I thought I could just jumper it and use the Cap in a full-wave rectifier to go lower voltage pulsed-DC with it for a better electro-magnet effect.....   Charge up the Cap and then hit a button to pulse the coil with the charge from the Cap.  ????

I will readily admit that motors and magnetism are not my strong suit - I always made little sparks, not BIG sparks.    I need my buddy, Ron, a power engineer who used to work for Norton Abrasives, setting up their production lines.  Those "Power Guys" are a breed apart......   But I've learned a lot about basic magnetism in the past couple of days.  Fascinating stuff!  All I ever knew of it was related to radio waves!

@Stan Galat   Don't sweat it, Stan.  I found what I need about PSC motors on the Beckett Oil Burner site and jumpering the Cap shouldn't be a problem, nor should running the thing on pulsed DC (although I'll be careful and start at a lower voltage and work my way up).  From the Beckett site, a split-phase housing might work better than a PSC, but I guess either will magnetize a screwdriver if done right.

Building a suitable and classy enclosure that looks good on the bench, however, might take a little more work....

@Stan Galat, here’s a picture of the ancient implement

Looks like an old "Xcelite"

I can re-magnetize it for yah!

That's alright.  I have a driveway and a hammer 

Just make sure a capacitor that size is discharged before you do anything with it, Gordon, or your thumb might end up permanently magnetized.

Yeah that would go well with the high voltage scar I already have on my thumb.  

@Stan Galat  I've been playing with my Magnetizer:

This is my favorite current active thread here.

Gordon Nichols posted:

Yeah that would go well with the high voltage scar I already have on my thumb.  

 

Anyone ever heard of a "Growler" ?  When I worked in an automotive electric repair shop we had one we used to detect shorted or grounded armature coils. We layed the armature in the "V" (a laminated iron transformer core) , took a 4" length of hacksaw blade and slid it all around the laminated armature core looking for sparks. if some were detected it meant that the armature was faulty.

We soon discovered that if you played a wrench on that growler for a while, while the growler was on, the wrench got hot as hell.   We'd wait around for someone to pick up the wrench. Of course the got a burned hand.  Funny back then but probably not now.

How about floating a screwdriver in mid-air with an air nozzle ?...............Bruce

Visualize this …. shop mechanic bending over a car fender working on an engine and  me with a full to go cup of coffee . There is a tiny pin hole in every plastic lid. Squeezing the paper coffee cup will launch a thin stream of coffee out the pin hole 10 - 15'  By the time in makes contact with the guy's work pants ass it arrives at ambient air temp and eventually enough coffee saturates work pants.  :~)

Stan:  I got my high voltage scars when I was 15 years old and they used to look like that. Sure did mess up my finger prints.

The good news is that, after fifty three years, then tend to blend in.  Something to look forward to, I guess.......

I guess we're both right handed, too.

Gordon Nichols posted:

Stan:  I got my high voltage scars when I was 15 years old and they used to look like that. Sure did mess up my finger prints.

The good news is that, after fifty three years, then tend to blend in.  Something to look forward to, I guess.......

I guess we're both right handed, too.

Mine are from 1990 and on my left thumb and index finger, so we’re about 29 years in. I think this is as good as it gets. It’s never bothered me, they’re just “character”. 

This one from 10 years later is the one that makes me want to gnaw off my finger every winter. It doesn’t look like much, but I ran it through a belt and pulley arrangement (running a toothed  V-belt). The belt took the inside of my right index finger all the way to the bone. There was vascular, tissue, nerve, and tendon damage. I have no idea how the bone survived.

The plastic surgeon really just want to amputate, but I would not let him. I sort of wish I had. Every time the temperature is below 20°, it feels like that finger is in a vice. It takes about five minutes of working out every morning to get it to bend.

As somebody said yesterday, “if I had known I was going to live this long, I would’ve taken better care of myself.“

Eew!   Ew.  Ew.  Ew.  Ew.......Ewwwwww!

Makes my skin crawl.

Hey, by the way.....   This motor hid that big, honkin, electrolytic capacitor under a rounded hood/cover on the side of the motor (that’s pretty common on a lot of motors).  Once I deleted the cap, I used that cover to hold a switch that I had in the junk box.  It’s not a momentary switch (that would be ideal) but it works nonetheless.  

Still trying to come up with a classy enclosure that doesn’t take up much bench space, but the day is young yet.  And maybe the “Industrial Look” of just the bare motor housing would look cool, too.  We’ll see.......  But this thing is a lot of fun already.

Another “By the Way”, for any of you thinking of making one like it - DO NOT WEAR A WRIST WATCH WHEN USING THIS MAG/DEMAGGER!!    This tool generates a strong magnetic field and I don’t know if it will mess up either a mechanical or electronic wristwatch.  I no longer wear a watch daily and am not about to sacrifice one, but most jewelers have something similar called a “watch degausser” - I’ll research what they do with them and let you all know.

I witnessed a high voltage electrical arc flash burn on a job site a few years ago....not pretty from a guy who should have known better. Closed the whole job site for weeks and he was lucky to live.

WNGD posted:

I witnessed a high voltage electrical arc flash burn on a job site a few years ago....not pretty from a guy who should have known better. Closed the whole job site for weeks and he was lucky to live.

I’m sure every one of us who has done something we shouldn’t have done, should have known better. 

Heck, I’m STILL doing dumb stuff!

Wondering if the magnetizer will affect a smart phone. Seems like it'd be good practice to keep those away too no?

Also: modern car key fobs with the remote keyless entry thingy? Any concerns there?

What I want to know if you build one big enough will it take you back in time? 

1977 or so...

My wife keeps asking that same thing!  "You're like "Doc Brown!" she says.

I just need a few more motors and then it's back to 1977.  

Hmmmmmm...... Why 1977, Schu?   Wanna re-live ABBA and KC and the Sunshine Band?

Ed:  No effect on my Smaht Phone (even when I was taking a photo up close when it was turned on) or my Nissan keyless fob (didn't expect anything, really).   And it doesn't yank my pocket knife outa my pocket or the metal fillings from my teeth.  

Also, using my Boy Scout Compass as a guide, it seems that the magnetic field is concentrated mostly within the motor housing without much of a residual field beyond 3" - 4" because the housing itself acts as a shield.  Kinda like an MRI scanner - BIG honkin' field within the scanner donut, not so much over at the technician's desk three feet away.  Your pace-maker, nose ring and body piercings are probably safe.  

Photos of the final product at eleven......  And looking for more motors, maybe slightly smaller this time, to turn into presents.

The Grand Unveiling!  

First, the "Walk-Around":

And now, the Demo:

Pretty cool.......  And portable, too!

Hmm... maybe you could throw all the nuts and bolts for a project into that thing before you start.

Then, they'd stick to any wrench or screw driver.

I would be afraid that I’d chuck them all in there, hit the switch and they’d all go back to 1977.

I think I'm qualified to join this show-and-tell conversation and can confirm RobertM and Gordon's comments on "doing dumb stuff". Although mine was not the result of an electical mishap, I think my resultant "short" allows me into this thtead.

Welcome, Edward! Were fireworks involved?

Yeah, or maybe you could meet my old neighbor, 8-fingered Bob, who lost a couple of fingers in his snow blower.

What was that Forest Gump Quote?

My insurance agent lost 3 in his snow blower. He responsibly shut it down before reaching in to free a snow clog. Unfortunately he didn't take the cylinder compression into consideration.

Mine happened - not with fireworks (those came immediately after) - but when my cotton work glove communed with the chuck of my high torque Milwaukee. (The dumb part - one of them anyway - why was I wearing gloves in the first place! It was cold is not a good answer.) I drove a stick shift single-handed to the ER clutching my separated finger in my fist. ER thought it best to just sew the stump closed but suggested that Mass General might be able to reattach. As I was getting onto Life Flight the ceiling went below minimums and the high speed ferry (1 hour) was just leaving. Miraculously and extraordinarily a call from the pilot resulted in them waiting for me, my accompanying nurse and my finger on ice in an insulated carrier. We were met by an ambulance that made it from Hyannis to MGH in 58 minutes where 3 surgeons consulted and decided to sew up the stump! Gee, where did we hear that before? 😀

Shoot......I just wrecked my wrist a coupla weeks ago with a high-torque, 1/2” drive electric drill.  The drill bit caught and stopped spinning so the drill housing spun instead, twisting my wrist un-naturally.  Ouch.  Didn’t even see that one coming.  

When I was young, several of my friends and relatives (all male) lost fingers to table saws.  I figured it was because the piece you’re sawing covers the blade so you don’t necessarily see that the blade’s about to cut your thumb off as you’re pushing it through.  I decided to build my house, instead, with a brand-new Radial Arm Saw, bought on sale from Sears and loaded into my Pinto wagon to get it home.  This was because the motor and blade are on top of the workpiece where you can easily see it and give it lots of room (and respect).  

Not only did I finish the house with it, I bought a molding cutter accessory for it, too, to make lots of custom moldings for all sorts of projects (like a custom, chestnut bannister to the upstairs).  THAT thing could grab the piece you were working on and spit it out the other end at 120 mph and with enough force to put a few dings into the concrete wall of my cellar!   I was always grateful that, for whatever reason, I was never standing right in front of the output end of that thing - it might have killed me or I might have had a piece of molding as part of my chest.  

It wasn’t until I sold my home, 30 years later and after countless, successful home projects, that I found out that radial arm saws are even more dangerous than table saws.  Nobody would buy it, so I sold it for scrap metal (with more than a few tears shed for an old friend).  I think, though, that if I give the tool its’ proper respect and a certain amount of fear, we’ll both survive the encounter.  At least we have so far (and my current saw is a table saw (minus the OSHA safety shield! )).

I’ve had the chance to “shake hands” with electricity a few times over the years.  Few things bring me that level of awareness.  I have yet to lose an appendage, but I’ve had my fair share of excitement!

GORDON NICHOLS: That is one of the coolest things I’ve seen.  I can’t count the number of times I’ve dropped one lonely nut, bolt, screw, or washer never to be seen again.  Admittedly I’ve only dropped ONE into a cylinder via an intake manifold...that changed the entire project time line!  It is possible learn...

The magnetizer/demagnitizer is really easy to make, using just about any 110 volt AC motor from a hair dryer or power drill up to a washing machine motor.  (Notice how I got back to the original thread?)  

All you need is a motor with an armature (rotor) with a large enough diameter to allow easy access for the tool to be magnetized.  Literally, anything from 1/2” to 3” is fine, although smaller is better and larger motors will give you a weaker “charge”.  I used a discarded motor from an old oil burner so look around and see what’s kicking around you house (or your neighbor’s) and use that.  Direct Current is better, of course, but MUCH harder (and more expensive) to implement as you’ll need a full-wave rectified power supply of 110 volts or so, requiring additional parts, so stick with the simple, AC version - for what we want from it, it works just as well.  You’ll never know how much you’ve missed this tool until you have one.

And PM me if you have any questions.  I’ll be happy to help!