Doug writes in to tell us how he’s using magnets to clean his earphones:

Good earphones are expensive and easily incapacitated by picking up fine particles of iron or rust. The magnetic debris is attracted to the annular airgap and pulls the fine plastic diaphragm home (“poling”). The earphone still works but with lower efficiency and higher distortion. A decent size rare earth magnet can pull the stuff away, but you need to interpose a non-magnetic washer (aluminium sheet with a suitable hole is ideal) between earbud and magnet to stop them getting too intimate. It’s easiest and safest to fix the magnet to the bench and use the ‘washer’ to lower and raise the earbud.

Great idea! We’ve all got plenty of pairs of earphones sitting around the house, but have never thought to clean them rather than replacing them with a new set. Give this a shot and you might give your earphones a new lease of life.

Doug has been using 15mm x 30mm magnets (no longer stocked), but in theory you should be able to achieve the same result with any strong rare earth magnet.

Aussie Magnets customers are using 8mm x 5mm Rare Earth Disc’s to hold photographs to the wall. Combined with blue-tack and a washer they’re a great combination to decorate your home, or to take a portfolio show on the road.

Here’s an interesting Nobel Prize result.

#050: Quattro is Magnetic

Audi needed a novel idea to advertise their Quattro four-wheel-drive system, so they turned to magnets. Nothing sticks like a magnet!

Vincero Design has used magnets to create a water bottle cage for cyclists. Where weight is a primary consideration, the magnetic holder reduces the weight of the cage to only 16 grams.

Check it out at GearJunkie.

Here’s a beautiful magnetic art installation from an Aussie Magnets customer. 

#047: Valentine’s Heart Magnets

bowesandties:

Heart Magnets, for Valentines Day

We’re keeping this in mind for next year - if only we’d found it sooner.

afterrains:

magnetic poetry

photojojo:

This looks like a CGI image, but it’s not.

It’s a macro photograph of ferrofluid (magnetic fluid) being pulled by magnets! (That’s where the cool looking spikes come from.)

Photo by Linden Gledhill

Woodford Design have combined our three favourite things (the iPad, our refrigerator, and magnets) to produce the FridgePad - perhaps the ultimate fridge magnet? FridgePad is an iPad case with sturdy rare earth magnets embedded in the back, allowing you to attach your magical and revolutionary device to the fridge, right alongside take-away menus, ignored notices and pictures from kindergarten. Wonderful.

Who said magnets couldn’t be magical?

Cisco’s WebEx.com design team came up with a creative method to brainstorm and share their designs - magnetic walls:

They painted the long wall with several coast of magnetic paint, covered it with a coat of color to match the other walls, let it dry, and then posted designs all over on the wall using small magnets.When a design is declared complete, they can quickly move it to the end of the wall without having to deal with tape or pins.

Via Martin Hardee and Cisco

Magnetic paint used to be readily available, but sadly we haven’t been able to source it easily for some time now. That’s a real shame, as we think everybody should have at least one magnetic wall - they’re incredibly social and so much fun!

Lots of Aussie Magnets customers come to us with plans to build wind turbines, but very rarely do we get to see one that’s actually functional. When Maurice emailed us with pictures (and video) of his working wind-turbine, we were thrilled. He took an old ceiling fan, some coils, some glue, some magnets and lots of ingenuity and created a working turbine:

The turbine was producing up to 35 volts AC with only one coil assembly wired in. Further developments will include connecting both coil assemblies to bridge rectifiers to produce Direct Current (DC) that will be used to charge up about three deep cell batteries to use as a off grid backup and to run a couple of motors through a 240 volt AC inverter. Adding an extra run of magnets in the spaces between the current magnets will increase the output from the turbine and having the bridge rectifiers in series or parallel changes the volts to amps ratios. More experimenting will produce improved results and the aerodynamic design of the blades is important to reduce any noise.

Maurice, Aussie Magnets customer

Genius! And it’s not just experimental either - Maurice is producing usable power that could make a real difference to his electricity bills.

Check back tomorrow for a brief video of the turbine in action.

Thanks, Maurice! Your gift is on the way.

Researchers at the University of California have been using magnets to influence which hand volunteers choose in everyday situations:

According to the scientists, the magnet generates a magnetic field on a small part of the skull which creates weak electric currents in the brain. The currents interfere with nearby brain cells and prevent them from firing normally.

…

When the magnet was placed on the left side of the brain region, the volunteers used their left hand more frequently than when the magnet was switched off.

We’re getting ever-closer to magnetic mind control, and we can’t wait!

Here are some more photos of Greg’s uses for magnets, showing how he uses magnets as extra-hands and how he keeps his tools in order.

Greg has found a whole series of uses for magnets in his workshop. As a busy engineer running, he’s always in need of an extra pair of hands, which is where Aussie Magnets comes in!

What I use them for is in my workshop for holding down plans, tools and equipment. Also, they make use as another set of hands while welding, making sure that the heat isn’t conducted into the magnets. Uses are too numerous too list, thank you!!

Greg, Aussie Magnets customer

Greg’s mostly using our 20mm x 10mm Rare Earth Discs, but we can see a few Pot Magnets kicking around in the photos. He also mentions using magnets for “pulse counting and pulse generation” in programmable ignitions, something we’d love to hear more about.

Thanks, Greg! Your free magnetic gift is in the post.