Wanted: Dead Hard Drives

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Captain

Wanted older dead hard drives, any size.
my son is looking for the magnets from these drives
for a school wind generator project, if anyone has any dead drives
laying around and willing to donate them, please let me know.

thank's.
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Captain said:
Wanted older dead hard drives, any size.
my son is looking for the magnets from these drives
for a school wind generator project, if anyone has any dead drives
laying around and willing to donate them, please let me know.

thank's.
remove NOSPAM to reply
Click to expand...

I've got one you can have, but the postage might cost more than it's worth?

Louis--
*********************************************
Remove the two fish in address to respond
 
Captain said:
Wanted older dead hard drives, any size.
my son is looking for the magnets from these drives
for a school wind generator project, if anyone has any dead drives
laying around and willing to donate them, please let me know.

thank's.
remove NOSPAM to reply
Click to expand...

You know, if I were cynical, I'd say you were fishing for
personal information from off those hard disks. In any event,
the magnets in a hard disk drive aren't very strong, and your
son can get a lot more effective magnets elsewhere.

*TimDaniels*
 
You know, if I were cynical, I'd say you were fishing for
personal information from off those hard disks. In any event,
the magnets in a hard disk drive aren't very strong, and your
son can get a lot more effective magnets elsewhere.
Click to expand...

The magnets are very strong actually.

But it would be a lot cheaper to just order a bag of magnets of the
same kind from some place like Edmund's Scientific than ship a bunch
of harddrives.
 
Michael Cecil said:
The magnets are very strong actually.
Click to expand...

Strong enough to change the magnetic field in a
microscopic flake of iron oxide a microscopic
distance away, but would you really use the write
head of a hard disk drive to generate power from
the wind? I would use an automotive alternator.
They're cheap, low tech, readily available, and
they've been proven to do the job. But then,
alternator's don't have financial data on them.

*TimDaniels*
 
You know, if I were cynical, I'd say you were fishing for
personal information from off those hard disks. In any event,
the magnets in a hard disk drive aren't very strong, and your
son can get a lot more effective magnets elsewhere.

*TimDaniels*
Click to expand...

Obviously you have never taken a magnet out of a hard drive. These
magnets are the strongest there are. I was amazed at their strength
the 1st time I removed a few.
 
Strong enough to change the magnetic field in a
microscopic flake of iron oxide a microscopic
distance away, but would you really use the write
head of a hard disk drive to generate power from
the wind? I would use an automotive alternator.
They're cheap, low tech, readily available, and
they've been proven to do the job. But then,
alternator's don't have financial data on them.

*TimDaniels*
Click to expand...

The magnets have nothing to do with the write head. They are used to
move the heads along with the voice coil winding. Take a drive apart
and you will see how it works. Also, try looking up rare-earth
magnets. These magnets are so strong that they can cause a lesser
magnet (ferrite type) to reverse it's field. I have done this myself
with a magnet from a hard drive. It totally wrecked a small ferrite
magnet that was brought in close contact in only 30 seconds. The
ferrite magnet was from a small electric motor.
 
Strong enough to change the magnetic field in a
microscopic flake of iron oxide a microscopic
distance away, but would you really use the write
head of a hard disk drive to generate power from
the wind? I would use an automotive alternator.
They're cheap, low tech, readily available, and
they've been proven to do the job. But then,
alternator's don't have financial data on them.
Click to expand...

Does all your "learning" come from books? Have you never taken any
hard drives apart? You really ought not post responses when you
haven't got a clue what you're talking about.
 
The Society for Amateur Science, sas.org, has a document somewhere on dumpster diving
for all sorts of electronic parts, including magnets. Aside from HDs, another good
source is old microwaves. I tried a few appliance stores and found they scrap old MWs
about as fast as they get them. I also found they sell these magnets, but, when I
checked their strength, I was not impressed. From what I've observed so far, you're
better off getting magnets from places like <http://www.dowlingmagnets.com/>. If you
want a few more such sources, I can post them. Try Google on "SAS dumpster diving" or
some other set of key words. I think you may be able to search their bulletin archives.
Obviously you have never taken a magnet out of a hard drive. These
magnets are the strongest there are. I was amazed at their strength
the 1st time I removed a few.
Click to expand...


--
Wayne T. Watson (121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N, 2,701 feet, Nevada City, CA)
-- GMT-8 hr std. time, RJ Rcvr 39° 8' 0" N, 121° 1' 0" W

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are,
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky."
-- Jane Taylor, Rhymes for the Nursery (1806)

Web Page: <home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews>
sierra_mtnview -at- earthlink -dot- net
Imaginarium Museum: <home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews/imaginarium.html>
 
Not cynical at all. Just paying attention. When people deliberately
pull at my heart strings is when I'm on the highest alert.
 
The magnets have nothing to do with the write head. They are used to
move the heads along with the voice coil winding. Take a drive apart
and you will see how it works. Also, try looking up rare-earth
magnets. These magnets are so strong that they can cause a lesser
magnet (ferrite type) to reverse it's field. I have done this myself
with a magnet from a hard drive. It totally wrecked a small ferrite
magnet that was brought in close contact in only 30 seconds. The
ferrite magnet was from a small electric motor.
Click to expand...


I've dissasembled disk drives as they have failed in my shop and they
all have extremely powerful fixed magnets that form a linear moter to
move the heads. These magnets form a closed loop to most of the
field which is contained within the motor. (Think of a horsehoe magnet with
a "keeper bar" over the ends of the horseshoe. Most of the field is
contained within the metal, as a magnetic circuit)

Pry these magnets apart and the field is exsposed. These magnets have
been so powerfull that one (about 2 sq inches) when stuck to a metal
desk could only be removed by sliding it sideways, over the edge. I once
got a nasty blister when a bit of my findure got between a magnet
and the iron it was trying hard to attach to.

The reason why these powerfull permenant magnets can coexits within an
inch of the heads and surface where the data is stored is the topic of
a good high school level AP phycics class. Part of it is that, as
strong as the perm magnets are, the force necessary to flip a bit on
the platter is higher, by orders of magnitude.

Another good source of PMs is in dead television sets (the CRT kind).
There is a powerfull ring of magnets around the neck of the CRT. Look
up TV repair shops in the phone book and ask them if you can get some
magnets.

KIDS; OLD TVs ARE DANGEROUS AND CAN GIVE YOU A SHOCK THAT CAN KILL
YOU, EVEN AFTER THAY HAVE BEEN UNPLUGGED FOR A LONG TIME. GET
THE HELP OF SOMEONE THAT KNOWS WHAT TO DO.
 
crypto said:
Obviously you have never taken a magnet out of a hard drive.
These magnets are the strongest there are. I was amazed at
their strength the 1st time I removed a few.
Click to expand...


Great. Send the guy your hard drive.

*TimDaniels*
 
crypto said:
The magnets have nothing to do with the write head.
They are used to move the heads along with the voice
coil winding.
Click to expand...

Great. Just the thing to generate power.

*TimDaniels*
 
Michael Cecil said:
Does all your "learning" come from books? Have
you never taken any hard drives apart? You really
ought not post responses when you haven't got a
clue what you're talking about.
Click to expand...


If you'd rather not read what I write, filter out my
postings. And now you can send the guy your old
hard drive with all your financial information on it.

*TimDaniels*
 
No. In TV, it's just ferrite core (of deflection coils) which is not a
magnet. There are a few small ferrite magnets on the yoke, for picture
correction and beam convergence. They are weak.
 
If you'd rather not read what I write, filter out my
postings. And now you can send the guy your old
hard drive with all your financial information on it.
Click to expand...

And what about the hapless newbies that you mislead? How will they
know your post are in error without knowledgable posters to counter
your comments? Why do you post if not to help others? Just to "hear"
yourself speak? If you don't know anything about a subject, you could
just remain quiet and wait until someone asks something you do know
about.
 
Michael Cecil said:
And what about the hapless newbies that you mislead? How will they
know your post are in error without knowledgable posters to counter
your comments? Why do you post if not to help others? Just to "hear"
yourself speak? If you don't know anything about a subject, you could
just remain quiet and wait until someone asks something you do know
about.
Click to expand...


Oh miserable is the lot of the hapless Newbie, led astray to think that
he can't gererate power with an old hard drive. Tell it like it is, Cecil,
tell him he *can* generate power with an old hard drive - *your* hard
drive - and send him *your* hard drive so that everyone can see that it's
perfectly safe to send their old hard drives to strangers on the Internet
who ask for them. Pull those hapless Newbies back to the Light, Cecil!
Don't let them be infected by any notion of caution foisted upon their
soft pink little bodies by Uncle Timothy. [hee hee] :-)

*TimDaniels*
 
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