How Strong Is That Magnet?

Prototype, testing, prototype, testing, prototype!

We are ready to help you choose the right magnet for your application, however a good majority of the time you are going to have to do testing. At Aussie Magnets we will do our best to assist you when you send your email enquiries (the more information to us the better). We will then guide you in the right direction but remember, testing on your product is going to give you the best results as there can be many variables that come up. Suggest you order a few magnets of different sizes and experiment with them. There’s no minimum order with us!

If you are ordering just a few magnets for testing purposes, make your shipping dollars count and order a few different sizes. Nothing beats having these magnets in your hands to see what they’re capable of. They are good fun! Our Rare Earth sample packs (available in Small and Medium sizes) are great value, and a good way to have a number of different sizes and shapes on-hand.

We do get a lot of questions asking how much weight a magnet will hold. We provide an ‘approx pull strength’ for all magnets in our catalogue, but the answer is usually much more complicated than that!

Testing Magnet to Steel Plate

The most basic case is a single magnet stuck to a steel plate. We use a thick, solid steel plate approximately 3mm thick machined to be nearly perfectly flat. It is larger than the magnet being tested. A pull force gauge measures the force required to pull the magnet away from the steel plate.

By putting the magnet onto the 3mm mild steel flat plate hang weights from it until it lets go, this will give you the ‘pull strength’. Or email us and we will do it for you. All part of the service.

Distance Matters

The distance between your magnet and what it’s sticking to can make a big difference to the pull force. For example, a magnet with direct contact to a steel plate has a stronger attraction than that of a magnet that has 10 pieces of paper between the magnet and the steel plate. The force drops.