paulr

Meaning you shouldn't have a magnet millimetres away from the hard drive. Its a 120gb ipod classic and i have just bought a leather case with a magnetic catch.

yoza

Guys in work are always destroying Ipods/watches/phones next to spotwelding equipment, they churn out extremely high magnetic fields enough to pull fingers off cheap watches.

So yes, magnetic fields **** Ipods.

paulr

Anyone any experience of this.

Fuzz

Didn't have my iPod when I was a full time welder, however the toy one I now use occasionally has yet to destroy it.

paulr

Its a magentic catch on the case, i'm not on about putting 10,000 volts through it ,)

Fuzz

Sweet F all to do with voltage.. the windings inside a welder are powerful enough to create an electromagnetic field around it / the surrounding area.

You should see all the iron fillings on the workshop floor dance about when I used to be banging out 500 amp weld beads

JonMc

iTrader: (51)

TBH mate mine has been in a case with a magnetic catch for a year with no problems.

Also, if you use them in a speaker dock, the speaker's magnets never seem to cause any problems. I expect they are well enough protected against these sorts of low level magnetic fields.

paulr

Good point.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Lol

So, in other words, it's probably OK unless the catch is so strong you can pull watches apart with it... in which case I'd be more worried about my credit cards.

[You don't have a cardiac pacemaker, do you?]

beal

iTrader: (1)

I fitted a magnetic srip to my stereo in the car and 2 manets on my ipod plastic case(not strong magnets)is that no good then???

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Should be ok...I suspect hard drives have better shielding than one initially may think (even if its on a thin metal plate cover). My pc is next to a 100watt unshielded speaker

Also used magnetic screwdrivers when building PCs (before my brain engages and say "hello!?! magnetic screwdriver...hard drive...do you want to corrupt it you feejit! ).

Also unwittingly put a few PCs in the boot of my car...which at the time had two subs and two 6x9 speaker in there with foofin' huge magnets. Nothing came of it.

Whilst on the subject of hard drive durability, my hard drive based Archos has took a few mid-air journeys across the interior of my car whilst in operation, again with no consequence, barring it looking a bit worse for wear aesthetically. So I'd say these precision made delicate engineering works of art are actually alot tougher than one would intitally think.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

It's nothing to do with shielding, the surface of a hard disc needs a very strong magnetic field to change the data on it. That's one reason why data bits can be so small and yet retain their polarisation when adjacent bits are written.

In other words, they're just not that sensitive - but keep a backup anyway!

yoza

Headphones and mobile phones earpieces die on the first weld, if they are in close proximity to the Federal, as they are small magnets themselves.

So a whopping magnetic pulse kills them dead and they just buzz.

If you use a British Federal spot welder with loose change or keys in your pocket, you stick to the machine.

Certain " leaders in the field " have linked large magnetic pulses to testicular cancer, which is a bit more worrying than messing my Ipod up.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

<pedant>
Actually they most likely die because of huge induced currents - the welder is effectively the primary of a transformer, with the wires in the phone or earpiece as the secondary.
</pedant>

Much more amusing things can happen to coins if you can manage a suitably large electromagnetic field. Check out the electromagnetic coin shrinker!

The very reason I keep my mobile phone on a belt pouch rather than in a deep jeans pocket...