Radio Shack's Rare Earth Magnets for Uncoupling! NScale

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
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I did some experimenting with Radio Shacks Rare earth magnets today. These little Jewels are Awesome.

Blog entries here:

Radio Shack’s Rare Earth Magnets for Uncoupling Part 1 http://texasts1-160scale.blogspot.com/2006/01/radio-shacks-rare-earth-magnets-part.html

Radio Shack’s Rare Earth Magnets for Uncoupling Part 2
http://texasts1-160scale.blogspot.com/2006/01/radio-shacks-rare-earth-magnets-part_15.html/

Check it out!

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cool and like the pic

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cool and like the pic.

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Your uncoupling magnet testing is very informative. However, when I clicked on the Radio Shack’s Rare Earth Magnets for Uncoupling Part 2 link http://texasts1-160scale.blogspot.com/2006/01/radio-shacks-rare-earth-magnets-part_15.html/

I got a “NOT FOUND” message. Could You update the link? I am anxious to learn about Part 2…

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Try
http://texasts1-160scale.blogspot.com/2006/01/radio-shacks-rare-earth-magnets-part_15.html

just remove the “/” after the .html

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As usual, Radio Shack charges a high premium for these items, at 2 for $ 1.89

You can do a lot better than that. Check out the Super Magnet Man at http://www.engconcepts.net In particular, he has 3mm disc magnets in various thicknesses at about $ 0.06 each, in lots of 100 (part no. D1004 and D1007, among others) http://www.engconcepts.net/List_Of_Disc_Magnets.asp In fact, you can get disc magnets in 1mm diameters from the same source, at about the same price. This is one of the best places to go for magnets of many kinds. Another good source is Forcefield’s site at http://www.wondermagnet.com/

But if you’re going to buy any of the larger items available at these sites, by SURE to read this page on safety issues http://www.wondermagnets.com/disclaimer.html These things are STRONG and can snap together with such force that they’ll injure you. They are also somewhat brittle, and can shatter from the force of snapping together, sending small bits flying.

-Ed

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Excellent info, Ed.

I have a follow up question for you and anyone else that has used these discs successfully on your layouts. What sizes should I be looking at n scale code 80? From what I can tell, a 3-7 mm diameter is still going to force me to cut a tie, and the maximum thickness should not exceed 1.75 mm if I want to avoid digging into roadbed.

So my thoughts are, based on this selection, http://www.engconcepts.net/List_Of_Disc_Magnets.asp:

3.5mm diameter x 1.75mm thick.

4mm diameter x 1.5mm thick.

5mm diameter x 1.5mm thick.

I’m not overly concerned about appearance as much as reliability, so a bigger size is an option if the magnetic power is substantially greater.

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bump.