DIY encapsulated magnets!

[19Mateo83]

In my quest to find affordable encapsulated magnets, I had a light bulb moment. Coin size neodymium magnets and acrylic coin holders. For this project you will need weld on 3 or 4 and these items from Amazon.

I just happened to have Weldon 3 on hand.

The idea here is to put the magnet in the holder like you would a coin and solvent weld the cases onto them. Like so. The coin holders come with foam inserts that fit the magnet perfectly .

The trick is leaving a tiny crack between the halves for the solvent to run into.

Once welded squeeze to insure a good weld.

And just like that you have encapsulated magnets. I will let these cure out for 24 hours then I will water test them. I chose epoxy coated magnets for redundancy but I like the idea of acrylic encapsulated better. I will report back in a couple days on how the welds did.

 

[blaxsun]

Sweet!

 

[vandy]

How’d it work?

 

[ronnie]

This is a lot cleaner than me using my food sealer to shrink wrap my Nero 3 magnet so I could put it on the back wall of my AIO and not worry about rusting. Well done!

 

[Flameback Pair]

In my quest to find affordable encapsulated magnets, I had a light bulb moment. Coin size neodymium magnets and acrylic coin holders. For this project you will need weld on 3 or 4 and these items from Amazon.

I just happened to have Weldon 3 on hand.

The idea here is to put the magnet in the holder like you would a coin and solvent weld the cases onto them. Like so. The coin holders come with foam inserts that fit the magnet perfectly .

The trick is leaving a tiny crack between the halves for the solvent to run into.

Once welded squeeze to insure a good weld.

And just like that you have encapsulated magnets. I will let these cure out for 24 hours then I will water test them. I chose epoxy coated magnets for redundancy but I like the idea of acrylic encapsulated better. I will report back in a couple days on how the welds did.

@19Mateo83 at some point you may save me a lot of money. Just don’t know how much more bells and whistles I’ll do. Trying to shift to plug-and-play but this looks like a lot of fun. May get a 3D printer at some point.

 

[19Mateo83]

How’d it work?

Ive been lazy and they are still sitting dry. I just threw them in a bucket, I’ll report back tomorrow with results.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Neat idea!

 

[19Mateo83]

@vandy @powers2001 SUCCESS!!! after a 24 hour soak at the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket all 6 magnets were bone dry inside. The ones with bubbles inside were where excess solvent got inside them during the welding process.

Cost breakdown
32 pack of coin holders - $15 on amazon ($.46/ea)
12 pack of magnets - $16 on amazon ($1.33/ea)
Cost of each encapsulated magnet - $1.79/ea, $3.58 a pair.
the price of the Weldon 3 was less than $5 for 4oz.

 

[burban94]

Can you give any info on strength for various tank wall thicknesses.

 

[vandy]

@vandy @powers2001 SUCCESS!!! after a 24 hour soak at the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket all 6 magnets were bone dry inside. The ones with bubbles inside were where excess solvent got inside them during the welding process.

Cost breakdown
32 pack of coin holders - $15 on amazon ($.46/ea)
12 pack of magnets - $16 on amazon ($1.33/ea)
Cost of each encapsulated magnet - $1.79/ea, $3.58 a pair.
the price of the Weldon 3 was less than $5 for 4oz.

Right on!! These turned out awesome. Definitely saving this idea for future projects

 

[G Santana]

This is something I have to try, thank you for tinkering!!!

 

[19Mateo83]

I have already put two to work . I’m planning on putting encrusting corals on them, that way they are movable and I can remove them to frag if needed.

 

[Derrick0580]

I made some of these based on this post and gotta say, complete disappointment! There’s no way a set of these will hold any weight at all, assuming they would even attract each other through 3/8 or thicker glass. Are you double stacking the magnets inside the capsules to have a better pull force?

 

[Gophish1982]

I made some of these based on this post and gotta say, complete disappointment! There’s no way a set of these will hold any weight at all, assuming they would even attract each other through 3/8 or thicker glass. Are you double stacking the magnets inside the capsules to have a better pull force?

The magnets really need to be stacked in order to get the hold you need to go through glass. They look big on Amazon, but they are pretty thin. Try looking for mini lip balm jars on Amazon. I tried making some encapsulated magnets by filing them with silicone and putting a magnet inside and closing it up. It didn’t work great. I had never worked with acrylic before so I had no idea what weld-on was, but now I may need to try it with these lip balm jars. I also bought some epoxy resin to experiment with.

 

[19Mateo83]

The magnets really need to be stacked in order to get the hold you need to go through glass. They look big on Amazon, but they are pretty thin. Try looking for mini lip balm jars on Amazon. I tried making some encapsulated magnets by filing them with silicone and putting a magnet inside and closing it up. It didn’t work great. I had never worked with acrylic before so I had no idea what weld-on was, but now I may need to try it with these lip balm jars. I also bought some epoxy resin to experiment with.

I ended up finding plastic encapsulated magnets on eBay that work way better than these. Live and learn. I now use the plastic encapsulated ones on the wet side and those thin ones on the dry side.

Pardon Our Interruption...

www.ebay.com