No, but you do, and I like this ob-jay-dar
A common public toilet till machine has a keyhole that looks like a coin slot. Turns out, HDD magnets are the perfect shape to fish out any coins mistakenly thrown in there.
Public toilet till machines - we don’t have that in the US. Can you show a example - potentially even fishing out some coins? Super curious!
Here is a datasheet of one / photo. I don’t have the video of me fishing coins, I probably deleted it because it was unwatchable (it’s hard to fish coins while filming covertly!) but about 5 coins fit into the space behind the keyhole before they start being visible. The front panel is non-magnetic, unlike CZK coins, and the sound of fishing them out is very similar to throwing them in, so there is little suspicion unless you are at the wrong-gender toilet. Unfortunately, 10 CZK coins take effort to jam into the slot, so almost only coins up to 5 CZK ($0.25) get accidentally thrown in. Still, pays for my bus home.
Incredible! Thanks for sharing this. I now need to keep a look out when I visit Europe to see if I can attempt this.
They are also used as parking ticket machines (in Europe we don’t have parking meters, you buy a ticket and display it on the dashboard, or in some places get a virtual ticket for your license plate). I don’t think the company exports these outside the Czech Republic, and Euro coins are not magnetic. So I’m afraid you’ll have to find another magnet-related exploit (maybe this)?
Thought it was just me. Used to have at least twice this many in my old office:
Wow it looks like a light sweeper
That’s rad, and you did an amazing job keeping them whole. Recently I have been wrapping them in cloth, then the kids form clay around them for various fridge and office magnets.
That’s a good idea. Yeah, the trick I discovered in getting them off the mounting bracket without the chrome plating peeling is to grab each end of the bracket with vice grips and/or pliers (after you unscrew it from the drive) and just bend it down and away from the magnet. They usually come off in one piece that way, too.
Cool, I’ll try this next time. So far the least damaging way I’ve tried is putting the thing in hot water. The magnet and the base expand by different amounts and it is relatively easy to pry the magnet off. But the thing cools down quickly so it takes a few tries.
I’ve done some of that, recently I have an old putty knife and I will put it right against the crack and just hammer it which will unstick it enough that I can pull it off. Newer drives definitely have weaker magnets than some of my much older ones.
I’m much more interested in your kit in the background.
That is a self-made soldering kit box I made when I was in college and had to haul it around a lot. I have actually been meeting to replace it with something more permanent now that I’m a grown up with my own house. I have an air flow soldering rig which doesn’t really have a home, and I could have a much better use of space. I have my brocade ICX6610-24 next to that which I’ve been programming for way too long, and a whole bunch of 3D printer parts on top of that.
That kit box would actually be perfect for my needs as this is a hobby I only visit occasionally or when needed. It would be great to have something I can easily store.
No but now I know what to do with my old hard drive that failed :)
I don’t want to ruin your fun, but the last time I saw a post like this on reddit, the top comment was: “Don’t open hard drives. They contain micro particles from wear and tear, that are as dangerous as asbestos.”
If your hard drive has dust it would’ve failed a long time ago. They are designed to be extremely clean. The head is like a 747 flying an inch above the ground. It sounds like an urban myth to scare people.
I did a quick bit of research on this, and I wasn’t really able to find anything to corroborate this. I’d be interested to know if there is a proper source to this though
Edit: there can be some concern for those metal particles, although this is no different for any metal dust by the looks of things https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/do-old-hard-drives-contain-toxic-materials.1623183/#post-11646780
Unfortunately, I don’t have a proper source. When I saw this post, the warning from reddit came to my mind and from the answers here I was surprised how many people open drives.
I assume, it is per hard drive such a negligible amount, that it could theoretically matter over a long time if you open a lot but that there is probably not a single medical proven case and the warning from reddit was overly cautious.
Edit: I found the post and comment. The issue mentioned was the cobalt. https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/17il3i3/comment/k6veo9c/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Edit2: I went and searched a bit. This meta-analysis says they found no increased cancer risk for exposure to cobalt particles. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273230021001288
Hey, I just want to say you’re a real one for actually coming back with the Reddit comment and even a source essentially debunking what you said. This is why I love Lemmy, thank you.
The posting essentially says there is no risk than tosses out mercury and lead vapors which don’t exist in a HDD. Then it talks about the lead in solder. You’d have to vigorously rub and handle the solder on circuit boards to get any amount on your skin worth worrying about and then you just wash your hands. That risk is true of all boards that don’t use low or lead free solder. The whole comment is very hypothetical.
I have never seen any dust or particles, they are pristine looking inside and no film or anything when touching internals. But I did some checking, drives have an air filter to catch wear particles to preserve clean head to disc contact, so those micro particles are hopefully trapped in the filter, and the risk is super low because of the tiny amount available, compared to clouds of asbestos dust in a home reno.
If they were remotely any threat to human population it would of been banned.
New Lemmy Post: Does anyone else harvest the magnets and platters from old drives as a monument to selfhosting history? (https://lemmy.world/post/11297090)
Tagging: #SelfHosted(Replying in the OP of this thread (NOT THIS BOT!) will appear as a comment in the lemmy discussion.)
I am a FOSS bot. Check my README: https://github.com/db0/lemmy-tagginator/blob/main/README.md
I use them as coffee mats…
I do that with save icons!
The 3.5s make for excellent coasters lol
How do you keep them from sticking onto cups
Good question, but I’ve not had that issue so far
I typically use yeti ramblers with a metal bases on them, though I’ve set ceramic mugs down on them too and they’ve not stuck. might depend on the drink a little?
Oh it’s probably vacuum sealed then so it doesn’t condensate
Maybe but I do spill a bit every now and then. Can’t speak for the regular ceramic mugs, though that’s a bit of a rarity and they just have herbal tea
There’s some really fun chemistry in the rare-earth magnets - I used to buy them in bulk to enlarge my own IT-workshop collection, which was mostly broken down for Nd salts. Also, the magnets from iMac screens were also plentiful when HDD magnets got small (and then went extinct).
I used to collect AOL cds. I had a stack a few feet high. I was going to make some sort of artwork out of them.
There’s always exactly one screw that won’t let go and I end up stripping it beyond hope, so I rarely get the platters out. I only want (need!) the magnets anyway!
Drill it
Back in the day I bought a fridge freezer combo, second hand, no handles. Used to be a built in model. As handles I used two magnets from full height drives, they were ludicrously strong and shaped like a little bit like a handle.
Full height drives were 3.25" high for those who are wondering.
I use the old disks as costers
I will keep the magnets if I ever get into this in the future, but not the platters. I’ll just safely destroy them and dispose of them.
So far I only had 3 laptops and no desktops. I had 0 HDD failures, since I only ever had 3 of them so far.
The oldest one is more than 17 years old 80GB 2.5" Fujitsu HDD.Back in the day, I’d go through HDDs faster than systems-always needed to add storage before I could replace the CPU. I didn’t start disassembling them until they got up to the 500 _M_B range, but you’d often get 3 platters back then. OP must be harvesting from a whole workgroup - I’ve only got a 3cm stack and 7 drives waiting for the screwdriver.
The magnets are fantastic for tool mounts since they’re so strong
Every time, without fail, though I haven’t decided what I want to do with them yet.
