Ferrite magnets are used in applications where magnets can be, or need to be relatively large and the cost needs to be as low as possible.
Ferrite Magnets are easily identified by their dark graphite grey colour, they are very inert, they do not rust and do not require any protective plating. They have a reasonable resistance to demagnetisation and can operate at temperatures up to 180 degrees Celsius.
Ferrite magnets are used extensively for ‘holiday fridge magnets’, for large loudspeakers (particularly bass or subwoofers) and for magnetic conveyor systems where large areas underneath conveyor belts need to be magnetic, but must not be ferociously strong.
Ferrite magnets are considerably weaker than Neodymium magnets, but offer an excellent strength and depth of field when their size or volume becomes relatively large.
An example is a ferrite magnet 75mm x 50mm x20mm thick, two of these are quite difficult to pull apart, but their size makes them easy to get hold of and to handle. An identically sized neodymium magnet would have the potential to crush fingers and would be dangerous to handle and if these were used to make a magnetic conveyor bed, the conveyor would grind to a halt once a steel part landed on the magnetic bed because the attraction would be too excessive and the cost would be equally excessive.
When ferrite magnets are used with inexpensive steel poles, very high clamping forces can be generated.
For example, our F4MFE755020 is 75mm x 50mm x 20mm and has a maximum pull of 5 Kgs.
No matter how hard you try, it will not lift a steel weight heavier than 5 Kgs.
However, if 2 steel plates each 80mm x 60mm x 3mm are placed on either side of the magnet to make a steel / magnet / steel sandwich, then magnetism is concentrated on the 80 x 3mm edges of the poles and the pulling capacity of this magnet-steel assembly suddenly jumps to an incredible 50 Kgs!
High Performance clamping magnets can be constructed using cheap ferrite material and steel poles and this is a very common application for ferrite magnets. Ferrite Pot magnets and ferrite channel magnets use the same concept of concentrating magnetism to achieve unusually high clamping forces from cheap ferrite magnets.
First4magnets.com stocks a wide range of ferrite magnets for almost any application. Can’t find the magnet you’re looking for? Contact our technical sales team on 0800 488 0288
