using mganets....

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by Nemisis

It is my knowledge that you should be very careful using magnets. Having magnets in close proximity with your electronics (aka the CRIO) will completely wipe the memory and erase any and all stored programming. Our team considered magnets too but quickly chucked the idea after remembering what happens with magnets around electronics. Good Luck with the Minibot everyone!

Experiment time... try putting some useless code on your USB flash drive... put a magnet next to it... take the magnet away... now read the flash drive.

Any damage?

Magnets were the bane of floppy disks as those were a magnetic storage device, but I think you'll find that they have little effect on electronic memories.

Very powerful magnets can induce current in to electronic circuits but I doubt you are dealing with sufficient magnetic flux in this case to make that an issue, You may have many other reasons for choosing to not use magnets, but if this concern is the only thing holding you back, I'd suggest that you conduct some experiments to see if it is a valid concern or not.

Jason