Can Screwdrivers With Magnetic Tips Cause Damage To Electronics?

magnet

24,061

Solution 1

If you're thinking that magnetic screwdrivers might corrupt data on hard disks, my experience is that it doesn't happen. I've used my magnetic screwdriver to drive screws into the holes on hard drives, and nothing bad has ever happe$#J@R(F$*U%&$#(J

Solution 2

You could make an old time crt monitor display funny colors, not sure about 3.5" and 5" floppies.

But unless your screwdriver is with pretty big neodymium magnet head, you are highly unlikely to damage anything. Most electronic components are not ferromagnetic and inducing strong current inside them is hard to do. You will even have hard time damaging the data on a hard drive.

Solution 3

Magnetic tips don't do damage unless there is power, at worst, they can change stored data.

A hard drive is sealed of by a metal case around it, and the distance to the internal components is big. So, it won't be affected. However, watch out with memory cards and ROM memory like the BIOS, although I would believe they are protected against static electricity there might still exist a small risk...

These are simple physics, the magnetic tip has a magnetic field which will induce ferromagnetic wave into the conductive materials around it. This induced power will be rather small, but depending on the amount of magnetic force the magnetic tip has it might be enough to change some bits when you get close enough to the magnetic parts of not properly shielded storage media...

Solution 4

It’s unlikely that the magnet in your screwdriver is powerful enough. See this question on specifics about what can be harmed.

Solution 5

Let's put it this way: the risk is vastly less than the risk for causing damage if you lose or scratch a screw across a board.

View more solutions

24,061

moritzebeling

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

moritzebeling almost 2 years

While it is convenient to pick screws with magnetized tips I wonder if the magnetism can cause any damage to electronics?
- Admin almost 13 years
  
  It's going to depend on a) how strong the magnet is and b) the specific electronic component you are talking about.
- Admin almost 13 years
  
  CRTs, speakers, hard drives all have electronics and magnetic fields... A screwdriver tip can barely pick up larger screws, and I would imagine you'd need a Really Freakin' Big Magnet to damage a microchip. (Disclaimer: I mostly slept through Physics.)
- Admin almost 13 years
  
  If you stab the screen with the magnetic tip, then yes.
- Admin almost 13 years
  
  Been using mag tipped screwdrivers around Electronics for 40+ years, no unintentional damage yet.
- Admin almost 13 years
  
  @Moab, “no un -intentional damage”? o.O
- Admin almost 13 years
  
  @Synetech inc. thefreedictionary.com/unintentional
- Admin almost 13 years
  
  @Boris_yo, thanks, I know. The sentence is funny because it makes it sound like there may have been intentional damage. (Maybe I should have used a :) or ;) instead of o.O)
- Admin almost 13 years
  
  I was playing off of the answer by surfasb.
Synetech almost 13 years

@Linker3000, though some floppies are already funny colors. (I’d take a snap, if I could get my Big Box o’ Floppies out.)
Dreyser Eguia almost 13 years

Made me laugh. You really get a +1.
Daniel R Hicks almost 13 years

The induced voltage from waving a magnetic screwdriver around an electronic component would be vanishingly small -- orders of magnitude less than that necessary to create a "static" hazard.
Mark Schultheiss almost 13 years

Yes, the physical damage from waving the 12 pound lug attached to my uberstrong screwdriver caused more harm when it cracked the drive case. :))
Tamara Wijsman almost 13 years

@DanH: Waving? You must be joking.
Tamara Wijsman almost 13 years

@MarkSchultheiss: Thanks for confirming the hard drive paragraph.
Mark Booth almost 13 years

If you've ever taken a modern hard drive apart, you'll know that they have some pretty string magnets inside them already. Not only are they much stronger than any magnetic screwdriver but they are inside the metal case of the hard drive too!
Daniel R Hicks almost 13 years

@Tom Wijsman -- If you aren't waving it then no current/voltage is induced at all.
Tamara Wijsman almost 13 years

@DanH: That's not necessary to change the polarity of a bit...
Martin almost 13 years

I think you'll find that they are carefully designed to keep all the field between the drive coils and a really really small amount leaking out the side that could affect the disk. They are also very close together. A magnetic screwdriver could easily put more field in the disk region than the drive magnets.
crasic almost 13 years

Hard drive disks are enclosed in an aluminum box that acts as a shield. External fields do not get inside up to the approximation that it acts a perfect conductor.
Tamara Wijsman almost 13 years

@DanH: Please ask such new questions on Physics.SE, they can explain it to you in more detail. Comments aren't meant for that, they should be limited to the question topic...
Daniel R Hicks almost 13 years

I had 5 years of physics in engineering school, thank you.
Tamara Wijsman almost 13 years

@DanH: If you really want an answer from a non-Physics community: Magnets? How do they work?. ;-)
jcrawfordor almost 13 years

note: hard drive magnets are actually a great way to magnetize a screwdriver in the first place.
CarlF almost 13 years

@crasic, are you perhaps thinking of electrical fields? Aluminum is not ferromagnetic. Assuming a static magnetic field why would it be affected by a conductor?
Synetech over 12 years

> I've used my magnetic screwdriver to drive screws into the holes on hard drives, and nothing bad has ever happe$#J@R(F$*U%&$#(J Exactly; and there’s nothing wrong with parsing HTML with regular-expressions either.