{"id":579997,"date":"2026-04-02T04:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T04:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/579997\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T04:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T04:28:09","slug":"watch-an-electro-permanent-magnet-in-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/579997\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch An Electro-Permanent Magnet In Action"},"content":{"rendered":"

Electro-permanent magnets (EPMs) are pretty nifty concepts, and if you aren\u2019t familiar with them, they are permanent magnets with the ability to be electrically switched on or off. Unlike an electromagnet \u2014 which maintains a magnetic field only while power is applied \u2014 an EPM can remain \u201con\u201d even when power is removed. Want to see one work? There\u2019s a video<\/a> embedded below that shows one off, but if you\u2019d like to know how they work, we have you covered.<\/p>\n

Inside are two types of magnet, one of which is permanent and the other being a semi-hard magnet paired with an electromagnetic coil. A semi-hard magnet\u2019s flux can be changed by exposing it to a strong enough magnetic field, and that\u2019s the key to making it work.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Being able to electrically switch a permanent magnet on or off is a neat trick.<\/p>\n

When both magnets work together, the EPM is \u201con\u201d and acts like a permanent magnet. To turn the EPM off, the polarity of the semi-hard magnet is flipped with a short and powerful electromagnetic pulse, after which the two magnets oppose one another and more or less cancel each other out. So rather than generating a magnetic field, an EPM more accurately reconfigures it.<\/p>\n

As intriguing as EPMs are, we haven\u2019t really seen one properly in action until it was brought to our attention that [Dave Jones] of EEVblog tried one out last year. He received a Zubax FluxGrip EPM, which is intended for drone and robotic applications and can hold up to 25 kg. Watch [Dave] fire it up in the video<\/a> (link is cued up to the 7:30 mark), it\u2019s pretty interesting to see one of these actually work.<\/p>\n

EPMs are not prohibitively expensive but they are not exactly cheap, either. But if a switchable magnet sounds up your alley and you can\u2019t afford an EPM, consider an alternative \u201cswitchable\u201d magnet design<\/a> that works by momentarily canceling out a permanent magnet with a paired electromagnet. Unlike an EPM, it\u2019s not a permanent switch but it would be enough to drop a payload.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Electro-permanent magnets (EPMs) are pretty nifty concepts, and if you aren\u2019t familiar with them, they are permanent magnets…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[64,63,292,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-579997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-physics","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}