Use for all those junk hub motors we all have.

[kneedeep]

We all have a few junk motors around you know the one you fried that day. Well a great use for the magnets inside is to replace your water softener.

I did my house about a month ago just after Christmas. What you do is face the S pole toward the pipe and connect. The polarisation of the iron and lime in the water makes it not stick to stuff. There are plenty of videos on you tube about magnets for soft water. We have extremely hard water here in Ontario and our water softener was not doing the job so I was researching a new softener when I found a German company that had an electric device to replace salt. I further researched and found strong magnets replace the German device. Our hub motors have some of the strongest Neodymium magnets on the planet.
I then removed all the magnets from a junk hub and taped 7 magnets each to 4 wooden sticks south pole out. Then taped the south pole to the pipe. I bypassed the water softener to see the affects. My wife was so excited after a week she showed me the electric Kettle and it was spotless inside after 5 uses not scrubbing or soaking. That weekend we went around to the sinks and tubs and found the rust stains wiped away with wet cloth no chemicals. So I have a set of magnets on the incoming water line and one set on the outgoing of the water heater as the heater removes the polarization. That weekend we also dragged our expensive water softener to the curb. The water tastes better our water pressure is way better and humidifier stays nice and clean. When cooking the water is more soluble so pasta rice and other foods are lighter better tasting.

 

[kneedeep]

To find the south pole tape magnet to string and south will face south and mark with sharpie. then stick all the magnets to the one you marked they will all only stick the north side to south side meaning south all face same way. When taping to the stick they Will fight you and try to bite you they are very strong so be careful, even get extra set of hands to help.

 

[amberwolf]

Interesting use...we have lots of minerals in the water here (all goes thru a big aquifer), so it might help some people. (my pipes are all that new plastic stuff since the post-fire rebuild; used to be copper though, and when they took them out they all had quite a buildup in there).


One more use for "extra" motors:

I don't have any burned up hubmotors but since most "generic" 500-1kw DD motors tend to be the same width and diameter, I can swap stators into rotors that are in different wheels, either to quickfix a bike with a hall or other motor problem (stator swap), or to change out the rim size/type to experiment with different geometries or "gearing" (or fix a broken rim issue) without relacing each motor each time.


I have a number of other uses for the magnets (including those from old harddisks), which include holding stuff together while I tackweld it, holding the edges of curtains to the metal strip around the window to keep more light out on days I have to sleep in longer for whatever reason, securing quickly-removable lightweight things to bike frames, etc.

 

[Lurkin]

Can also use junk magnets to hold tools to benches or truing stands....

 

[fechter]

I've seen magnets used on water lines before but assumed it was a scam. It would be interesting to try removing the magnets and see if the mineral deposits return. I am not aware of any physical or chemical mechanism that would allow this to work as advertised. Doesn't mean it can't, just that I don't understand why.

 

[Lurkin]

Is the idea that the deposits just clump in the pipe? I was wondering whether it could be discharged into something (i.e. a bath) for visible debris or a filter first?

 

[Drunkskunk]

This post set off my personal BS detector. Generally, people who post on ES are highly intelligent and competent. In other words, much smarter than the pseudoscience quacks who infest many forums with general quackery and BS. So when I see an apparently BS post like this here, I like to keep an open mind and at least look into the subject a bit.

So I looked into it a bit. Interesting. Yes, there are cattle herds worth of BS pseudoscience on this subject, from aligning the cosmic aura of the water with magnet crystals, to invoking the spirit of Gaia by magnetism, but there is also some real science there too. Like here: https://www.kjmagnetics.com/blog.asp?p=water-treatment The paper they reference states that the difference is caused by calcium changing forms from Calcite to Aragonite. Since Calcite is a small crystalline structure that will stick to surfaces, where Aragonite is a larger form that won't stick as easily, it's at least a plausible explanation. And more importantly, a testable explanation. Being testable, verifiable, and refutable, puts it firmly in the realm of real science.

It might still be wrong, but it's not BS. I'm glad I looked.

As for the OP's results, I don't think it matters if it works or not. If you do a thing, and it makes the wife happy, then damn the science, keep doing the thing!

 

[kneedeep]

drunkskunk.. I am sure the look on your face when you read this post at first was the same as the one my wife had when I told her what I was going to do. If I did not have a dead 350watt motor in my little scrap yard I would not have tried it. But after the first week it was impossible for us not to notice, anywhere there was build up it was gone.

 

[kneedeep]

Costco Lowes and home depot sell the German digital water softener https://www.costco.ca/Calmat-Electronic-Anti-Scale-and-Rust-Water-Treatment-System.product.100217391.html

 

[fechter]

This post set off my personal BS detector. Generally, people who post on ES are highly intelligent and competent. In other words, much smarter than the pseudoscience quacks who infest many forums with general quackery and BS. So when I see an apparently BS post like this here, I like to keep an open mind and at least look into the subject a bit.

That's how I saw it too. There is a lot of BS regarding magnets out there, but I have seen various forms of the water treatment setups. I totally don't think it would matter whether you aim the north or south pole at the pipe, but not having tested it myself, I won't rule things out.

If the mineral form is being changed by the magnetic field, then it should be easy to spot the difference using something like x-ray diffraction. You could also take a flow of water and branch the pipe into two, and place the magnet only on one and let it go for a long time and compare buildup.

Luckily my water has relatively low levels of calcium minerals so it would be hard for me to tell.

 

[kneedeep]

Hard water is bad here in most of Ontario unless you hit a natural spring.