Cees Fasteners have recently been appointed sole UK distributors and stockists for Newland Magnetics – one of the worlds’ most respected manufacturers of sintered NdFeB magnets and assemblies.
Cees Fasteners are a privately owned company located on the Berkshire, Hampshire and Surrey border offering multiple product lines and services to support manufacturing and engineering businesses.
Newland Magnetics offer a full range of magnets including Neodymium (NdFeb) that are available in both sintered and bonded forms. These are commonly used with Industrial or Mechanical applications because of their size to strength ratio. Sintered NdFeB offers the highest magnetic properties (33 MGOe to 51 MGOe) while Bonded NdFeB offers lower energy properties. These magnets offer the strongest magnetic force from the smallest volume of magnetic material. Further information on how they are made is below.
Correspondingly, they have an offering of Samarium Cobalt rare-earth (SmCo) magnets that are manufactured by using powder metallurgy techniques which include stringent process controls and complicated heat. These magnets are not as strong a NdFeb magnets but they do not rust and are good at working at high temperatures.
Alnico Magnets and Ferrite Flexible magnets are available too. Alnico alloys are composed primarily of Cobalt, Nickel, and Aluminium with the addition of Iron, Copper, and sometimes Titanium that help make them become stronger permanent magnets. They have excellent temperature stability and can withstand extreme temperature fluctuation. Ferrite flexible magnets, also called Ceramic Magnets, have been available for over 25 years. The flexibility and ease of machining of these materials permit design innovations. They are a durable and cost-effective option despite their brittleness.
Magnetic Assemblies can be designed and produced to contain the magnets that you require for your application. The assistance of the Newland design team is available to assist you in getting the best designs and results at a competitive price.
The benefits of becoming a customer of Newland Magnetics are multiple:
- Access to a large R&D department with the latest equipment
- Provision of material data, technical design and assistance and sampling to assist your application.
- Supply of both magnets and magnetic assemblies
- Multiple supply options including consignment stocking within your own warehouse or at our facility in Europe.
Cees Fasteners additionally offer a full range of metric and imperial fasteners from our stock held in Berkshire. We have many Industrial Components that are available from stock such as anti-vibration dampners, levelling feet, castors, hose clamps, clips, springs, pins, rings and many more. We also offer a kitting service, stock management and kanban systems. For further information mail us on sales@ceesfasteners.co.uk or call us on 0118 328 7157.
How a Neodymium (NdFeb) magnet is made:
Step 1 – The Mixture
The first step when manufacturing neodymium magnets is to chose the elements needed for the specific grade of magnet being manufactured. These elements are placed into a vacuum induction furnace, heated and then melted to form the alloy material for the magnet. The mixture is then cooled into blocks before it is ground into tiny grains in a mill. Each grain is tiny, typically only three microns in size.
Step 2 – Pressed into Shape
The super fine powder made up of the tiny grains is pressed into a mould and a magnetic energy is applied to the mould at the same time. The magnetisms come from a coil of wire around the mould and it acts like a magnet when a current is passed through it. When the mixture is pressed into the mould, the direction of magnetism becomes locked. An anisotropic magnet is when the particle structure of a magnet matches the direction of magnetism.
Step 3 – Sintering Process
Once this has been done, the magnetised material is demagnetised and will be re-magnetised later on. At this stage in the whole manufacturing process, the magnet material would actually be far too soft to be useful. Next, the material is heated until it is almost at melting point, in a process called sintering. This process makes the powdered magnet particles fuse together to become more solid.
Step 4 – Rapid Cooling
The heated material is then rapidly cooled using a technique called quenching. This process minimises the areas of poor magnetisation and maximises the performance. At this stage, we then machine the raw magnets into the desired shape using diamond plated cutting tools as the material is so hard.
Step 5 – Coating for Applications
Before the final step, the neodymium magnets need to be coated, cleaned, dried and plated. This is due to the magnets being so hard and prone to breaking and chipping. This process is vital. Neodymium magnets can be coated with various types of coating, but the most common type is a nickel-copper-nickel mixture. They can also be coated in other metals or even rubber.
Step 6 – Magnet is Produced
Once the magnet has been plated, the finished material is re-magnetised. This is done by placing the magnet inside a coil which produces a magnetic field when an electric current is passed through the coil. The magnetic field produced is three times stronger than the strength that is required by the magnet.
