MAGNETIC DIAL INDICATOR HOLDER

always wanted one of the magnetic stands u could buy for a dial indicator that u can turn on an off the magnet but never had a good reason for it but ive recently gotten a lathe and a benchtop milling machine so i have a good reason now but with the cost of the machines an all the tooling an other assessorys i would rather have i ended up not buying the stand an the dial indicator i have is a cheap place holder until i have some other stuff bought up an then i'll save some b4 buying a more expensive higher quality indicator an then i'll get a stand too but til then i still wanted something similar so this is my take on a magnetic base like u would buy so it can be turned on an off, it uses a 60x10x5 magnet, mine was 33lb of holding strength but with the way it sits it doesnt touch the actual surface so its not the full strength but its plenty enough to do the job, if u want more strength then u can space the magnet out closer to the edge but i dont know how close u can get it b4 it starts to interfer with the housing. i used a single magnet with one of the spaces that comes with them to keep the magnets from touching, i glued the spacer into the cylinder then the magnet ontop of that an it made it sit in the perfect spot. theres 3 version of the arms, stick with v1 for the most stable v2 an 3 was just to make them use less material an weigh less but even with v2 it inroduces way to much bounce while the v1 i didnt have this issue, i did use threaded inserts to put it together an they worked way better than just a nut an bolt, i left v2 an v3 lite of the arms that way if u wanted to try to make them with other materials or even take them an make them in aluminum or something like that would work, i know v2 would work fine in aluminum but v3 lite version has so little material i dont know if it would even work with aluminum, but again im just now learning to work with metals so i may try to make them in aluminum an see how they turn out but i left the files included just for those who might want to try them or maybe have other uses. also i printed most of it out at .3 layer height on one of my quicker printing printers so its not as accurate so i had to do some sanding to get it to fit but if ur printer can manage .2 to .3 tolernce it should work with very little work to make it fit together cause i did try to leave room in the model for this but sometimes it works better than others an i did have to sand mine but it might have worked without sanding if i would have printed it out on one of my other printers that do alittle better with these close tolerences.