Anyone used magnets?

[buddhacham]

I was researching ways to decorate and create different levels within my cham's cage. And came across the idea of using two magnets.(Didn't want to hang things from the top) If this works, I could see it being very practical.
One magnet would be glued to a decoration with the magnet flush against a wall. The second magnet would be placed on the outside of the cage. I've seen ledges like this...
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=21543

But I wanted to know if this could be made at home to be used on a screen enclosure. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know. The website I found for magnets is below. I would imagine the large block magnets would work the best. The only problem I could foresee is the magnets wouldn't be strong enough, and everything would slide down,but maybe the magnets could be glued to the cage as well.

http://www.kjmagnetics.com/categories.asp

 

[xanthoman]

magnetism

generally speaking, water dishes are not a good idea, they get crapped in, feeders drown, they get stagnant too easily, might not be a bad bowl for feeding small worms and roaches out of though. as far as attaching things magnetically for cham cages , that idea has been around for a while (instavine) http://www.magnaforceindustries.com/orderpage.html . not having done any research on the possible effects of magnetism, i would be hesitant to use it around my animals (without further study) unless neccessary. i was going to buy an instacge for my neonates but decided against for that reason. jmo

 

[buddhacham]

The first product I posted wasn't with the intention of showing the water bowl.
Just an example of what I meant by the magnets.

 

[Elizadolots]

I think if the magnets are strong enough it would work. The only issue might be if your chameleon is really big and it were to climb on the decoration....

 

[boj3434]

Yes that would work great actually and it would be really easy to move if you needed to but you would need to make sure and get some really strong magnets to keep something up without sliding at all. If you do it make sure to buy some of the strongest ones you can find.

 

[atsutane]

from an engineering and physics standpoint it can work... you just have to make sure of 2 things...


one the magnet is sufficiently strong to hold your cham (at full size i imagine) and whatever the decoration is, and for the magnet to have enough surface area or a high coefficient of static friction to keep it from slipping.


friction depends on area exposed and the force between the two areas... so in general a "heavy duty" magnet will need less area than a "light weight" magnet to prevent slipping.

since its on a screen cage, you could get some putty of sorts or even fimo oven bake clay and put the magnet into the clay and push the clay against the screen to give a texture that will lock into the screen and the chances of slipping will drop dramatically...


as for what xanthoman says, yes some animals use a sense that is based on the earths magnetic field, and introducing magnets can throw them off... but i wouldnt be too concerned with any of it because this sense is mainly found in migratory animals and since chams dont migrate, i would not be concerned...

(on a side note earths mag field is on the order of a couple gauss ( unit for magnetism) the same as a flat not very sticky re fridge magnet. the magnets you would use would probably be a couple hundred gauss to provide sufficient force. neodymium magnets are super strong and small)

i even bought some instacages to keep one of my chams in, and it is held together with neodymium (if im spelling that right) magnets. and ive heard of quite a few people using this cage for chams and the like

if you want to put the item on glass, you need to wrap the mag in a material that has a very high friction force on glass, and generally this will be a smoother material like rubber... this is so the materials are closer together and a force (van derwahls force- (cant spell sorry) a force that is proportional to how close two atoms are) that is exhibited very well by geckos comes into play and its more than just how rough the two materials are.



anyway that was probably way more than you needed to know, but i figure it would help.

ciao