Can security devices harm DVDs and electronic devices?

A few days ago I was at Best Buy and bought a couple of DVDs and a vacuum
cleaner. The security guy at the exit had this large handheld device, and he
rubbed it around my DVDs and then rubbed it on just one part of the box that
the vacuum cleaner was in. So he was either using the device to deactivate
any security tags on my DVDs and vacuum cleaner, or using the device to
determine if I was stealing anything. I guess the device outputted some sort
of magnetic field. My question is this: would a magnetic field be harmful to
either DVDs or electronic items such as vacuum cleaners?

 

No.

-- jayembee

 

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DVDs are purely optical devices and are unaffected by magnetic fields.
Your vacuum cleaner has magnetic parts but to be damaged the magnetic
field would have to be so powerful as to actually bend something... not
going to happen from a security device.

 

DVD and CD disks are purely optical devices. You can run these through an
MRI, and they will still play very well.

The bottom line is a big NO for harming DVD's and CD disks with a magnetic
field.

--

Jerry G.
======


A few days ago I was at Best Buy and bought a couple of DVDs and a vacuum
cleaner. The security guy at the exit had this large handheld device, and
he
rubbed it around my DVDs and then rubbed it on just one part of the box that
the vacuum cleaner was in. So he was either using the device to deactivate
any security tags on my DVDs and vacuum cleaner, or using the device to
determine if I was stealing anything. I guess the device outputted some
sort
of magnetic field. My question is this: would a magnetic field be harmful
to
either DVDs or electronic items such as vacuum cleaners?

 

But the magnetic field could also induce current in the vacuum's electronic
components... would that be harmful to the vacuum at all?

 

Ask the vacuum cleaner!

 

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I've never heard of electronic components being harmed by a magnetic
field. Electric fields, yes, but not magnetic. I think the field would
have to be enormously strong to cause harm.

The only kinds of devices which could be harmed by magnetic fields are
ones that are magnetic-based themselves, such as floppy disks. Don't
worry about it.

 

TVs and computer monitor screens can be damaged too. Degaussing will
usually fix it, but not always.


-
-Jon Purkey - <)
For a quicker reply by email please use the
address found here: http://tinyurl.com/o8ka

 

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If the built in degausser doesn't fix it, find an old time TV technician
and have him dig out his manual degausser. One of those will degauss
anything.

 

Agree:
But keep magnetic fields away from the magnetic stripe on your bank/credit
cards!
One guy laid his credit card on top of a hardware store check out security
tag cancellation device and the card got 'wiped'!

 

Yeah I read that the magnetic field generated by an MRI could damage
electronic devices, so I was just wondering if it is possible that a weaker
one could also do some damage.

BTW, when you say "electric field", do you just mean static electricity?

 

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An electric field can be either static or dynamic. Any time you have
voltages of opposite polarity present, there is a field between them.

 

Thanks for your answers, everyone.