This product may be covered by one or more trade secrets, and pending or issued patents and trademarks. For a listing of our registered intellectual property, click here.
Designed to attach to the underside of any indoor/outdoor forklift in minutes using rare earth magnet pods. The Vigilant will attach to any flat piece of steel underneath a forklift with up to 415lbs of holding force using the 12 magnet pod mounting system. The Vigilant ceramic forklift magnetic sweeper has a maximum pickup height of 3.25” so once the magnet is hung from your forklift at the recommended 1” inch – 2” inch sweeping height it will continuously collect metal debris as the forklift goes about its normal activities.
The Vigilant magnet comes in either a 36” inch or 42” inch sweeping width, these sweeping widths were chosen to work under most indoor / outdoor forklifts. Sweeping height is adjusted using 550 paracord and cinch cleats to give a long range of adjustment.
The Vigilant ceramic forklift magnetic sweeper is constructed of 6061-T5 aluminum with a heavy-duty PVC quick clean off sleeve that resists abrasion from any ground scrapes. The Vigilant magnet is mounted underneath the forklift so it can’t get hit from the front or back and doesn’t extend past the wheels so it can’t get caught on the sides.
$1,183.00 – $1,262.00Price range: $1,183.00 through $1,262.00
See Pricing For All Models Below
$1,183.00 CAD
$1,262.00 CAD
| Vigilant Series | Vigilant 36 | Vigilant 42 |
|---|---|---|
| SKU | VI36 | VI42 |
| Sweeper Width | 36″ | 42″ |
| Magnet Type | Permanently charged C8 ceramic | Permanently charged C8 ceramic |
| Cleaning Off Method | Quick Clean Off Sleeve | Quick Clean Off Sleeve |
| Maximum Lifting Height (using 2.5”, 8 penny nails) | 3.25” | 3.25” |
| Sweeping Height | 1”- 2” recommended | 1”- 2” recommended |
| Terrain Surface | Concrete, Asphalt, Gravel Yards | Concrete, Asphalt, Gravel Yards |
| Sweeper Weight | 33.5 lbs | 37.2 lbs |
| Pricing Range | $1,183.00 CAD | $1,262.00 CAD |
A: Nylon pods with four rare earth magnets for secure underbody mounting on four corners
B: 14” long flexible nylon cord
C: Hard PVC quick clean off sleeve with wrap around function
D: 6061-T5 Aluminum magnet housing
E: Indexable nylon swivel latch for locking quick clean off sleeve
F: Flexible PVC end cap
A: Nylon cord cleat
B: Cord retaining tabs
C: C8 ceramic magnet with steel back plate
D: Nylon T handle
E: Flexible PVC end cap with heavy duty lead ins
F: 5mm mounting holes
A: PVC handle built in endcap
B: Solvent welded end cap
C: PVC rib for incremental debris clean off
D: Sequential rib design for complete debris removal
E: Wrap around on front and back of magnet for debris retention
A: Maximum dimensions
B: Minimum dimensions
A: Minimum
B: Maximum
C: Magnet Width
D: Total Product Width
A: Minimum
B: Maximum
C: Magnet Width
D: Total Product Width
A: Nylon 12-pod with rare earth cup magnets for secure underbody mounting on four corners
B: 14” long flexible nylon cord
C: Hard PVC quick clean off sleeve with wrap around
D: Indexable nylon swivel latch for locking quick clean off sleeve
E: Flexible PVC end cap
F: 6061-T5 Aluminum magnet housing
A: ½” thick aluminum end caps
B: C8 ceramic magnets
C: 16-gauge thick steel backing plate
| 5 star | 0% | |
| 4 star | 0% | |
| 3 star | 0% | |
| 2 star | 0% | |
| 1 star | 0% |
Sorry, no reviews match your current selections
$154.00 – $161.00Price range: $154.00 through $161.00
There are no accessories.
The magnet pods on the Vigilant easily snap onto any flat steel surface on the bottom of your forklift. The magnets will be the most effective at holding the Vigilant magnetic sweeper to the forklift if the steel surface you are attaching it to is cleaned thoroughly and the magnet pods are positioned directly above the Vigilant so the cords holding the sweeper up are completely vertical.
This is our new Vigilant forklift magnetic sweeper system. It attaches to the bottom of your forklift using our magnet pods here. Each of these can hold about 40 pounds, and we’ve got four of them on the sweeper. The sweeper itself only weighs about 40 pounds, so we’re going to give you a quick show of the installation here. I’ll just slide it under.
This forklift is pretty low to the ground already, so we don’t have to mess with the pods at all, but they are adjustable. Then, lift it up and it attaches just like that.
So, we’ve got about an inch from the bottom of the magnet to the ground here, and this can be adjusted on higher forklift models by using these rope cams here. They pinch this cord, and that will allow you to raise or lower the magnet.
Then the rope tucks back into a little spot back here, which allows you to keep it out of the way.
If you want to switch which forklift you have the Vigilant mounted to, best practice is to clean off the surface you’re going to stick it to using some kind of cleaner and a paper towel, just to make sure that there’s no dirt between the magnet and the metal surface it’s sticking to, which will prevent the sweeper from falling off.
Here, we’re adapting to a different size forklift. This forklift is a little bit more narrow, so I’m taking a measurement from the flat face of the bottom from the left side all the way to the outside on the right side. It’s measuring 34 inches there.
In the assembly manual, you’ll notice there’s a chart showing the hole locations that you have to mount the pods on for different size forklifts. The 40-inch measurement corresponds to the third hole location on the magnetic housing, so we’re going to move these pods all inward to the third hole.
Now that the pods are moved to the third hole location, we remove the tape measure that we used to measure, and we can slide the assembly right underneath the forklift.
Again, we’re going to aim to mount on a flat surface.
Once it’s underneath all the way, you can just lift up and it’ll stick to the bottom of the forklift.
The vigilant magnetic sweeper hangs from the magnet pods using 550 paracord, the cords can be pulled through the magnet pods and cinched using the attached rope cam cleats at the desired height. This video shows how it works when attached to the bottom of a forklift using the quad pod mounting system.
All right, we’re just going to do a height adjustment here on the under-mount magnetic sweeper. So you pull back on this cord and this cam cleat, and you’ll end up lowering it. You may have to assist the magnet housing just a tiny bit; these cam cleats do get pretty tight.
You can lower it to a desired height on one side, then do the same on the other side. What you want to make sure is that both of these are roughly level—you can feel it underneath to make sure you’re not touching the ground. Then you can just tuck these ropes back up. And if these pods are sticking outside the width of the forklift, you can turn them if you need to.
The Vigilant Magnet Mounted Forklift Magnetic Sweeper is a perfect solution for maintaining a clean and safe work environment without allocating additional labour to the cleaning effort. Mounting the Vigilant to a forklift that is working around your facility will continuously collect metal debris while the forklift goes about its normal tasks. Cleaning the magnet off regularly using the included quick clean off sleeve will give maximum magnetic pickup power and make sure that the Vigilant is collecting as much metal debris as possible throughout the day without missing anything.
The Vigilant has a new quick clean off sleeve that can be released from one side of the sweeper using a built-in handle and is released by a spring-loaded knob pictured to the right. The clean off sleeve has ribs in the center and on either end which takes all collected debris with the sleeve when it is pulled off, see the video below for details.
So we just, uh, drove around this area where they, uh, have broken pallets and, uh, store their pallets and, um, we’re gonna clean off the Vigilant magnetic sweeper. So this just has a little, uh, bat wing-shaped latch on the side that’s spring-loaded so it won’t open while you’re driving, but a little pressure flicks it open, and there’s a handle on this side. So the Vigilant will only unload from this side, so if you’re butted up against a dumpster or something on the other side, that’s fine, but if you butt it up against something on this side, you won’t be able to get the magnet loose. So to clean it off, all you do is, like I said, flip a little bat switch here, pull that out, and everything we collected will come off in a nice little pile here.
Yeah, you can just—he just said, “Holy crap,” he didn’t think there was that much out here. There’s always more than you think.
Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, so people always tell us, they say, “Oh, we don’t have a problem with metal debris, our place is clean,” until you get out there.
And that looks like a flat tire to me. How about you? Probably a whole bunch of flat tires in there. Yeah, there’s a couple flat tires here. We even got some nice deck screws, natural ingredients, a tuna can, some washers, lots of screws. Good stuff.
But yeah, there you go, that’s the clean-off. This sleeve is kind of rubberized, so it’s a little flexible. It shouldn’t break the first time it hits, uh—it does look like it hit the ground a little bit here, you’ve got some rock marks. Not very much, though. I mean, we’re going pretty carefully here, but it’s only hung about an inch and a half off the ground, so a couple times.
The included clean off sleeve has a couple features to improve its function, there are channels that allow debris to be retained on the sides of the fully packed magnet housing if it gets wiped off by touching the ground. There are also ribs built into the sleeve to clean off debris incrementally and prevent debris from piling up at the end cap and flipping over the sleeve back onto the magnet.
A: End cap removed for transparency
B: PVC rib to remove debris more evenly on clean-off
C: Closed end cap design for complete debris removal
D: 1” wide x 7/8” tall channel on the front and back of magnet for debris to wrap around into.
E: Open channel for debris to wrap around if wiped off main magnet surface
The 12 Pod Magnet Mounting System is an alternative to the Quad Pod Mounting System for users with higher ground clearance forklifts in more demanding terrain. This system holds onto the bottom of the forklift with 415lbs of holding force. The 12 Pod Magnet System is designed to increase holding power for forklifts operating in outdoor environments that may get snow or other harsh conditions that could pull the magnets off the forklift. The 12 Magnet Pod System takes up more space than the Quad Pod mounting system so it will not work on forklifts with less ground clearance (Often electric or indoor only forklifts). Hanging the sweeper lower also adds stress onto the mounting system because the load shifts around further away from the mounting magnet on longer ropes, so the 12 Pod magnet mounting system works better to hold the sweeper onto a forklift when hanging it further away from the main body of the forklift.
The 12 Pod Magnet Mounting System was developed after RV manufacturers in Indiana outfitted their forklifts with the Vigilant magnetic sweeper and had problems with snow and ice pulling the magnets off the forklift in the winter. See the video below to see how to fit the 12 pod system on the sweeper and how to mount the sweeper to a forklift.
So, here is one of our Vigilants that’s been used for about a year and a half now. Our original pods we sent it with weren’t working well enough for them, so they bought these magnet pucks off the internet and kind of retrofitted it on here. And this has been working for them, but we’re going to swap this one out for one of our new pods, leave it with the operator, and see how he likes it. So, we got one set up over behind me with a new 12-magnet pod on it, and we’ll install that and check back in a week or so to see how it works.
>> So, this is retrofitting our new 12-magnet attachment system for the Vigilant and Defiant magnets.
>> So, go ahead. So, previously, we had quad pods that sat on each of the four corners of the Vigilant or the Defiant assembly. We noticed some of our customers were having issues with them falling off when they go over steep ramps or curbs, and when they bash into things, the original finder will fall right off. So, we developed these new 12 pods. These are rare earth cup magnets. They’ve got a steel outer housing with the rare earth center. These are going to be about 250 lbs holding force for one complete assembly. That’s about two and a half times more than what was previously designed. These should provide ample strength to hold these to the bottom of the forklift. So, we’re going to go over setting one of these up, retrofitting one of the Vigilant assemblies here. It’s the same procedure as before to pull your ropes through the holes that you want. You would have already taken a measurement to know which holes to use when you set it up.
You’ll pass the ropes through the center holes on both sides, and then the ropes will slide through the canopy just as before.
>> Now, we’ve got these new spacer blocks. So, each set will come with eight 1-inch spacer blocks and eight 1/4-inch spacer blocks. You use these to set the rope tension on each corner. It’s super critical to have every corner of the magnet assembly with the correct weight tension, at least so they’re all the same on each corner.
>> So, to use these blocks, we’re going to slip them in from the side on each of the assemblies. You’ll know they’re fully seated when the lip is touching the aluminum housing on the side. Then you can proceed to pull down on the rope until it touches the bottom of the sand. Once you’re at the bottom assembly, you can give it a little wiggle just to make sure it’s fully centered. Then you can push the cord key to make sure it’s tight. Repeat that procedure on the other side with the same amount of spacer blocks that you used on that side.
>> Pull the rope tight. Give it a little wiggle.
>> Then you can tighten the cord, and these blocks just remove from the outside. And that’s your completed assembly that you’ll hang from the forklift.
>> Now, on these pods, there’s a new way to route these cords. There’s a set of two holes in the middle of the frames. You can simply loop the rope around that little tab below the cord, complete. Then just wrap the rope around a few times to secure it in position.
>> Or you can cut it off. Once you get the height you want, you can cut the string shorter as well if you’d like to tie it off.
>> And we’ll just repeat that procedure on the other side.
>> Here’s the one we’re going to be installing in place of the janky Amazon magnets. We’ve got these new 12-magnet pods on here. Should be better. Hopefully, it’s not worse. So, we’ll install it and then check back to see how it works.
>> All right. So, after we’ve set the pods up, install is just making sure everything’s clean. We’ve already adjusted the height using the pucks like we showed in the previous video. All you have to do is just slap her into place and it should be good to go.
Now, one thing we didn’t do, just because we are using all the same size forklifts, is measure where we want the pods. We measured the first one and now we know to place the ropes in the center hole of the three options. That’s working well to make sure everything’s aligned properly and it’s not going to swing too much.
The Vigilant magnetic sweeper comes with the 12 pod and quad pod magnet mounting systems in the box, this allows for use on forklifts with low ground clearance, or higher indoor/outdoor forklifts. The 12 pod system will hold the Vigilant onto a forklift more effectively than the quad pods, but take up more space, making it impossible to mount under some small lift trucks. The videos below show the holding strength of the 12 pod and quad pod magnet mounting systems on 3/8” steel. Holding strength will increase when mounting on thicker steel, so on the bottom of a forklift these maximum holding strength numbers will increase.
Right, here is our test rig for testing how much holding force these quad pods hold a Vigilant or Defiant magnetic sweeper onto the bottom of your forklift with. So basically, we’re testing using the body of a Vigilant or Defiant. This has no magnets in it, so it’s just the empty body with a U-bolt going through it, hooked to a chain fall, which is just up here with a scale in the middle. So, this scale should hold at whatever the maximum peak lifting pressure we apply to these magnets before they pop off. We’ll keep cranking it up, and then this scale will record how much pulling it takes to pop these four quad pods off of—this is just some 3/8 I-beam we have sitting here.
Keep in mind that the thicker the metal you put these magnets on, the more holding force you’ll get. So, on the bottom of a forklift, you’ll get a higher number than what we have here. We’ve ensured that the magnet pucks are a little bit loose on these pods so that it holds onto the contours of the metal better. We’ve lined everything up the best we can so that the ropes are pulling straight up and down, which spreads the load out over all the magnets properly—the exact same way it should be on the bottom of your forklift. So, we’ll crank it up and see under ideal conditions on 3/8 steel what kind of holding force we can get.
Okay, so I’m going to start cranking up, and hopefully you can see the numbers here, but I’ll call them out as we go up anyways.
So, there’s 48 lb. That’s about as much as this Vigilant or Defiant will weigh. I think they’re between 30 and 40 lb. There’s 110 lbs. There’s 140. So, that’s 100 lb on top of the weight of the sweeper. I think this thing’s going to hit me in the elbow. Uh, 172 lbs. I’m going to get my elbow out of the way.
204 lb.
There’s 230.
There’s 252.
This thing’s really bending now. That’s quite a lot of force.
It’s 270.
It’s 295.
311.
So, we’ll just zoom that in here. So, that is the maximum holding force recorded by the scale. That’s 311 lbs. And it looks like what failed first was our cord cleat. So, it looks like the rope slipped out of here. That’s probably just due to this piece, the anchor point, flexing on the other side. Yeah, there you go.
So, that’s the amount of holding force you can expect from these quad pod magnets with the stainless magnet pucks in them—311 lbs on 3/8 steel. Like I said before, on a forklift, you’ll get a bigger number than that because it’s going to be on thicker steel, so the magnets have more holding power.
And these are the lower, lighter duty pods of the two we offer. These are for forklifts that have low ground clearance, less than 4 in. So, if you have less than 4 in, you’re generally on an indoor forklift. There isn’t much in the way of obstacles or bumps to worry about the magnet falling off, but you still got 311 lbs of holding force to hold it onto the bottom of your forklift.
This is our testing rig for the 12 pod magnet mounting system. These are the pods that hold a Vigilant or Defiant magnet onto the bottom of your forklift. We have it set up here on two 3/8 pieces of steel. These are just I-beams. So we’ve attached the Mag 12 pod magnets to these I-beams, and some rope—the rope that comes with them—up to the body of a Vigilant or Defiant magnet, which has a U-bolt drilled through the middle that goes to a scale and then to a chain fall. So, what we’re testing here is how hard these 12 pod magnet mounting systems hold a Vigilant or Defiant magnet onto the bottom of the forklift.
Keep in mind, as the thickness of the steel you mount these to goes up, their holding strength goes up. So, again, we’re on 3/8 steel. On the bottom of a forklift, you’d get a higher number than this.
Okay, so we’re going to crank it up and see what we get to on the scale here. The scale should record the top number it experiences while we’re cranking it here.
So, there’s 115 pounds.
There’s 200.
There’s 240.
There’s 274.
There’s 294.
There’s 324.
There’s 392.
It’s 415.
So that’s the maximum force that the scale experienced while we had the chain fall cranking on it. So, 415 lbs. That’s the number we got from just pulling up the chain fall with these 12 pod magnet mounting systems attached to the 3/8 steel. And like I said before, on thicker steel you should get a bigger number. So, we’re only using this on 3/8 I-beams we had sitting here. On a forklift, you’ve got thicker steel, so you should get a bigger number.
But in the best case, with everything set up perfectly, the rope has equal tension, pulling force straight down—you can expect to have 415 pounds of holding force from these 12 pod magnets holding your Vigilant or Defiant onto the bottom of a forklift. And these are for indoor or outdoor forklifts where the magnets can be mounted lower because you have more ground clearance and it may be swinging or hit things, or, you know, things that happen on outdoor forklifts. So that’s why we offer these as a stronger alternative to the quad pods. You just get some extra holding force to keep this safely on the bottom of the forklift.
In the picture below you can see the entire unit is within the forklift’s tire width but the handle for the clean off is still easily accessible.
When installing the Vigilant Magnetic Sweeper onto your forklift, it is imperative that the mounting surface and magnet pucks on the mounting system (12 pod or quadpod) is clear of any oil, dirt, metal filings, rust, or flaking paint before attaching the magnet pods. Any of the listed contaminants will prevent the magnets from getting a firm hold on your forklift.
The Vigilant Magnet Mounted Forklift Magnetic Sweeper is connected to the magnet pods by 550 paracord, this allows quick height adjustment using the rope cleats on the magnet pods. Once your height is set, the extra cordage needs to be securely tucked away tied off, or cut off, so the excess doesn’t drag on the ground or get caught on anything. Check out the video below to see what happens when the Vigilant isn’t installed properly.
All right, so we’ve dropped down the Vigilant to about an inch off the ground—it was set at about two inches—so now we’re going through a more, well, Dan said it likely has more nails in it just because this is where the garbage bins are, as you can see over here. So we’ll go around here a little bit and try to collect some more nails, and we’ll move inside the stamping facility.
So it looks like our magnet came off the forklift here. What we saw was that one of these cords wasn’t tucked up properly, and it caught on the rear wheel and then got yanked off the forklift. So I’m just going to go through, take a look, and show you what actually broke after being run over by a medium-sized forklift—a five thousand pound forklift.
So, first inspection, we can obviously see that two pods are broken. Two of them held up pretty well; they’re not broken at all, but two of these pods have cracked, so they are essentially junk now—they’re not going to work. I mean, they’ll kind of work, but not really. If you really want to zip tie stuff together, you can make it work, but as far as the actual sweeper goes, this is the only damage we got: that’s just a little bit of a bend on this flange here.
So, with a full forklift running over it at top speed, pretty well, that’s the only damage we sustained. This sleeve, like I said in the other video, it’s kind of rubberized, so it really didn’t crack or anything like that, but you can see we’ve got all the debris on the bottom here still. So we’ll see if the sleeve still performs properly off the sweeper here. So I’m just going to flip the switch on the back here, pull this sleeve up to release everything—which, you know, kind of needs gravity for.
There you go, there’s most of the stuff, but the big test will be if it goes on properly still, which I believe it will because it’s kind of flexible. It’ll go back on, no problem. There you go—works just like it should. So, I mean, we’ll pick that back up for you here.
But yeah, there’s your damage test. It can hold up to being run over by a forklift, just like I suspected.
The Vigilant Forklift Magnetic Sweeper is a convenient way to get extra utility from the machinery already at your facility. Having a magnet on your forklift continuously cleans up hazardous metal debris while the forklift does its normal tasks throughout the day. Controlling metal debris at your facility will prevent punctures to vehicles on the property and increase uptime of equipment on the property. The video below shows the Vigilant cleaning at a warehouse and collecting debris where the area had already been previously swept once using a different magnetic sweeper earlier.
So we got the Vigilant magnetic sweeper here on an indoor-outdoor forklift because this forklift regularly goes in and out of the building, so it makes sense to test it in both areas.
Here it is running over a metal control joint, and the magnet pods are stronger than the main magnet’s pulling power, so it doesn’t come off the bottom.
Out here is the area where you’d be prone to get flats. This area is obviously where they store pallets and move the pallets, and clearly some of them break, so an area like this is a prime spot for magnetic sweeping, which is why this forklift’s been equipped with this one.
The Vigilant magnetic sweeper comes in two widths. It comes in a 36-inch and a 42-inch sweeping width. It will pick up a nail from a height of three and a quarter inches, which we just tested this morning. So when it’s hung at this low of a sweeping height, which is about maybe an inch and a quarter, about an inch, you’re going to get some pretty decent performance, especially at a speed like this.
A big benefit of this Vigilant over some other forklift sweepers on the market, like a normal hanging magnet or whatever, is number one, because it uses that new cam and rope system, you can hang it up really tight against the forklift. And number two, it’s magnet-mounted, so you don’t have to worry about hanging any chains from anything or drilling any holes or anything like that. All you do is just make sure the ropes are in the right spot on the machine, set it at the right height, and just snap it on there. So it goes on very quickly, and it’s just kind of like a passive way to keep cleaning your facilities while the forklift’s doing its regular job.
This has C8 ceramic magnets that are permanently charged; you never have to take it in for maintenance or get them recharged or anything like that.
The Vigilant’s clean-off sleeve is a new design. It allows you to take everything off the magnet at once without having to, you know, disconnect the magnet and pick everything off by hand. So it is a PVC piece of plastic that’s pretty durable. Like I said, it’s meant for flat surfaces, but it is pretty durable; it won’t break the first time you hit anything.
The magnet features a wraparound function, so that when the magnet touches the ground or runs into something, any debris that’s collected on it is just going to be slid to the back of the magnet. You’re not actually going to lose it because the housing is completely full of the ceramic magnet. None of it’s going to get wiped off because it just sticks to the back.
As you can see, this thing is getting some debris on it as we’re sweeping here, just because, you know, we’re right by the dumpsters. That’s where a lot of scrap metal ends up, so instead of giving you a flat tire, you can just pick it up with this forklift because this forklift would be headed out here anyway, as it’s an indoor-outdoor forklift and they have to move pallets in and out of the buildings.
So as it’s going and doing its regular work, you can make it get two jobs done at once by having this magnet on the back. This thing is relatively inexpensive for a magnetic sweeper, but it’s also not the most powerful thing on the market. But what it does do for you is have that little bit of extra safety while you’re working—keep any metal out of tires, which can become projectiles, prevent downtime, prevent flats. And it’s just, like I said, a little bit of a passive cleaning tool.
So you might not think you have a problem, but before you start to have a problem, it’s better to get proactive about it and just get something that’s going to keep cleaning as you go throughout your day, prevent any future issues.
As you can see, we’re going over not very rough terrain here, but it’s bumpy—it’s bumpier than a flat concrete area—and this thing is hung at about an inch and a half, so it’s not much ground clearance, but it seems to be working fine. But this is best off just for passive cleaning. You’re not going to try to clear a problem area with this; it’s best to just do it as preventative maintenance—prevent your flat tires, prevent your forklifts from going out of service. I mean, these have airless tires, but there’s tons of trucks around here. All the trucks that go to the loading docks, any office staff—they don’t like getting flat tires. So just have something on your site that can prevent that from being a problem.
So this is an indoor-outdoor forklift, and the Vigilant was made to be an indoor-outdoor product, albeit more indoor. But we just used it outdoor on some pretty rough little parking lot area, where they dispose of pallets. And now we’ll head back in over a metal control joint and just go about normal business in the warehouse here.
Okay, so here’s the reality of cleaning up after this magnet: flip your little bat wing, pull it out, and you can see we mostly just have metal filings here. So yeah, just get a broom. There you go. No bending over—well, not much bending over—but you don’t have to pick it off by hand.
See what the forklift operator at E&E McLaughlin has to say about the effectiveness of the Vigilant Forklift Magnetic Sweeper after operating it for an afternoon at his facility.
All right, so we just had you run around the yard going about as fast as the forklift goes.
Yeah, pretty much full speed.
Yeah, and you want to bring the camera just over to the right here so I’m not talking to a forklift.
So we just had him run around the yard about as fast as the forklift goes and hit a couple bumps, eh?
Yeah, there’s some fairly uneven surfaces as well, and we didn’t lose the magnet. It’s still on here. So those little pods, they do look small, but it’s rare earth inside, so they hold about 42 pounds each, these pods, and the whole thing only weighs about 40. So you’ve got a lot of force you’d have to put on it before it comes off.
But we were still running around out here with the pallets and everything, so we’ll see if we actually picked anything up at that speed. We haven’t checked it yet again for sure.
Yeah, we got a little this time. God, that’s—what’s that—a trailer lock?
Oh, a seal.
Yep, yeah, trailer seal. Trailer seal and just more, uh, just more wires. It looks like less nails than we got over here by the pallets.
But, uh, what do you think about something like that just as a kind of passive cleaning solution?
Sure, sure, takes the time out of it, and it does a good job.
Yeah.
Yeah, I tried with just a hand magnet last week and I thought it was clean, but these two—we just missed a couple, and that was that. You know, whatever speed this thing goes, too.
But, I mean, if you had one on a forklift that worked here and it’s going to be running this thing all day, right? Because you guys go in and out of the building a lot, have a lot of stuff.
Yeah, for sure, it would.
Yeah, I mean, you guys aren’t going to get flats on these, but like I said in the other video, any delivery vehicles, uh, any couriers, that sort of thing, I’m sure they’d be happy to avoid that. Happy that we—problem with that is when you come here, right, you get a flat tire, you don’t notice till you’re at the next distribution center or the next day when you get up in the morning and your vehicle has got a flat.
Yeah, so, I mean, it’s a nice just little passive solution to clean the thing off, you know, keep your forklifts doing—it’s almost like doing two jobs at once.
And this thing’s pretty, uh, easy to use, really.
Like, how long did it take us to put on there? Like five minutes when we got here?
Five minutes to put on, like a little bit of adjustment, a little bit of screwing around to adjust it. We had to move the holes in just because this thing’s a little narrower than the other forklift we had, so we just moved the pods in a bit, stuck it on there and—I mean, if it can swing around like that.
Yeah, better give to it.
Is that the strings?
Yep, that’s just the rope, so when it’s hanging on the ropes, it can move an inch or so back and forth. So when I looked at the—I mean, I can look at the tray again here, there is a mark from hitting something. Just a little one.
Oh, okay, well, there’s a couple really, right? Like a bigger stone or something, maybe.
Yeah, I saw one rock you kind of flung somewhere, so it can hit them, and because this is a little rubberized and this thing moves, it just kind of goes out of the way.
So unless you’re really—I mean, even if you really bottomed it out, I don’t know how much you would break.
Yeah, it’s getting somewhat—yeah, it’d kind of go up and then maybe shift back or something.
We could try that out, but the guy who built it is standing behind the camera. He might cry if we break it.
Yeah, that’s a pretty handy solution, I think.
These sweeping widths were developed to work with most indoor / outdoor forklifts. When selecting your desired model, keep in mind that the products are longer than their effective sweeping width, see the picture below to see what the actual widths of the sweepers are. Check the total product width measurement against the width of the forklift you want to use, the entire assembly should be flush or slightly tucked under your forklift (1”-1.5”). Extending slightly outside the width of your forklift (1” – 1.5”)is OK as long as the magnet won’t get caught while operating under normal conditions at your facility.
36″ Inch Model Sweeping vs Overall Width
A: Minimum
B: Maximum
C: Magnet Width
D: Total Product Width
42″ Inch Model Sweeping vs Overall Width
A: Minimum
B: Maximum
C: Magnet Width
D: Total Product Width
The Quadpod system has a lower profile than the 12 Pod Mounting System, but it doesn’t hold onto the bottom of the forklift as hard. So it is only recommended when the forklift that the sweeper is being mounted on has less than 4” inches of ground clearance. If more than 4” inches of ground clearance is available, then use the 12 Pod system as it hangs onto the forklift with more force. Forklifts with low ground clearance are rarely operated anywhere there are obstacles that could knock the sweeper off, usually indoors so the lower holding power of the Quadpod is sufficient for mounting.
The only difference between the Vigilant and Defiant is the magnet inside. The Vigilant utilizes a ceramic magnet and the Defiant utilizes a rare earth Neodymium magnet. What this means in real life is that the magnetic field strength (Gauss) on the Defiant will be stronger, enabling it to pick up some materials that the Vigilant won’t, the stronger field strength means it will hold onto the material with greater force.
Do you need the stronger magnetic field strength of the Defiant? NO, not if you’re just picking up ordinary screws and nails, etc. But if you are in an environment where your debris has a low ferrous content, then YES, you probably do need the Defiant because the Vigilant may not pick up your debris at all.
As an example of this situation, the Defiant was originally conceived of and made for a military vehicle manufacturer that had very high quality low ferrous content fasteners falling on the concrete production floor and those fasteners would then get ran over by solid wheels on very large production carts and the fasteners would get driven into the solid wheels and as the cart moved the fasteners were grinding the concrete floors to dust causing the floors to need replacing/refinishing frequently. Therefore, there was a high need to pick up the low ferrous content fasteners to avoid not only production cart wheel damage but concrete floor damage. But the only magnet capable of picking up the fasteners were rare earth Neodymium magnets.
You can see the difference in magnetic field strength below at various distances by looking at the Gauss charts for both the Vigilant and Defiant. At a one inch sweeping height the magnetic field strength of the Vigilant is 358 Gauss, but the Defiant magnetic field strength is 630 Gauss. A significant difference.
Vigilant Gauss Measurements
A: Distance from Magnet (Sweeping Height)
B: Note: Gauss (G) shown is the peak gauss, measured in the center of the magnet at each distance.
Defiant Gauss Measurements
A: A = Distance from Magnet (Sweeping Height)
B: Note: Gauss (G) shown is the peak gauss, measured in the center of the magnet at each distance.
So, if you have regular debris, like normal nails and screws, the Vigilant is right for you. On the other hand, if you know you have low ferrous content debris you need to pick up, the Defiant is the better choice. Remember, we’re always happy to have you send us a sample of your debris, and we’ll test it here to make sure it can be picked up!
The Vigilant Hanging Forklift Magnet is sent out in heavy duty 51ECT cardboard with foam block packaging to prevent damage from contents shifting in the box during transit. These measures are taken to ensure that the Vigilant shows up to your door intact and undamaged.
- No Surprise Border / Tariff Fees After Checkout
- Fast Shipping
- All Items in Stock
We noticed you're visiting from Canada. We've updated our prices to Canadian dollar for your shopping convenience. Use United States (US) dollar instead. Dismiss