[shoobs]

I wish it were true where I currently work. Our offices line up exactly east-west. In a few weeks time, I'll be installing a calibration fixture to calibrate fluxgate magnetometers, and the fixture itself needs to be aligned to magnetic north. What this means is our calibration fixture will be awkwardly aligned 2.54 degrees off-angle to the building. I'm looking forward to patiently explaining to our visitors that it's by design.

[colechristensen]

I feel like a poster would do a good job in this situation and serve as a point of interest for visitors. Maybe a kind of informative sculpture pointing to geographic and magnetic north.

[jbay808]

Not that I know any better, but wouldn't it be easier to build a mu-metal shielded enclosure to exclude the Earth's magnetic field (and anything else, eg. from nearby wiring), and then generate your own calibration field with a Helmholtz coil?

[nextaccountic]

Can you actually shield a magnetic field like you do for electric fields with Faraday cages?

[jbay808]

Absolutely you can. And that's what mu-metal is designed for.

[kimburgess]

Not stable ones.

[jbay808]

I'm not sure what you mean by this. You certainly can shield a static magnetic field by using a magnetically soft material.

[kimburgess]

Yes, but that's not a faraday cage.

[jbay808]

Ah. I think we're parsing nextaccountic's ambiguous grammar differently.

My reading: "Can magnetic fields be shielded (by mu-metal), like a Faraday cage shields electric fields?"

vs your reading: "Can a Farafay cage shield magnetic fields like it can shield electric fields?"

[arriu]

Will you need to move it as the magnetic north drifts?

[danuker]

Not the previous commenter, but yes, they'll need to remember to rotate it towards magnetic North. And also to compensate for any ground movements that may shift the building or the sensors.

[lifeisstillgood]

For those like me who don't know what that is

https://www.sensorland.com/HowPage071.html

But of course now Inwant to know why you are measuring magnetic fields? :-)