Switchable Magnetic Grabber

The world of medicine contains many things, conceited surgeons being a routine fixture. Give them the opportunity, and if you're deemed worthy, they'll tell you how wonderful thins new-fangled keyhole surgery is, in through a navel, past 2 loops of bowel and a kidney, snip snip, all done. With a minimum of disturbance.

This technique was of course well established by mechanics who didn't fancy lifting the engine away from the gearbox and grinding off an exhaust manifold just to change that last spark plug*.

instead, long, bendy tools, a little contortion and a liberal attitude to how far things should bend is used** instead of wholesale disassembly.

The problem with all this, is that eventually, the 10mm socket you taped onto the end of you're quadruple extension will drop off. It won't do anything helpful, like fall all the way to the floor, oh no. It will drop and roll in behind the intake manifold. Probably in plain sight*** taunting you. Can you leave it? Well, you're probably down to your last 10mm socket, everyone is, and it's likely sitting right next to a drive pully that will not come out on top of a high speed interaction with tool steel.

So, you go and get your grabber tool. There are two types, one is a springy plunger-operated flexible tube that has spindly arms that pop out of the end to grab your socket, the other is a version with a permanent magnet on the end.

The downside to the magnetic version, is that magnets are happy sticking indiscriminately to almost anything in the typical engine bay. So, let's solve it.

Take a small electromagnet, put it on a flexible thing, run wire, add push button momentary switch and a battery at the handle end. You're done. Switchable magnetic grabber.

* of course I changed it guv, look, there's 6 empty spark plug boxes. What more do you want? ** in some vehicles. In a Ducati, you're on your own, son. *** from one very specific angle