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As per the title, my kitchen cabinets use those little magnetic door catch devices.

Where there is a small plate on the door, and a housed magnet mounted to the frame of the cabinet to hold the door closed - instead of spring loaded hinges.

My high-use doors keep breaking their magnets every year or so - generally the central pin holding the magnet captive gives way and the thing falls apart.

Not expensive to replace, but annoying...

Am I likely mounting them wrong to cause such an issue. If they are too far back, then they do not engage at all and do not work.

If they are too far forward, the door looks ajar.

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3 Answers

Magnet latches are cheap and rarely work well. Consider replacing the hinges with capture, European style closing hinges that hold doors closed and don't require any mechanical holding devise on the open side of the door. They are inexpensive and work well and are fairly easy to install.

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I am not sure why the think is falling apart, is it setup to close and the impact of the cabinet damages it over time?

My pantry closet uses the same mechanism and while it never broke, I always had the issue where the magnets would not engage the door. I found a really easy fix by just attaching a small (but powerful) magnet to the plate on the door.

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I did not use anything to attach them other than the force of the magnet, but ever since then the door has been consistently engaging.

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It sounds like the magnet mounts aren't high-enough duty. Are they designed for high-usage kitchen cupboard doors? I'd also check that you aren't deforming the mounts when you mount them. That would hasten failure.

You might be able to upgrade the magnet's mount, but since the pin is already metal, that would mean upgrading the rest of the mount.

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I have replaced the entire assembly several times. Nothing deformed or out of alignment that I can tell. Not sure about duty-cycles, none are labelled as such at my local renovation store. –  sdg Dec 16 '10 at 14:30
Looking at all the posts, I think another solution should be searched for. –  staticsan Dec 17 '10 at 2:04
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