My brain always wants to find a logical answer to things. Why not just find out how far your magnet's strength works and keep yours that far away from the machine to be sure? To test your magnet, lay a couple of pins or needles down on a table then slowly move your magnet toward them. AT the point the needles/pins start moving around and being effected by the magnet, lay the magnet down, then measure the distance between the magnet and the pins...that should tell you in generic terms how far away from the machine to keep it. Bellaboo says she was told that pincushion magnets are not strong enough to hurt computerized machine and I won't dispute that, but why take the chance if you only need to keep it 6 inches away to be sure?