Ordinary magnets are poor at alignment. Two disc magnets attract wherever they meet, have no preferred rotational position, and can settle off-center. Designers usually add pins, bosses or pockets to fix that.
A patterned magnet pair can do the locating itself. Correlated Magnetics Research's Align Polymagnets are made as matched pairs whose patterns only reach their lowest-energy state in one position, so the parts pull themselves into place. CMR's design note describes three kinds: centering, rotational and lateral alignment. Centering pairs come in versions with different precision and different tolerance for starting off-center. Rotational pairs prefer one or several angles; the catalog includes detents at 90, 120 and 180 degrees, and CMR says almost any angle and number of positions is possible as a custom design.
CMR claims Align Polymagnets perform the same way every time without recalibration or maintenance, and its applications page proposes them for tripods, cameras, scopes, laser pointers and optics, where repeatable positioning would otherwise need a feedback loop or active control.
Practical points: alignment force is strongest at close range, so bring parts near before relying on the magnets to finish the job, and add a mechanical stop where loads could knock the joint out of position. Catalog parts include center-alignment pairs with #6 countersinks and 2- and 3-position rotational alignment pairs.
WholeMagnetics, 2026-10-04. Polymagnet facts are taken from Correlated Magnetics Research’s public pages, listed below; vendor performance figures are CMR’s own.