Force in a linear direction

wildwest1

If a magnet is held at a constant distance from an attracting force in a linear direction, will it take more force to start the motion than to continue the motion?

dlouth15

Is there friction involved? If there's no friction or air resistance or anything of that sort, then no force is required to merely continue the motion of an object.

If there is friction (and I'm not sure exactly how you've got this set up) then the force required to get the object moving from stand still would usually be greater than than the force required to keep it moving. Static friction is normally greater in magnitude than dynamic friction. I'm imagining here an object resting on a surface being attracted towards a magnet also on the surface.

wildwest1

Thanks dlouth15,

Maybe I should explain some more. I want to be able to control damping applied to a moving object. This moving object has a load cell to calculate force and changing the damping will give me different force readings off the load cell. The moving object is reciprocating so the start and end stops will have different values if I used a friction method I was wondering can I make a linear variable magnetic clutch? Will the start and end stop have different force than when object is in motion

dlouth15

Just trying to gain a little more understanding of your setup. How is the load cell attached? What two objects is it measuring the force between? Diagram?