New to LabView and need help!

[Newbie21]

I'm probably in the wrong forum but didn't know where to start.  I'm very new to all of this, but want to learn - this will probably be very easy to most of you.  I have a 2 wire electromagent and want to write a program to turn on and off.  What hardware do I need?

[Albert.Geven]

at least a digital IO pin

and further depending on the current and voltage requirements of your magnet a relay or amplifier.

[Newbie21]

Great this may be too much for me - I've played around with the program and feel that I could I could get a simple program written, but I'm not familiar at all with any of the hardware.  I was hoping just the magnet and somehting to plug into would be it.  This is the magnet description:

55LB 25kg Electric LIfting Magnet Electromagnet Solenoid Lift Holding 40mm

• Model: ZYE1-P40/20
• Input Voltage: 12V DC
• Power Consumption: 8W
• Material: Metal

Would I need a relay or amplifier for something like this?  

Thanks for your help!

[Albert.Geven]

so you only need to switch this on and off.

You can use a 12 volt power supply and make sure it can handle 8 watt so almost 1 amp.

Be sure to add a diode over the voltage to suppress high voltages when switching off.

A coil (as is in the magnet) willtry to keep the current going when switching off and can generate very high voltages. 

You can use a relay and a usb to digital io cable to connect the power to the magnet.

Start with a real switch and makeit work and then find a usb to digital IO device that can be controlled by the pc. LabVIEW can do this but is aybe overkill for you.

[Newbie21]

This is great information - thank you so much.  I agree this would be overkill with LabView, but I'm actually adding this function to a much larger program.  I have already written a program utilizing an acclerometer that reads the force exerted on an object when dropped onto playing surfaces.  I would like to use the magnet to drop the object and trigger the start of data collection for the accelerometer.  I had not idea about the high voltage generated when the magnet switches off - this could have caused interference with gathering the voltage data from the accelerometer.