Peristaltic electrostatic locomotive device

Other Hardware General Electronics
1

Been working on this pet project for a while now, im quite a beginner at many aspects to electronics though..

You see the theory is that with

*an acrylic tube with an array of outwards pointing coreless electromagnets inside,

*an electrostatic pump black Chinese wonderbox feeding electrons at the top,

*a magnetically shielded wire linking the bottom to a bit bellow the top,

  • microcontroller making the electromagnets sweep down in positive positive, off, off, negative negative, off, off, positive, positive etc etc.. kind of way (with some exceptions on top an bottom layers)

That the static electricity will build up in rings round the tube, trapped in magnetic fields, being moved down and round again at high frequency.. producing alot of air movement with not alot of electron loss.

I've spun up the 256 coreless electromagnets (that hurt lol)
Originally I was going to have them individually soldered to 3 transistors an then piggy backed to an individually addressable LED array (by drilling into the LED) but somve that's a lot of LED butchery an soldering I've been considering my other options..

Also the LED array on one data pin could only reach speeds up to 800khz, an while I suspect that would be enough to find a sweet spot, I'm not sure an would like to be able to try higher frequency ranges.

Techniqually I don't need to address all 256 coils individually.. it should work on just 32 layers of 8, with three modes, positive, off an negative.

I brought a teensy for the task, it says it's data outputs can have 7 settable power states, so my question to the forum is;

How should i electronically distinguish between these power states to switch each layer of 8 coils to either positive, off or negative polarity?

Are specific current sensitive transistors a thing?

Because I want to put a lot of current through these coils I'm asumbing a few mosfets are gona be key to the electronics of each layer.

A few options are available, if using 32 channels in different current states isn't practical then maybe using 5 pins for layer ID an 2-3 pins for state select would be easier.. but that depends on weather I can get each layer to hold onto it's last command, an if their are some pre built chips that'll make the build easier.

Any an all good advice welcome!

2

Hi,
A diagram of your proposed apparatus would help.

What is your machine aiming to accomplish?

What is "peristaltic" got to do with it?

Thanks.. Tom.. :grinning: :coffee: :coffee: :coffee: :coffee: :coffee: :+1: :australia:

3

I'll try an get a diagram for it..

Peristaltic meant like an action like swallowing food.. ripples, waves.. of magnetic flux running down the cylinder..

The idea is to capture 'static' electrical buildup between temporary opposing poles but moving those poles an thus the build up, down the outside of the cylinder, then recycling the build up at the bottom back to the top, but further down than where the new build up starts.. so it perpetually gets higher charged..

The static would alter the air with it but stay contained by the flux.. an as it moves.. theoretically it should move the air outside of the flux ripples making a form of elecrical locomotion far more efficient than an ion thruster.

4

I will take a SWAG and say this looks like a project for a bunch of shift registers (serial in parallel out) and a lot of N-Channel MOSFETs. or one of the many octal buffers available. Without voltage, electromagnet information etc this is the best I can do. With the shift registers you would simply load 1's and zero's for your pattern. No need to reset when started. The values can be placed in a table (array), keeping code simply. Then just change the shift speed to control the speed of the pump.

5

Hello @supersake ,

This might be of interest to you:

Also, the guy who runs that web site has a Tesla coil event near Nottingham in November, see:

Maybe it would be of interest. Maybe someone there would have expert knowledge that would be of help to you.

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Warning, Danger Wil Robinson......

I worry when that word is uttered in amongst someone's description of an idea they have..

@supersake are you trying to make an Energy Harvester?

Tom... :grinning: :coffee: :coffee: :coffee: :+1: :australia:
PS. Please do not say "Over Unity"

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Do you know that this thread is the only use of these words I can find on an internet search.
Can you post a link to this wonderbox?

What are you using to magnetically shield the wire?

And what does spinning up electromagnets mean?

In short to me, a retired University Senior Lecturer in the Physics department, it sounds like you are having us on.

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8

Hi,

I wonder if @supersake is talking about one of these;
image

HV sparky transformery thing?

Tom.. :grinning: :coffee: :+1: :australia:

9

Just how much electrical power are all these magnets going to need compared to that needed for an ion thruster?

10

Are you expecting this thing to move? Even if you did manage to get rippling air do you think this is going to actually move. Considering the mass of the thing, it is not going to be able to generate enough wind to actually move anything. It will not be able to overcome the inertia of the device.

You can try this by taking your device an fitting a fan on top of it and seeing how much wind you need to generate to get any movement. Think hovercraft.

The point about an ion thruster is that it is meant to be used in space, where as a wind machine, however produced, is not going to be usable in space. No air you see. Unless you want to fly it in a space station.

1 Like
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Make sure your apparatus is securely anchored to concrete foundations, or the anti gravity generated as a waste product may cause severe laboratory damage.

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12

When i mean i spun up 256 coreless electromagnets i mean i got an appropriate nut, bolt an a few washers, used super glue an fag ash on the thread at the top, hacksawed a slit on one side of the bolt head an on one of thr washers, then wound copper coated wire round an round, popped it out an repeated 256 times..

Their coreless because i figured the magnetic cohersivity could be problematic as the theory is that inbetween the magnetic fields they'd be a space where the electrons wouldnt mind hanging out, but if the off coils had a lingering magnetic field that might not be the case.

Behind the coils will be some thin iron foil to protect the inards from tye magnetic fields but ill probably give the 'recycling the electrons wire' an extra wrap in iron, or the mumetal sheet ive ordered..

I got the mumetal so i can wrap strips round the inside of the arcylic tube where each layer of 8 coils are.. so as to smooth out the flux.

13

Thats the thing!
Its great fun, makes a wining noise so i suspect it might involve two electric engines connected together inside.. its a little like the tazer chinease wonderboxes in that it can electocute stuff but its the only thing i could find that can charge stuff up with static electricity.. its seems as though its an electron pump.

14

Well mike, im not the kind of person to just assumb it cant just because their isnt a youtube video of someone doing it.. at the end of the day, its simple as shit tech like this that gets overlooked or supressed, an even the obvioisly super inefficient ion thrusters youtube scientists make can push a boat about.. beating thats good enough for me, but i highly suspect it'll do alot more.

I mean.. if i can keep an electrical buildup trapped in magnetic flux in air.. might it work underwater?

They say vaccumbs are actually loads of particles zapping in an out of existance really fast, also space isnt sooo empty, so their is a lot of room for maybe.

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Oh Oh, I would go for the suppression every day of the week.

Strange how the wonder boxes are so secret that they are suppressed from internet search, so that must be true.

Just asking, but where did you get your Physics degree from?

Looking forward to seeing your YouTube video when you are finished.

Yes a vacuum can cause this effect. Do you know what it is? It is partials and anti particles produced in equal measure annihilating each other.

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16

I made some circut diagrams to attempt to use 5 bits from the controller to pick the layer of coils (32) an 3 bits to pick its state.. an using some AND an XOR chips to get each layer to hold its state.. but suddenly it became huge.

So ive scrapped that idea an gone back to using an individually addressable rgb LED strip an just drilling into the LEDs, by my calculations ill only need 4 mosfets and a resistor per layer, an im thinking ill wire the 8 coils per layer in series, so i can get away with one resister per layer.

Im a noob tho so what kind of resister an mosfets is something ive been yrying to research..

I mean, i want to be able to feed the coils a fair bit of power, though the BASE on them will only be the power of an LED..

Im thinking to use a quite low resistance resistor like 100ohm, as its just to stop a kind of short circut developing..

Im in a slight quandry about what to do with the possitve from the LED, i think im going to just attach it to the positive powering the coils, i hope that wont be problematic.

17

I am assuming this is you as well:-

If you are using an addressable strip you need no mosfets and no resistors except for the one between your data output pin and the data input pin of the strip. You also need no drill, but maybe that is just a figure of speech.

You do not feed any power to the gate (not base) of a mosfet. It is a voltage driven device so when the gate reaches the saturation voltage for your specific mosfet, then the resistance between drain and source will be a minimum, as described in the data sheet for what device you use.

To see how to drive addressable LED strips read this and the subsequent pages.

18

You can get bare WS2811 chips without the LEDs, if you don't want to de-construct an LED strip.

Be aware that the addressable LED driver uses PWM to control the LED brightness, which may not play nicely with inductive loads at anything other than full brightness or completely off.

19

That!
May well have saved me a lot of time an maybe money.. thank you!

I dont know why i didn't look for the chips themselves, now i might not even need mosfets!

20

Yep thats me!

I just didnt realise you could buy the chips! I was gona drill out the rgb led transparent cover an solder to the copper plates inside them..

An of course with the nice power output of the chips i dont need mosfets an can just go straight back to using an array with every coil individually addressable.

Brilliant.. my appologies for any inconvenience caused.

I'll try an remember to update you all when the project is finished, even if it isn't as amazing as i'd hoped.