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Post by newgrognard on Jul 28, 2013 15:31:35 GMT -5
Had a thought....(although setting this scene would require a very thick base)
Build scenery on top of a large rare earth magnet (very heavy),
Then, carve a beholder mini out of some Styrofoam spheres, shaving off the top quarter and embedding a smaller magnet inside (so that when placed over the larger magnet, it floats).
Finish your beholder mini in lightweight textures, eyestalks, etc.
Anyone think this will work?
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Post by dm1scotty on Jul 28, 2013 16:03:19 GMT -5
Hmmmmmmmmmm...not sure it would work.
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Post by belatucadras on Jul 28, 2013 19:42:53 GMT -5
The mini would have to be perfectly balanced or it would flip. There could be no interference from the surroundings ie. no bumped tables or jostled tiles or airflow. I agree with Scotty.
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thedmg
Room Planner
Posts: 327
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Post by thedmg on Jul 29, 2013 0:35:52 GMT -5
I just use starfleet standard anti-grav plating. Belatucadras is correct, the mini will flip as the opposite pole is attracted. You would need an equally strong magnet above and to the sides for it to remain stationary and not move. Otherwise, like a maglev train it will head to the edge at speed. If it were an easy process someone would have made a floating mini base product already. Unfortunately it is not.
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AJ
Room Planner
Posts: 315
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Post by AJ on Jul 29, 2013 6:30:05 GMT -5
You can buy a floating world globe for US$82 (http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Free-shipping-POST-Magnetic-Floating-Globe/104324_361524334.html) and modify that, but that is quite expensive.. unless you reverse engineer it and make a heap of them out of old telephone parts and packaging materials In principle, if the magnetic globe works, so can a beholder miniature, and if they can mass produce trinkets like that, then you can make one in your garage from scrap parts.. I say GO FOR IT!
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Post by belatucadras on Jul 29, 2013 8:26:01 GMT -5
If the beholder in question were to be of sufficient size as to allow for a ring of stabilizing magnet set in both the base and the mini, then ok. As AJ pointed out, there is a floating globe. However, if we are talking about a mini to be used at the table in,a size compatible with the other minis in play, then I think a single pair of magnets not sufficient to provide stability from all sides. Also, the mini,would be too small to allow sufficient distance between multiple magnets should the ring of magnets be used. I an certain Edison had friends like me that he also ignored.
The globes I saw had a doughnut shaped magnet in the base and circular magnet in the floating object. So maybe the circle held in suspension is enough and maybe you can get scaled down magnets to work. All the object I saw were using electromagnets.
I am a truck driver. If I knew anything, would I be in a damn truck. Hehe.
Please document and share your results. I am interested to see how you make it work.
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thedmg
Room Planner
Posts: 327
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Post by thedmg on Jul 29, 2013 17:18:56 GMT -5
James Cameron was a truck driver. He brought us Terminator. What you do to make money and who you are are not the same thing. The number one thing that gets in the way of anyone doing anything is themselves, then the naysayers around them.
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AJ
Room Planner
Posts: 315
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Post by AJ on Jul 29, 2013 19:24:32 GMT -5
The primary problem I foresee would be playability.. if this was just for display purposes, sure, I'd consider doing it myself.. but if you want the suspensor magnet doughnut concealed under a table surface, you can't easily move it around, and of course, the miniature can't be moved off a set spot above it. For a fixed display, however, it would be excellent and worthy of investigation.
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Post by newgrognard on Jul 29, 2013 19:40:57 GMT -5
You can buy a floating world globe for US$82 (http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Free-shipping-POST-Magnetic-Floating-Globe/104324_361524334.html) and modify that, but that is quite expensive.. unless you reverse engineer it and make a heap of them out of old telephone parts and packaging materials In principle, if the magnetic globe works, so can a beholder miniature, and if they can mass produce trinkets like that, then you can make one in your garage from scrap parts.. I say GO FOR IT! Although I am a mechanic, I am so NOT McGyver. Maybe I can find some doughnut magnets at the craft store.
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caveman
Paint Manipulator
Posts: 107
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Post by caveman on Jul 30, 2013 10:33:40 GMT -5
Try K&J Magnetics. My daughter and I made a maglev train for her science fair project last year, and these guys sell the rare earth magnets you're going to need. Also, my experience with them was positive: they had good prices and the stuff got to me earlier than they said it would. One thing we discovered was that the magnetic fields on these magnets aren't very uniform, which meant that the fields were kind of sloped, which in turn meant that the magnets tended to "slide" in certain directions when we tried to float them on each other. And that sliding invariably resulted in a flip as the opposite poles were attracted to each other. We used a magnetic-field responsive film that they sell (don't recall the name) to map the fields out, and to put it mildly, they were oddly shaped. That certainly could have been us not doing it right, but we for sure discovered that making something float was not easy. We had to make five different trains and two different tracks before we got it to work, even though we found numerous "how-to" docs on the web that said "oh, just make the track magnets' north poles facing up and the train magnets' north poles facing down, and you're good to go." Wrong. It did NOT work that way because as others have said, the trains flip over. It's the difference between theory and practice: it should have worked, but it most definitely didn't until we applied some "fixes." We wound up having to use a "trench" (i.e. walls alongside the track) to keep the train from immediately flipping over, and we also mounted magnets on each side of the train with their north poles facing perpendicular to the track. That way, when the train tried to flip, (and it still did), even with the trench, the repulsion from those perpendicularly mounted magnets stopped it. I'm not sure how you'll pull this off, but I do know that even if you try to float a larger disc magnet atop the smaller inner ring of a donut magnet, the disc is going to flip. I'm not sure of the science, but the rare earth magnets are very strong, and with gravity in the picture helping to move those "floating" magnets along their irregularly shaped fields, those suckers are going to flip. I know it breaks your illusion, but one thing we did for our repulsion demonstration was to mount two donut magnets on a dowel rod. The two donuts were clearly floating, and you could make them jump pretty easily by pushing them together and then letting them go. The dowel rod is there though, so it doesn't get the effect you want... As the others have said, don't let the naysayers stop you. And as Henry Ford said: "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right." I'm sure this can be figured out. Good luck, and please post your results.
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Post by belatucadras on Jul 30, 2013 13:39:39 GMT -5
The globes that float are done so with electromagnets. I think that is how they are better able to control the shape of the field. Using static magnets, even rare earth magnets, you will get oddly shaped and uneven magnetic fields.
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Post by hookbill2 on Jul 31, 2013 9:03:21 GMT -5
just thinking out loud.. how about take fishing line, thin coat of hot glue or crazy glue or the like to stiffen it up then paint it to match the color of the floor (brownish, blackish, etc) and affix to a thin base of the same color to give the illusion of it floating. The string should be colored and thin enough to appear invisible from almost any angle.
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Post by newgrognard on Jul 31, 2013 18:45:14 GMT -5
just thinking out loud.. how about take fishing line, thin coat of hot glue or crazy glue or the like to stiffen it up then paint it to match the color of the floor (brownish, blackish, etc) and affix to a thin base of the same color to give the illusion of it floating. The string should be colored and thin enough to appear invisible from almost any angle. One could also craft realistic looking "Drool" coming from the mouth of the beholder to mount it on/with.
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Post by belatucadras on Jul 31, 2013 20:50:43 GMT -5
Bah! Now I am obsessed with figuring out to make it float. I'm going to have to try some thing when I get off the road for a few days.
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phenem
Cardboard Collector
Posts: 8
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Post by phenem on Aug 7, 2013 15:31:49 GMT -5
Check this out:
This guy has some pretty big magnets, I'm sure you can find some that are much smaller to fit on the base. I don't know if it would be worth all the time and trouble it would take to align the magnets perfectly.
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