Please try to build a Braile cell, that is a perfect project, it requires miniature actuators. I worked in a project like this for blind people, and the braile cell technology was too expensive, it was a German technology using high voltage, but if you manage to make it work for active braile cell, that will change the life for many people. The prototype we made was like a cellphone using this active braile cells. Great work by the way!!
What if you flipped the concept around? Integrate the PCB coil into the movable part and move the permanent magnet to the underlying substrate. That way the flexure doesn’t have to support the weight of the magnet or keep it from flying away. Alternatively, perhaps try adding some iron to the movable part and have the flexure provide a restoring force to spring back from the underlying PCB coil when turned off. In any case, I think the permanent magnets are the most troublesome component of these assemblies.
I think you can use the actuation as a means of switching between bistable configurations. Right now the motion is linear and is dependent on the flexibility of the pcb
Excellent idea! There are some interesting bistable mechanisms that use materials that aren't normally considered flexible. If the range of motion is entirely within the elastic range of the stiff material, then the device can last millions of cycles.
I don't know why but I can see this being a super futuristic button. A system that pops it out then you can press it like a button. Say you want to turn on a light. It doesn't pop the button out untill it's pluged it. Once plugged in you can push it and the magnetic field can be used to register a button press. I wonder if you could also use it as a n analog button.
KEEP MAKING STUFF! Yours are some of the most unique and interesting applications for PCB design I've ever seen. I love every design, and learn a TON in the process of watching. Good stuff.
As someone who loves tech but is not an engineer it is a real pleasure to see a good engineer do a research project like this. Thanks, I really enjoyed it.
I was blind by accident but I got my sight back and one of the many things I missed while being blind was the internet. Make a screen with a density close to 600x400 coils in this technology so that you can touch it and feel the contours of the "displayed" image. It would make life easier for the blind 😉
Very cool! I've had a breakthrough on something I believe it's huge, and that's almost what I needed! May find a way to use your version for the testing phase!
Dude you might have got the start of a cool keyboard there: To mitigate the interactions between adjacent magbets try putting the magnets with opposing poles next one another (Nup, Ndow). Then build a keyboard array, if you keep the magnets up with a constant coil voltage you can then monitor the change in the coil current when a magnet is pressed, boom you got a frictionless keyboard.
flip dot or maybe even a split flap display with your unique brand of genius could be absolutely gamechanging i know the split flap display is a far fetch but a flipdot display should be possible definitely a challenge but i think very doable
Carl, you are interested in a very interesting private field. As an engineer, I love following your work. I have two suggestions. - Play with frequency values. - Continue the winding in more than one layer while placing the coil on the pcb. For example, let's say that all 8 layers are coiled. I think this will reduce the overheating problem a bit.
I like the idea of cheap, "haptic" button pads for electronics projects. Buttons that push back just ever so slightly. Like navigating a menu, the button could "push back" when you reach the end of the list.
If you used all electromagnets instead of permanent magnets you'd destroy the circuits a lot less since they'd only interact with each other when on. Also, I believe this technology (with refinement) has applications in biological valve replacement. Out of curiosity, could you create a flexible tube that would contract in a wave sequence to pump fluids?
The flap thing is basically how DLP works, except it's electrostatic and tiny (MEMS). Electrostatic might make sense here too with a big boost converter
i think your galvanometer idea would've benefited from a more traditional cross-gimballing situation (think 2 thin tabs between halfcircles flexing around X, then a circle, then 2 thin tabs in Y) instead of a linearly expanding spring. or do the same trick as most directional pads on controllers and just put a bump in the middle under it to force it being tilted.
If the mechanical bit you are moving can be made to be bistable, i.e. latch into one of two positions, you would only need to power the actuator in either polarity to switch it. A polarized screen covering the visible display in combination of a polarized reflective coating on the articulated element might result in the element being visible in one position and invisible in the other. A variation of the flip dot display where the moving element might not need to actually move very much at all.
In my basic understanding of magnets and circuits, I feel like you should see a change in voltage as pressure is applied to a flexed pad. If I am right, and the sensitivity of what you are using to read the voltage is refined sufficiently, then this could have applications as a minute load cell. Like low pressure environments / suction sensors or powder fill machines in pharma manufacturing.
Built with precision positioning rather than force and travel in mind this could still be very useful. Maybe for enhancing laser distance measurement and so on.
If you had a system of flextures that you glue to a moving piece, you could have a bistable actuator. You'd just need the flextures to attach to something that compresses them slightly from their rest position, so that deflected in or out is stable, but in the middle is not. I need a thing in my life that indicates whether the current time is inside a specific period, but it needs to consume essentially no power most of the time. I could use a bistable version of this to shift an indicator pin up and down, so it's either sticking out or hidden. You could use a series of this indicator to create a progress "bar" or a binary readout, but simple state indicators like "is it between 3 and 7pm on a weekday" or "is my server online". If you could detect the flexture being pushed to the other stable state, then this could even be interactive, maybe a minimalist work timer where you push the pin in to start the timer and it pops back up at the end. This could be handled in a lot of ways, detecting it through the coil would just be cool.
So cool! I'm wondering if you could replace the magnet for another coil in order to make it even simpler to manufacture... Or if it'd get far too hot. It would allow it to get thinner and lighter, which would make it worthless for haptical feedback, but better for visual applications, I think.
The PCB strength is not as good as metal, but actually you show quite good results. Pros of flexures: Frictionless guiding, quite good on spring linearity for controlling. Cons of flexures: Deflection of the beams usually about 1/10 of the length to prevent yield, so the moving distance will be limited.
This could probably make a great braille display for people with visual impairments. Currently the commercial braille displays you can buy cost more than $100 per character.
High acceleration, low resonance frequency mini haptic actuators are hard to find right now. I work with them every day and your design is atypical with the coil under the magnet and not around it. Most devices use the Lorentz force for a constant force regardless of the magnet displacement. The suspension is the hardest part to get right, the second hardest is the magnetic circuit, good luck !
You could pull a "magic 8 ball" and enclose the display in a thin container of very opaque liquid, then all the actuators have to do is press themselves against the glass to create a high contrast mechanical display.
Have you heard of speaker spiders? They exist to hold the voicecoil centered throughout the whole excursion, much like what you want to do with the magnets here.
If you used your multi-coil pad with a piece of steel instead of a magnet, then you could use the flex unit as a sensor that would proportionally couple the center driven coil to the sensor coils proportionally to the force applied. This would be a good low volume flow sensor.
Interesting buttons.. I think they can have great application in gamepads. giving gamer feedback on button press, and heating ist and issue because will be quite short period of usage.
This could work for that tactile guide for the visually impared that 'Stuff Made Here' made. I think the video is called "See in complete darkness with touch"
It's probably already been suggested, but have you tried fixing the magnets firmly and having the coil as the moving part? You can power the coil via copper on the arms of the flexure. You then should have far less mass to move, and with the magnets fixed, you wouldn't get the problem of the magnets tearing the thin flexure arms apart. Am I missing something here?
Carl. I have a challenge for you. To print a entire RC plane. No wires, no parts to add, only glue, and plugs you can solder on to add chips and circuits you find on the market.
I love this guy's broken ass english accent " we kut put a howl in de coyle mekanism" And also love how all of his videos start with interesting ideas and end with really dissapointing results
Next time instead of wasting area and give the project dept with printed plastic, use a second pcb with just a hole and a coil around it. Solder it on the “base” pcb, and no plastic needed, a second or even a tirth coil could be added, improving your design. Making optimal use of all space while maintaining a housing.
How about filling the housing with oil, putting the assembly in a waterproof flexible bladder and using this actuator as a way of generating pressure waves underwater for communication.
Instead of a spiral use something between a J and a U with longer to the outside ring radiating inward. Or even a W where the middle hump is not connected to the outer ring. The shorter length is glued to the magnet. So say you had 8 segments radiating to the center ... you would have 8 glue points. This would allow the flexure to be below the magnet and would constrain it more centrally and have a more consistent level and minimize the size further. Or if you bent on a spiral make entirely underneath the magnet and just confine the center. Basically invert what you have in the thumb nail ... instead of the 4 points connected to an outer ring, bring them all underneath and to the center.
Gr8 job, very inspiring. Have u considered magnetic tape instead of the small disc magnets? (For galvo purposes) the tape won’t move anything heavy but for a galvo, u just need higher response rate, to deflect light.
This project makes me think that you could use a bunch of these flexible actuators like mechanical leaves like when blown upon by wind, they binder moving back and forth they could create a current that could be stored in a battery Bank giving you more power conversion then a fan style wind turbine.. or you could make each of these into a little fan that could generate current financial wind coming across them.. namaste..
