17 ms·
Polymagnets
- journeeman 11y agoSoftware-defined magnetism?
- Natanael_L 11y agoThat would be electropermanent magnets
- iheredia 11y agohttps://youtu.be/IANBoybVApQ?t=2m1s https://youtu.be/IANBoybVApQ?t=2m1s
- giodamelio 11y agoThat is so cool. I can only imagine what awesome things people will use this for.
- dclowd9901 11y agoImmediately coming to mind: possible limited slip differential with electronically variable ratios
- themeiguoren 11y agoI have a pair of magnetic finger implants. Afters seeing how detailed their printing was, my first thought was using metal as a medium to send secret messages. A magnetic brail if you will.
- lolidaisuki 11y agoIt's hard to even imagine how many different places you could apply this technology in. My mind is blown.
- Mithaldu 11y agoSo how long until these lose strength, or worse, the patterning altogether?
- jaak 11y agoThe FAQ claims they will loose about 1% of their strength every 100 years. http://www.polymagnet.com/faq/ http://www.polymagnet.com/faq/
- bewaretheirs 11y agoespecially: https://youtu.be/IANBoybVApQ?t=5m46s https://youtu.be/IANBoybVApQ?t=5m46s and https://youtu.be/IANBoybVApQ?t=6m28s https://youtu.be/IANBoybVApQ?t=6m28s I want one just as a desk toy.
- notatoad 11y agohttps://youtu.be/IANBoybVApQ?t=5m46s https://youtu.be/IANBoybVApQ?t=5m46s and https://youtu.be/IANBoybVApQ?t=6m28s https://youtu.be/IANBoybVApQ?t=6m28s (links fixed)
- bewaretheirs 11y agooops, thanks.
- martindale 11y agoOh my. I'll take five.
- Aardwolf 11y agoWould such springs lose magnetism after a while, or do they remain permanent?
- Natanael_L 11y agoI'm guessing their magnetism will be worn down by use (they're standard magnetized permamagnets), but it will happen over years in normal circumstances. The time depends on heat, currents (should be minimal) and opposing magnetic forces (relatively small here). Also impacts.
- nyc_cyn 11y agoWhat's an example of a product that could be created with this technology that would be difficult otherwise?
- chakalakasp 11y agoFrictionless gears? That'd be pretty handy on a trying-to-be-quiet nuclear submarine.
- dzhiurgis 11y agoNuclear subs are electric, so no gears. Idea still could probably work for some applications.
- VLM 11y agoGoogle for "weston bye magnetic gear clock". Note its not as convenient as you might think... no ferrous material in the construction or it'll build up on the magnets until it hits something, and no pendulum designs, or none with conductive material due to magnetic braking. It turns out the inherent mechanical limitations override the low friction advantages pretty much everywhere. For practical engineering work most frictionless applications either need to handle 100+ HP to make economic sense, which isn't happening, or what they really need is sensing with no stick/slip friction and we have rather advanced and cheap optical position sensors and other non-contact sensors now a days.
- TrevorJ 11y agoI'm skeptical of the friction-less claim: isn't there drag induced by the varying magnetic fields?
- evan_ 11y agoThere's a whole page of potential applications: http://www.polymagnet.com/applications/ http://www.polymagnet.com/applications/
- justifier 11y agorobotics
- 542458 11y agoThose are a lot cheaper than I was expecting - I'm seeing $3.60 for most units.
- Klathmon 11y agoSomeone needs to give this company a marketing budget... Is there a catch i'm really not getting, because these seem WAY too good to be true, and i'm really surprised that they aren't being used literally everywhere already.
- Natanael_L 11y agoFirst of all it takes some mental adjustment to start designing things with these. Engineers need to build experience to avoid designs where unexpected forces of movements causes internal lockups due to misalignment, for example. Second, the feedback isn't immediate in the way a physical object is, magnetism is always "springy". That means hybrid designs for many kinds of mechanisms with both mechanical and magnetic parts - see the paragraph above again for why this can be complex. And then there's limits to the range, precision and maximum forces it can handle vs regular mechanical components. Although over time I do expect it to show up in more and more places as it gets better understood, where these designs start to substitute classical mechanical designs where they're both good enough and more durable. Also, another idea for these magnets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_art https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_art
- lambdadmitry 11y agoOne of catches that I can think of is a danger of swallowing a couple of them. For example, there is a special regulation regarding small magnets in objects that children can access. If they cling inside a body through some tissue, one will need a very nasty emergency surgery. It's not made easier by the fact that most surgical instruments are made from steel.
- deutronium 11y agoSounds very fascinating, I've skimmed through a couple of their pdfs but couldn't see, is there one that explains how they create them?
- jfoutz 11y agoin the youtube video below, they show shots of the hardware. I don't know what the material is. My guess is they have a print head that will generate a real strong real small magnetic field, they walk the print head over the base material reversing the field in specific spots. that's what it looks like to me anyway.
- deutronium 11y agoCheers, yeah it sounds like you're right "Multipole magnetic devices may be constructed from discrete permanent magnets, or by exposing heated magnetizable material to a coded magnetic field." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmable_magnet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmable_magnet
- pbhjpbhj 11y agoThe patent doc linked elsewhere in the thread talks about two coils with opposite fields being used at the same time; only took a cursory glance though.
- deelowe 11y agoI'm very surprised these haven't taken off by now. They seem extremely useful and these guys have been pushing them for several months now if not longer.
- funkyy 11y agoThe one thing that prevents them from entering customer market in every day use is that magnets can affect many things. Simple example - I had cover for my phone with a magnet closure. It wasnt affecting my phone in any way, but few times I put parking card next to it and it wiped out all the information from it forcing me to chasing parking office to get it re-printed.
- function_seven 11y agoBut wouldn't this be the solution to your problem? If the pole reversals are tightly packed, it looks like the field lines could be designed to not affect other objects, even in close proximity.
- funkyy 11y agoAs long as facing right direction. Its just one example and actually quite good - I would keep initially the ticket inside of the case, so it would come close to magnet anyways.
- bigger_cheese 11y agoWhen I was at uni we spent some time in the lab playing around with Magneto-optical film and polarized light, it was supposed to demo the Kerr Effect. I had fun with an old floppy disk - you could bring a bar magnet close to the disk's film and watch the magnetic domains flip under the microscope. Would be pretty cool to print some patterns using this technology and view it the same way.
- pdkl95 11y ago> Kerr Effect Applied Science (which has many great videos) recently did that demonstration using an old magneto-optical removable disk. He was able to get a very nice example of the effect that is visible with the naked eye. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTquUbvzJII https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTquUbvzJII If you like that video, the previous video on the Faraday effect is really cool; I had no idea a solenoid rotates light polarization. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhU-nNiAgtI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhU-nNiAgtI
- hugi 11y agoHow do they work!
- todd8 11y agoAn array of, say p, individual magnets some aligned with N up and some with S up produces a field that can be designed to repel or attract a second array of , say q, magnets (having a possibly different arrangement). What is interesting is that since the forces between any two of the individual little magnets in the arrays drops off non-linearly (inversely proportional to the square of the distance) a computer can be used to layout the p magnets in one array and the q in the other so that the aggregate force between the two arrays (i.e. the sum of all the p*q forces between all of the magnets in the two array) is attractive at some distances or orientations of the two arrays and repulsive at other distances or orientations. Imaging a simple linear arrangement of the two magnet arrays. If both look like N S N S N S N S then as the two arrangements slide past each other they will alternately repulse each other (i.e. N against N) and attract each other (N against S). This is just a simple illustration of the principle. Watch the video in the linked article from which this can be gathered and more.
- anonbanker 11y agomost subtle Insane Clown Posse joke ever.
- personjerry 11y agoEven it looks pretty cool, they're unlikely to get adoption because it's not clear to their target market what their benefit is. One way to solve this is to actually take one of the applications and do it themselves and drive interest in the technology.
- azinman2 11y agoI disagree. They show spring-type applications, things precisely going back to alignment, etc. Industrial engineers should be able to take these higher-level concepts and put them in their toolchest
- Already__Taken 11y agoIf they can vary the spring distance by current and not design they could make for interesting valve replacement in ICEs.
- Natanael_L 11y agoWith a mix of permamagnetic polymagnets, electropermanent magnet arrays plus classical electromagnets, you could definitely do that. You could have certain static guiding patterns, switchable EPM arrays for creating modifiable sub-patterns (and strengths) within the static ones, and the electromagnets for finely adjusting strengths and for pulling objects around. For one, EPM:s could be used for programmable attachment/removal to a magnetic guiding system by either attracting an object with the polymagnet spring mechanism and then letting it into a magnetic rail, or by pushing it off by mirroring its magnetic field.
- URSpider94 11y agoI think that's a bad idea. Many hardware technology start-ups go down the path of forward-integrating in order to drive adoption. To do this, they end up investing massive amounts in developing the end product, instead of on the specific feature.
- Animats 11y agoThe machine for making those has been around for several years.[1] TechShop in San Francisco has one, along with the design software. I've never seen it used. The machine for making them is just an XY table with a small, high power magnetizing coil; it's the design software that's the clever part. An obvious application is self-aligning connectors. Magnetic connectors have been around for years, but, like Apple's discontinued magnetic charger plug, they usually have some mechanical alignment guides. A completely flat connector is now possible. [1] http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1e2t6n_cmr-correlated-magnetics-research-magprinter_tech http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1e2t6n_cmr-correlated-magn...
- lowglow 11y agoIs this the "Magnetic printer" thing they have collecting dust in the corner there? I've always wondered what that was but never found any information on it. I thought it was just some one off.
- Animats 11y agoThat's it. There's software for the MagPrinter on some of the TechShop computers. There's a class for it.[1] [1] http://www.techshop.ws/take_classes.html?storeId=4&categoryId=28#1165 http://www.techshop.ws/take_classes.html?storeId=4&categoryI...
- jacobolus 11y agoI played around with the software and printed some magnets about a year ago. Never came up with a production use beyond hanging pictures on my wall though.
- fezz 11y agoOT question: how do you like TechShop? Still waiting for one here in LA. Although wish they'd pick a location further west, like culver city.
- gregschlom 11y ago
- schappim 11y agoI predict Apple is going to buy this company.
- anonbanker 11y agoIf not, Tesla probably will.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- mrestko 11y agoThey should use real video on their homepage instead of CGI. I immediately thought this had to be a scam until I watched the Smarter Every Day video linked in the commments.
- ricardobeat 11y agoThis was originally posted as a link to the Smarter Every Day video a few hours ago. Policies...
- jerryhuang100 11y agodoes this mean supercheap maglev (hyperloop?) is nigh if we put some carefully designed Polymagnets patterns aligned on a track for near-zero power transportation? or maybe enen railgun in your palm.
- ChuckMcM 11y agoNo, but it does suggest that you could make patterned magnetic rails and riders such that you had a non-contact bearing surface. By patterning the rail and rider with gray codes you could insure that in all orientations they maintained some "push". They would need a machine to pattern the rails though, and it would remain to be seen how durable such a bearing would be, especially if it got too warm.
- jacquesm 11y agoYou'd need a balancing trick besides just the magnets otherwise you'll end up with a positive feedback loop terminating in contact, but there are some interesting ways around this (that you can also 'roll out' to apply linearly): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrodynamic_bearing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrodynamic_bearing
- myfonj 11y agoWhat a pity those "springs" were not called "empties" as a "Roadside Picnic" tribute.
- beejamin 11y agoFirst thing I thought of, too! If it helps, 'Empties' were renamed 'Springs' in the game STALKER.
- SeanDav 11y agoI wonder how precise the alignment is? Potentially if it is low sub millimetre precision it could be very useful.
- CamperBob2 11y agoPresumably it could scale all the way down to the domains on a hard-disk platter, but there are probably intermediate ranges of magnetic domain size where no practical techniques are available.
- hanniabu 11y agoI believe the accuracy you want depends on the coupling faces of the magnet. If you have 3 or more 'spots' that match up of equal size and mirrored placement, I'm quite sure the alignment would continuously be sub millimeter, but this assumes there's no external force on the magnets since an inward force could create substantial friction to keep the alignment from being perfect. Likewise with a lateral force. If you want it to be less accurate and leave some room for error then I'm sure you can offset each mirrored 'spot' off slightly in different directions so they're all equally lop sided with respect to each other.
- paulo-tanaka 11y agoPatent for their magnet printer: https://www.google.com/patents/US9105384 https://www.google.com/patents/US9105384
- xyproto 11y agoHow long do they last? Do they weaken over time?
- jacquesm 11y agoMany years, and yes. All magnets will slowly demagnetize but it is so slow that no matter what your application you'll be fine as long as you don't repeatedly impact the magnet and you don't heat it above a certain temperature.
- eximius 11y agoI hope they come up with all sorts of interesting applications for this... But I just want a floating table. Sometimes making the world a cooler place is good too :D
- nraynaud 11y agoI asked the same question on youtube: how is that different from fridge magnets whose Halbach arrays are printed directly too.
- Kliment 11y agoMainly in that you can customize the pattern. As far as I know the fridge magnets are a series of N/S stripes that are made by driving a long coil with AC and running the film past it at a speed tied to the mains frequency.
- matheweis 11y agoI wonder what the environmental constraints and strength of these are relative to neodymium magnets...? I could see them being used to reduce the cost and / or increase the efficiency of small brushless motors.
- stryk 11y agoSomebody needs to get a few of these to Ben Heckendorn (Ben Heck @ Newark a.k.a. element14's Youtube channel), as well as a tutorial on designing them and let him run with it. There's some incredible things to be made from these -- my first thought was some custom pinball play-field uses, crazy stuff that couldn't be done without these "magnets with custom 3d-printable mag-field paths". Among many other awesome ideas I'm sure he'd use them for.
- kriro 11y agoSince I'm currently trying to convince myself not to buy a pinball table that was one of my first initial thoughts as well. They should probably get in contact with an engineer from Stern.
- joering2 11y agoIs this any difference to a platter of Hard Drive, under magnifying glass?
- PhasmaFelis 11y agoAt the very least, hard drive platters exhibit no discernible macroscopic magnetic force, i.e. put a piece of metal on one and it won't even twitch.
- ycosynot 11y agoI'm strangely excited, hopefully not because of all the pistons. My favorites are Spring and Align.
- vog 11y agoThe videos are really great. The animations are so easy to understand, they could have produced them without any sound, and they would still be internationally comprehensible. Also, without sound they could have reduced the pauses to at most half of their length. As of now, these pauses make the videos a bit boring to watch. But they should have used real videos instead of computer animations - that would have been even more convincing.
- Already__Taken 11y agoThe layout was nice to watch all 4 muted videos at once though.
- Natanael_L 11y agoI'm imagining how this could be used for board of games (magnetic dice and boards, changing the landing paths and probabilities of outcomes, and much more), and for hinges (imagine multitools with a few magnets used as switches to lock/unlock and open it up one-handed), etc... Combine this tech with electropermanent magnets like Project Ara originally was set to use (an array of switchable small magnets) and you could do ridiculously cool things! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electropermanent_magnet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electropermanent_magnet
- Natanael_L 11y agoSince I can't edit the comment above anymore; I thought of another thing: you could use a combo of permanent and electropermanent magnets with a magnetometer to make buttons on a surface that are flat across the surface when the device is off, and that raises up to a specific distance when switched on (like the polymagnet spring example that when rotated becomes attractive like a regular magnet). Then you also adjust the magnetism so that at a given distance you can feel a "click" feedback when you push the button down. You could even have controllable variable resistance and click depth, depending on what you're doing. A gaming mode, a typing mode, a casual mode, etc... No need for mechanical switches and buttons, just an attachment to hold the buttons in place. So you could have a completely flat folding keyboard that then has the buttons raise up like on a standard keyboard, feeling like a standard keyboard, yet with 10x the longevity. Better yet: make a surface with an array of electropermanent magnets and magnetometers, let each key have a Qr code like magnetic pattern with "magnetic anchors" plus a key identifier, and then you can place arbitary keys in arbitary positions to make yourself a keyboard looking however you want with no other manual work than key placement! You could even have keys that can rotate or slide and even have switches, and the keyboard's magnetometers would identify the key patterns and your computer would download the instructions for parsing the inputs from that key.
- spyder 11y agoMaybe they could use it to store data... oh wait... So isn't this the same tech used in magnetic data storages just with bigger and stronger magnetic fields?
- mhandley 11y agoThe examples all seem to only work in two dimensions. "Spring" and "latch" need external alignment to keep them on the same axis, and "align" only works when the magnets are touching. Is that just because the magnets themselves are flat? Can you use this technology to do stable 3-dimensional positioning? There are all sorts of possibilities for frictionless bearings and so forth if you can.
- Natanael_L 11y agoI'm imagining a gearing system full of magnets instead of gears, and simplified hinges where instead of having 10 moving parts allowing a door to "fold away" you have one or two hinge pieces and 2-4 static magnets that have their magnetic fields control the same motion. Stuff that typically use rails and levers to guide movement could be simplified with magnets.
- koverstreet 11y agoNo, you can't - Earnshaw's theorem
- kriro 11y agoSo the magnets are essentially programmable and "3d printable"? I know nothing about magnets...can you "wipe" them and reprint with a different pattern? If so and the 3d printer can be reasonably miniaturized I'm envisioning a robot with an attached mini 3d printer that can print task specific magnet tools :D
- Natanael_L 11y agoThese are the kind of permanent magnets that you magnetize with currents and strong magnetic fields, so yes. You can alter their magnetic fields by exposing them to adjusted currents and magnetizing fields that undoes the original magnetization and remagnetizes them. Note that your robot won't be very small - you need a lot of current, and thus cooling if the programmer is small, batteries that's big enough and you need to avoid ferromagnetic objects in the surroundings = shielding.
- ibarrajo 11y agoWe already had this, it's called a hard drive