9 ms·
Look Ma, No Glue: Electrostatic Adhesion as If by Magic
- afandian 8y agoI'm no chemist, but does glue work by electrostatic?
- ericol 8y agoElectrostatic would be an adjective here. What they are replacing is the adhesion.
- blacksmith_tb 8y agoNot in this sense I don't think, this is a case where turning off the power to the device causes the 'sticking' to stop. Glues are chemically (and/or mechanically) bound to surfaces, and you can't 'turn them off' (though you may be able to chemically alter the glue bond, e.g. with a solvent).
- afandian 8y agoI meant inter-molecular electrostatic forces that make glue work.
- antongribok 8y agoApparently, the source of high voltage came from an electronic bug zapper. Pretty neat.
- gene-h 8y agoCheap ionizer power supplies from ebay and what not[0] can be used to do the same thing for $3-$10. It's best to find one that has an exposed ground wire, which can be difficult as most don't have documentation, but otherwise one can use one of the input supply terminals. I've found that a simply electroadhesive pad a bit bigger than a standard piece of paper with two electrodes made from a space blanket glued on to some polyethylene sheeting can support the weight of a power supply and a 9 volt battery to power it. [0]http://amasci.com/emotor/list_ionizers.html http://amasci.com/emotor/list_ionizers.html
- lholden 8y agoThere are professional whiteboard style products that make use of electrostatic adhesion. Usually designed such that you stick a piece of paper behind a plastic overlay that you draw on. They are pretty nifty if you have a need for temporarily marking up printouts.
- darkpuma 8y agoEEVBlog did a teardown of one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsNbK7kCcKA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsNbK7kCcKA
- alanning 8y agoThe Ping Pong Ball Accelerator referenced at the bottom of the article is a really neat project. Wonder if elem school would let the high voltage source be used during science fair demo day...
- mzs 8y agovideo https://twitter.com/JanHenrikH/status/1094664006059593729 https://twitter.com/JanHenrikH/status/1094664006059593729
- tantalor 8y agoThis demo is missing a key point: what happens if you open the circuit while the paper is adhered? Does it just fall down?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- gene-h 8y agoIt will probably stick for a decent amount of time. An electroadhesive pad is a capacitor and leakage will probably be quite low.
- mLuby 8y agoI'm curious about what one of the comments asks. Anyone know the answer? >How dangerous is this? If the insulation fails and you touch the plate, will you be killed directly or just receive a harmless shock like from static electricity?
- jedimastert 8y agoI saw elsewhere that the power supply is from a bug zapper, so I'm guessing about like touching a bug zapper. A little more googling has told me that the answer is "it's bad, but not lethal or burning if you move your hand quickly"
- kylek 8y agoSemi-relevant! http://amasci.com/weird/unusual/e-wall.html http://amasci.com/weird/unusual/e-wall.html
- gene-h 8y agoCurrent is more dangerous than voltage. So long as one limits the power supplied on the input, the current the output can supply should be quite small, on the order of microamps. It's not fun to be shocked by around 3 KV at low current, but it's not fatal. The capacitance of the electroadhesive pad should be rather small, so even the stored energy shouldn't result in a very large current. It is a good idea to add a current limiting resistor between the pad and the power supply. Not just for safety, but also to limit damage to the power supply in the event of arcing. A bigger problem is that sensitive microelectronic devices tend to mysteriously fail around high voltage power supplies.
- opwieurposiu 8y agoThe electrostatic chuck is a common way to hold silicon wafers in chip fab machines. https://www.sandia.gov/LabNews/LN03-27-98/chuck_story.html https://www.sandia.gov/LabNews/LN03-27-98/chuck_story.html
- peter_d_sherman 8y agoVersion 0.0000001 of Starship Enterprise's gravity system... <g>