3 ms·
Making stuff float with magnets is hard. You have to replace the permanent magnets with electromagnets and then have a while bunch of sensors and logic to drive
by CrazyStat 4y ago
Making stuff float with magnets is hard. You have to replace the permanent magnets with electromagnets and then have a while bunch of sensors and logic to drive the electromagnets. I can't see a way to make it work in a clock like this.
- CobrastanJorji 4y agoAh, I see. What about those cheap "floating globe" or "levitron" desk knick-knacks? Do those maybe only work because they freely spin, whereas a clock could not?
- CrazyStat 4y agoThey work because they have a reasonably large base and a reasonable stable thing floating. The clock hands aren't stationary, let alone stable, and since clocks are generally flat in one dimension you have pretty limited space to play with. The only way I've thought of to make it work would be to have a fairly large "hub" at the center of the floating thing, with the two hands coming out off the floating hub. But that would be much less visually impressive, I think. The hub would have to be large enough that the movement of the hands is relatively miniscule in terms of weight distribution.
- munk-a 4y agoI think (especially considering the different needs for 6:28 PM and noon) that you'd need some orthogonal magnets set up - have one set of strong magnets around the center of the hub to keep it in place while providing a minimal amount of field interference to the magnets driving the hands. I'm not an engineer but I think any solution that starts with trying to suspend a clock using magnetic forces applied to the clock hands is going to be incredibly complex and hour-minute cross-overs would be extremely delicate maneuvers considering how much of a raw magnetic field you'd need to be projecting just to keep the clock face floating in air.