Week of 1/27 - 1/31

This week I started by printing out the bottom of my electromagnet holder that I had designed last friday. It printed fine and after it was done printing I attached it to the end of the frame that I already had and it fit perfectly. I tested to see if it would fall off but it didn't and it held on tight. The hall effect sensor also fit very nicely, and it didn't move even when I pulled on the wires from the outside which could have dislodgeded the sensor from its holder. The design of the holder looks good and I liked the way it came out.

I also ended up soldering some wires to the end of the electromagnet itself. The way I had been attaching it to the breadboard before was not very efficient and would fall of easily, so I wanted to create a better way of dong this. I also made sure that the power and groud wires went to the right sides so that the polarity of the electromagnet would not be messed up and cause the whole setup to not work.

Here is a video of the electromagnet levitating the smaller magnet while it is inside of the holder. The sensor still worked through the holder and it was much cleaner than the setup I needed before. The magnet also stays at a pretty good distance from the electromagnet which is important because I need it to be far enough away when I plan to spin it.

I also used two pvc pipe covers to create a makeshift stand so that I could test how long the magnet will spin if it is left alone and only spun once. It was hard to get it to start spinning without accidentally shaking it and causing it to either fall too far down or go to far up and get stuck to the electromagnet. It spun for a very long time even though it was not spinning all that fast. I used a stopwatch to time the magnet to see how long it would last for and it lasted over 30 minutes. I even stopped it while it was still spinning because it was time to leave shop.

I realized that using two pvc pipe covers as a stand was very inefficient so I designed a stand that would be able to easily attack to the holder i had already made at the start of this week and the previous week. It looked good so I decided to print it. My print got stopped near the beginning but I restarted it and it should be done by monday. I made sure to leave room at the bottom so that I would be able to spin it with either a motor or air pressure, since I will need to get it to very high speeds.