I'm a hobbyist when it comes to playing with circuits. I took a couple of years of electronics courses at the local junior college back in 1990 - 91. I've been a Network Engineer by trade pretty much my entire adult life, so my ability to engineer circuits is very basic in my opinion.
A couple of years ago, I made a magnetic stirrer using a motor from an old hand drill, a speed control circuit that I got from Amazon, and an iridium magnet bar that I fastened to ... something ... that was attached to the shaft of the motor (and I don't recall all of the specifics of how I managed to do that).
The result was a fairly decent magnetic stirrer, but I wanted it to stir vape juice that I would make and the juice was simply too viscous to get any kind of decent vortex in the solution with a Teflon coated magnet shaped like a pill.
So I basically trashed the project and haven't re-visited it until today.
What occurred to me is that we can create a magnetic field in a coil that could potentially be much stronger than the magnet I was using, and if I used enough coils which would be physically arranged in a circle (I would think that even 4 could work), I could use an Arduino to fire them in sequence at precise intervals and cause the magnetic pill to spin on center. And with the stronger magnetic field being generated in the coils, it would in theory be strong enough to create that vortex that I want even in the more viscous liquid.
And THAT is about as far as my knowledge on the subject goes as it applies to this application ...
What I would like to learn, is the base knowledge that I need to learn in order to understand things like ... how much magnetic strength am I shooting for ... how is magnetic strength even termed and referenced and what is the typical strength of an iridium magnet? Also, what kind of circuit would I need to drive the coils as I would have to assume that the voltage and especially the current needed to create a strong field would be more than an Arduino could produce from its 5-volt pins. So, I assume I would be attaching one output pin to one driving circuit per coil, then simply turn those pins on then off in a sequence at certain timing intervals which could, in theory, be adjusted based on a potentiometer connected to a 5th pin which would be read and the timing of the coil firing would be adjusted based on that pot value.
Also, when a coil is magnetized, would I need to also magnetize the coil directly opposite of it with an opposite magnetic field so that both ends of the stir pill are "grabbed" tightly, or would magnetizing only one coil at a time work? I tend to think that I would need to fire two coils to make sure that pill stays tightly pulled to the bottom of the beaker.
I can't imagine that the coils would be very expensive and I certainly have no interest in winding my own unless they happen to be really easy to make and there is a cost advantage to making them myself. Also, I don't know if the coils should have any kind of a ferrous core or if an air core would be preferable since I want the magnetic energy to be sent outward as much as possible...
The largest amount of liquid that I would be stirring would be about 1,000 ml tops ... most likely it would be around 750 ml. So we aren't talking industrial quantities of liquid here ... just a simple 1,000 ml beaker filled with e-juice.
In terms of viscosity, the e-juice is about the same as standard olive oil or corn oil ... maybe a tad thinner than that but it's a good reference if you don't know how thick the stuff is. so if you can picture 1,000 ml of olive oil with a teflon coated 1.5 to 2 inch magnet pill down at the center of the beaker spinning really fast ... we ideally want a vortex in the liquid that reaches from the top of the liquid and just about touches the Teflon coated magnet at the bottom of the beaker... various e-juice recipes turn out noticeably better when you can mix them for a long time, then let them sit in a dark place for sometimes a month while the various flavorings etc. oxidize and find their place in the solution ... as it were ... I don't know all the science of steeping, I just know what makes the juice taste better than a typical "shake and vape" approach and this device would really help that process along nicely.
If this is making sense to anyone and you know what I would need to learn in order to make a serious dent in my magnetic stirrer 2.0 project, I would really appreciate your input.
I did see that several companies make these things, but the ones that are rated for viscous fluids cost in upwards of three to four hundred dollars and I don't think I could forgive myself for spending that kind of money on this project not to mention the satisfaction of building my own, which has no dollar value yet can be immensely rewarding ... or deeply depressing ... and I would like to avoid the depressing option which is why I'm starting here to hopefully begin with an intelligent vector ...
I look forward to any feedback and thank you for taking the time to read this.
A couple of years ago, I made a magnetic stirrer using a motor from an old hand drill, a speed control circuit that I got from Amazon, and an iridium magnet bar that I fastened to ... something ... that was attached to the shaft of the motor (and I don't recall all of the specifics of how I managed to do that).
The result was a fairly decent magnetic stirrer, but I wanted it to stir vape juice that I would make and the juice was simply too viscous to get any kind of decent vortex in the solution with a Teflon coated magnet shaped like a pill.
So I basically trashed the project and haven't re-visited it until today.
What occurred to me is that we can create a magnetic field in a coil that could potentially be much stronger than the magnet I was using, and if I used enough coils which would be physically arranged in a circle (I would think that even 4 could work), I could use an Arduino to fire them in sequence at precise intervals and cause the magnetic pill to spin on center. And with the stronger magnetic field being generated in the coils, it would in theory be strong enough to create that vortex that I want even in the more viscous liquid.
And THAT is about as far as my knowledge on the subject goes as it applies to this application ...
What I would like to learn, is the base knowledge that I need to learn in order to understand things like ... how much magnetic strength am I shooting for ... how is magnetic strength even termed and referenced and what is the typical strength of an iridium magnet? Also, what kind of circuit would I need to drive the coils as I would have to assume that the voltage and especially the current needed to create a strong field would be more than an Arduino could produce from its 5-volt pins. So, I assume I would be attaching one output pin to one driving circuit per coil, then simply turn those pins on then off in a sequence at certain timing intervals which could, in theory, be adjusted based on a potentiometer connected to a 5th pin which would be read and the timing of the coil firing would be adjusted based on that pot value.
Also, when a coil is magnetized, would I need to also magnetize the coil directly opposite of it with an opposite magnetic field so that both ends of the stir pill are "grabbed" tightly, or would magnetizing only one coil at a time work? I tend to think that I would need to fire two coils to make sure that pill stays tightly pulled to the bottom of the beaker.
I can't imagine that the coils would be very expensive and I certainly have no interest in winding my own unless they happen to be really easy to make and there is a cost advantage to making them myself. Also, I don't know if the coils should have any kind of a ferrous core or if an air core would be preferable since I want the magnetic energy to be sent outward as much as possible...
The largest amount of liquid that I would be stirring would be about 1,000 ml tops ... most likely it would be around 750 ml. So we aren't talking industrial quantities of liquid here ... just a simple 1,000 ml beaker filled with e-juice.
In terms of viscosity, the e-juice is about the same as standard olive oil or corn oil ... maybe a tad thinner than that but it's a good reference if you don't know how thick the stuff is. so if you can picture 1,000 ml of olive oil with a teflon coated 1.5 to 2 inch magnet pill down at the center of the beaker spinning really fast ... we ideally want a vortex in the liquid that reaches from the top of the liquid and just about touches the Teflon coated magnet at the bottom of the beaker... various e-juice recipes turn out noticeably better when you can mix them for a long time, then let them sit in a dark place for sometimes a month while the various flavorings etc. oxidize and find their place in the solution ... as it were ... I don't know all the science of steeping, I just know what makes the juice taste better than a typical "shake and vape" approach and this device would really help that process along nicely.
If this is making sense to anyone and you know what I would need to learn in order to make a serious dent in my magnetic stirrer 2.0 project, I would really appreciate your input.
I did see that several companies make these things, but the ones that are rated for viscous fluids cost in upwards of three to four hundred dollars and I don't think I could forgive myself for spending that kind of money on this project not to mention the satisfaction of building my own, which has no dollar value yet can be immensely rewarding ... or deeply depressing ... and I would like to avoid the depressing option which is why I'm starting here to hopefully begin with an intelligent vector ...
I look forward to any feedback and thank you for taking the time to read this.
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