[HN Gopher] Ferrofluid display cell Bluetooth speaker
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Ferrofluid display cell Bluetooth speaker
Author : thunderbong
Score : 300 points
Date : 2021-05-13 13:25 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (hackaday.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (hackaday.io)
| Animats wrote:
| Oh, I thought the ferrofluid was going to be the speaker. Like
| plasma speakers [1].
|
| The helium plasma speaker was only good for high frequencies, and
| needed something else for the bass. Using a heavy liquid for bass
| might work.
|
| [1] http://hillplasmatronics.com/
| lwhi wrote:
| Phenomenal. The concept, the design and the execution.
| bitdivision wrote:
| I experimented with making a clock using ferrofluid previously. I
| was inspired by this clock [0] but put off by the price tag.
|
| Generally the main issues I found were that it degraded over time
| and I had real trouble with ferrofluid smearing on the container.
|
| Will have to try again now!
|
| [0]: https://www.thisiswhyimbroke.com/ferrofluid-clock/
| gfaure wrote:
| This kind of reminds me of the Heptapod writing system from
| "Arrival". I wonder what contributes to the cost -- is it
| simply because it's unique, or are some of the materials
| expensive?
| nerfhammer wrote:
| The article mentions "Because ferrofluid adheres well to glass,
| special treatments were required on the glass" but doesn't go
| into details
| bawolff wrote:
| That is so cool
|
| But 12 grand!? Wow.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| They must read HN, because they've reduced it to the low, low
| price of only $8k now.
| pierrec wrote:
| 12 Canadian.
| [deleted]
| fouronnes3 wrote:
| Great entry to xkcd 2326!
| jacquesm wrote:
| Very neat. I wonder if there is some kind of soundpattern that
| can be used to 'sweep up' the smaller globules back into a single
| larger one.
| oilostthelast wrote:
| I've always wanted to make something like this. I'm curious about
| parsing the fields into something both pleasing and physically
| representative of the actual waveform of the music. I'd also like
| to play around with using the fluid as a driver as well, though
| I'm sure getting sound out of it would be immensely difficult if
| not impossible without a horn the size of a barn. As far as I'm
| aware it has yet to be attempted.
| ur-whale wrote:
| This is really cool. I hope someone makes a commercial version of
| it.
| anshumankmr wrote:
| He can potentially do it, if he puts it on Indiegogo.
| permo-w wrote:
| or he could go the traditional way and look for investors.
|
| There are ups and downs to both
| tsimionescu wrote:
| For anyone as fascinated with this substance as I am, here [0] is
| a YouTube video of someone making it 'from scratch'. It's a very
| detailed explanation, and includes some comparisons of the
| outcome VS commercial ferro fluids.
|
| [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6L8yUY-doNc
| adonovan wrote:
| There's an interactive exhibit in the lobby of the New York
| Hall of Science that lets you deform a blob of this shiny goo.
| It's a lot of fun.
| 3r3rni9 wrote:
| Thought of exactly the same exhibit -- love that thing! Worth
| a stop into NYHS to play with it. I immediately wanted to
| make one and I'm psyched to see on HN. Evidently it
| originally had buttons to control the charge, then curators
| upgraded it with the more tactile wheel controllers.
|
| https://www.sciartmagazine.com/spotlight-michael-flynn-
| and-f...
| sitharus wrote:
| NileRed is one of my favourite chemistry YouTubers, along with
| NurdRage. There's so much great content on his channels.
| simlevesque wrote:
| When I first saw many of his videos, I was like: "damn, this
| dude has access to all sorts of chemicals, radioactive stuff,
| I bet he lives in Texas or Mexico".
|
| Then I learned that he lives in the same city as me.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| When I originally found his channel I thought he might be too
| young to take any sort of seriously, but he handles being
| that young pretty well. There isn't a lot of YouTube
| nonsense, or begging for subscribers, or jokes that for
| extremely flat. A model for others I think. Really well done.
|
| Although... Explosions and Fire is peak YouTube Chemistry to
| me!
| Huiokko wrote:
| I would assume that certain amount of basic chemistry is
| still quite advanced for a non chemist.
|
| If you would create a YouTube channel talking about basis
| programming language you would also attract plenty of
| people.
|
| Nonetheless I don't want to lower the value or skill of
| him.
|
| I'm entertained by it and can't judge his skills.
|
| It still takes a lot to stand in front of a camera and
| doing what he does but still it could be that a chemist
| find it boring what he shows.
| earthscienceman wrote:
| Young? He's 29? Were you mistaken or are you implying that
| 29 is pretty young to be creating self-aware youtube
| content.
| syoc wrote:
| He has videos dating 7 years back. I thought he looked
| young for what he was doing. Did not see him until quite
| a bit into the video and it was not what I expected.
| Really knowledgeable, a lot of equipment and a really
| good setup for someone so young. There is also the fact
| that there is no big source of income that I could easily
| spot.
| Zancarius wrote:
| I read it to infer that NileRed looks pretty young for
| his age, which I think is true.
| intrasight wrote:
| Great video!
| [deleted]
| webmobdev wrote:
| Reminds me a lot of Winamp that popularised such kind of music
| visualisations.
| joshspankit wrote:
| I really wish we were still there culturally.
|
| Imagine the kind of music visualizers we could have with AI,
| CUDA cores, and RTX...
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| In the 90's and 2000's, car radios and the like had some really
| interesting visualizations going on. The market for radios and
| music installations that aren't high-end seems to have pretty
| much collapsed thanks to mp3 players and bluetooth speakers
| though. That said, there's still things like portable karaoke
| speakers that still come with the bells and whistles.
| jahnu wrote:
| Funnily enough given your user name, Cthulu was a popular
| visualiser back in the DOS days of the 90s.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthugha_(software)
|
| Edit: it was cthugha... my old brain is failing me :)
| yreg wrote:
| Very cool project. There is a video of it in action[0] at the
| bottom. This is something that screams Kickstarter to me.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a3JiGTE9sc
| bsanr2 wrote:
| 21st century lava lamp. In that, it 100% has the chance to
| become an iconic consumer product.
| achow wrote:
| Thank you. Video should have been embedded at the top of the
| website. Only a video can explain the value of the idea.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| If it becomes a Kickstarter, I really hope the makers know what
| they are getting into. There is a lot between a prototype and
| mass production, and a lot of projects fail between the two.
|
| Keeping it small scale, hand made on demand and high priced may
| be a safer option.
| senectus1 wrote:
| shutup and take my money. i want one yesterday!
| matthewmfrost wrote:
| Amusingly I made a prototype of something similar 4 years ago
| during university:
| https://www.facebook.com/1764751847/videos/10202928199083698...
|
| It was done to promote the use of Ferrofluid for DataVis rather
| than a consumer product.
| jan_Inkepa wrote:
| That's pretty awesome - it picks up on way more signal detail
| than the top project (which is also nonetheless cool).
| IshKebab wrote:
| Yeah, it does feel weirdly out of sync though.
| bitdivision wrote:
| I can't see the video, but if it's the same idea could you give
| some details on what you used as a suspension fluid and how you
| dealt with the smearing on the container?
| matthewmfrost wrote:
| Give this link a go:
|
| https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iqUnmD79tMlswlQQhhId1cuW6DX.
| ..
| earthscienceman wrote:
| Really cool. With something like this I can't help but
| imagine combining it with real time signal
| processing/filtering. Where the visualization can be
| attached clearly to different components of the music. A
| vocal filter, melody filter, etc etc. I'm always
| dissatisfied with how visualizers don't really cue off
| auditor-ily obvious parts of songs.
| bitdivision wrote:
| Nice! I assume that was just ferrofluid and water?
| matthewmfrost wrote:
| Happy to collab, if anyone is interested feel free to reach
| out... matthewmf.com
| jessedhillon wrote:
| Do you know how well it works if the speaker is on top of the
| bottle, pointed downward at the fluid?
| haarts wrote:
| Ferrofluid is unstable iirc. I wonder how long this fluid lasts.
| lowestprimate wrote:
| Ferrofluid is was used in disk drive motors to seal bearing
| grease from wandering out so it has reasonable life span of
| greater than 5 years from my experience
| totetsu wrote:
| I want this, buy just as an eyeball that follows people around
| with its gaze
| radarsat1 wrote:
| > This is called ferrofluid. It is a material developed by NASA
| in the 1960s. It was used as both spacecraft fuel and sealing
| material.
|
| I'm a bit curious how ferrofluid was used as a fuel.
| meibo wrote:
| It's commonly suspended in Kerosene, so maybe that's what they
| meant? Bit of a long stretch though.
| swiley wrote:
| I guess it would be easy to build a pump with it that has no
| moving parts.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Self cleaning and self lubricating as well as kerosene is a
| solvent and lubricant.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| This says it was an idea to pull rocket fuel to the right end
| of the tank without gravity
|
| https://www.nasa.gov/feature/glenn/2021/history/novel-
| rocket...
| rg2004 wrote:
| I would be interested to see the ferrofluid dots resonating
| amelius wrote:
| I guess if you made little cells with this fluid, you could make
| a matrix display.
| nathias wrote:
| this is the best DIY project I've seen, looks amazing
| motohagiography wrote:
| Naive question: could I use a speaker setup similar to this with
| my analog synth rig to use combinations of sine, saw, and square
| waves to find combinations of waves that suspended and
| manipulated this ferrofluid - and would those sound shapes have
| applications to laser pulses manipulating atoms? Intuitively, it
| seems like a way to model concepts for macro quantum computer.
|
| While atoms may not behave as liquids, laser pulses are waves. Is
| there specific reason why not?
| tmearnest wrote:
| Yeah, you may find that due to the mass and length scale due to
| the viscosity/surface tension etc. would require sub audible
| frequencies. Totally worth trying. As far as atomic
| manipulation, no since that needs to be in a hard vacuum and
| low temperature. The same wave interference principle is used
| in that technology though.
| motohagiography wrote:
| That interference principle seems like a function of the size
| of the blobs and then how you manage the interference
| patterns of multiple oscilators. Mind you, if you can
| physically do it with audio synths, you can model it in
| software, which means we should be able to use ML via a GAN
| to grind through oscillator patterns to create the necessary
| pulse effect results.
|
| Maybe more fun for a toy or a game.
|
| This is a great video of the effect of sound on ferrofluids:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axwm-5zng0s
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(page generated 2021-05-14 23:01 UTC)