Falling leaves problem

[Niklas Borson]

I'm an raw beginner in electronics, and would like some feedback
on an idea before I take it any further. I will first describe
the problem and then my proposed solution. My question is whether
the solution makes sense. Any other advice would also be welcome.

THE PROBLEM

The basic goal is to hold onto something for a period of time
and then drop it. It must be possible to reattach the object
and do this again, over and over. The time might be anywhere
from a few seconds to several hours or more, and should be
adjustable, but accurate timing is not required. In fact, a
degree of randomness would be a nice effect. The object to be
held is light -- less than an ounce. Simplicity, low cost, and
low power consumption are goals.

It may help to know the actual application. My father is a
sculptor, and has been toying for some time with an idea, part
of which involves a tree gradually shedding its leaves.

PROPOSED SOLUTION

My idea is to hold the leaves on magnetically. Each leaf would
have a metal stem, which would attach to an inductor on the tree.
From my reading, I gather that if an inductor's core is made of
something like ferrite, the core will remain magnetized even
after the curcuit is opened. Here then is the process I have
in mind:

1. Charge the magnets. The user would close a switch for some
period of time. Each inductor would be on a different parallel
circuit with a unique resistance so as to magnetize some
cores more than others.

2. Stop charging and attach the leaves (not necessarily in that
order). Once the circuit is opened, the leaves are held on
by the megnetized inductor cores.

3. Wait for cores to gradually become demagnetized, such that
the leaves fall off. This should happen unevenly since some
cores were more magnetized that others.

The above makes a lot of assumptions that I don't know to be
true, e.g., that the inductor cores can be magnetized in a
reasonable amount of time, and will gradually demagnetize once
the current is turned off.

What I like about it, though, is its simplicity -- no digital timers
or complicated logic circuits. My father had an idea of attaching
the leaves with wax and then gradually melting the wax. The above
approach is in intended in the same spirit, only easier and less
messy. The only problem is... I have no idea whether it would
actually work.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

--Nick

 

[petrus bitbyter]

"Niklas Borson" <niklasb@microsoft.com> schreef in bericht
news:bc2bfdd5.0404231102.13c68385@posting.google.com...

I'm an raw beginner in electronics, and would like some feedback
on an idea before I take it any further. I will first describe
the problem and then my proposed solution. My question is whether
the solution makes sense. Any other advice would also be welcome.

THE PROBLEM

The basic goal is to hold onto something for a period of time
and then drop it. It must be possible to reattach the object
and do this again, over and over. The time might be anywhere
from a few seconds to several hours or more, and should be
adjustable, but accurate timing is not required. In fact, a
degree of randomness would be a nice effect. The object to be
held is light -- less than an ounce. Simplicity, low cost, and
low power consumption are goals.

It may help to know the actual application. My father is a
sculptor, and has been toying for some time with an idea, part
of which involves a tree gradually shedding its leaves.

PROPOSED SOLUTION

My idea is to hold the leaves on magnetically. Each leaf would
have a metal stem, which would attach to an inductor on the tree.
From my reading, I gather that if an inductor's core is made of
something like ferrite, the core will remain magnetized even
after the curcuit is opened. Here then is the process I have
in mind:

1. Charge the magnets. The user would close a switch for some
period of time. Each inductor would be on a different parallel
circuit with a unique resistance so as to magnetize some
cores more than others.

2. Stop charging and attach the leaves (not necessarily in that
order). Once the circuit is opened, the leaves are held on
by the megnetized inductor cores.

3. Wait for cores to gradually become demagnetized, such that
the leaves fall off. This should happen unevenly since some
cores were more magnetized that others.

The above makes a lot of assumptions that I don't know to be
true, e.g., that the inductor cores can be magnetized in a
reasonable amount of time, and will gradually demagnetize once
the current is turned off.

What I like about it, though, is its simplicity -- no digital timers
or complicated logic circuits. My father had an idea of attaching
the leaves with wax and then gradually melting the wax. The above
approach is in intended in the same spirit, only easier and less
messy. The only problem is... I have no idea whether it would
actually work.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

--Nick

Nick,

I don't think you need ferrites for this purpose. On the contrary, ferrites
are roughly divided in hard - and soft ones. The first keeping their
remanent magnetism for a long time and the second loosing it almost
instantly. Guess the best core material you can use is simple iron like the
material used for ordinary nails. But even then you will have to do some of
experiments to find the relation for type and dimensions of core material,
number of turns of your coils, current, time to magnetise, weight and type
of the leaves and so on. I'd use paper or plastic leaves with a staple for
the magnetic tag.

petrus



---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
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[Gordon Youd]

Why not make the magnets all the same, the leaves can be attached while the
power is "on", when power goes "off" leaves fall to ground.
Now the nice part, you can get glues and such that gradually unstick. Hey
presto! leaves would unstick quite randomly..........

Regards, Gordon.

--------------------------------------------
"petrus bitbyter" <p.kralt@reducespamforchello.nl> wrote in message
news:VPeic.56750$Mg2.56708@amsnews05.chello.com...

"Niklas Borson" <niklasb@microsoft.com> schreef in bericht
news:bc2bfdd5.0404231102.13c68385@posting.google.com...
I'm an raw beginner in electronics, and would like some feedback
on an idea before I take it any further. I will first describe
the problem and then my proposed solution. My question is whether
the solution makes sense. Any other advice would also be welcome.

THE PROBLEM

The basic goal is to hold onto something for a period of time
and then drop it. It must be possible to reattach the object
and do this again, over and over. The time might be anywhere
from a few seconds to several hours or more, and should be
adjustable, but accurate timing is not required. In fact, a
degree of randomness would be a nice effect. The object to be
held is light -- less than an ounce. Simplicity, low cost, and
low power consumption are goals.

It may help to know the actual application. My father is a
sculptor, and has been toying for some time with an idea, part
of which involves a tree gradually shedding its leaves.

PROPOSED SOLUTION

My idea is to hold the leaves on magnetically. Each leaf would
have a metal stem, which would attach to an inductor on the tree.
From my reading, I gather that if an inductor's core is made of
something like ferrite, the core will remain magnetized even
after the curcuit is opened. Here then is the process I have
in mind:

1. Charge the magnets. The user would close a switch for some
period of time. Each inductor would be on a different parallel
circuit with a unique resistance so as to magnetize some
cores more than others.

2. Stop charging and attach the leaves (not necessarily in that
order). Once the circuit is opened, the leaves are held on
by the megnetized inductor cores.

3. Wait for cores to gradually become demagnetized, such that
the leaves fall off. This should happen unevenly since some
cores were more magnetized that others.

The above makes a lot of assumptions that I don't know to be
true, e.g., that the inductor cores can be magnetized in a
reasonable amount of time, and will gradually demagnetize once
the current is turned off.

What I like about it, though, is its simplicity -- no digital timers
or complicated logic circuits. My father had an idea of attaching
the leaves with wax and then gradually melting the wax. The above
approach is in intended in the same spirit, only easier and less
messy. The only problem is... I have no idea whether it would
actually work.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

--Nick

Nick,

I don't think you need ferrites for this purpose. On the contrary,
ferrites
are roughly divided in hard - and soft ones. The first keeping their
remanent magnetism for a long time and the second loosing it almost
instantly. Guess the best core material you can use is simple iron like
the
material used for ordinary nails. But even then you will have to do some
of
experiments to find the relation for type and dimensions of core
material,
number of turns of your coils, current, time to magnetise, weight and type
of the leaves and so on. I'd use paper or plastic leaves with a staple for
the magnetic tag.

petrus



---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.656 / Virus Database: 421 - Release Date: 9-4-2004

 

[Niklas Borson]

"Gordon Youd" <gordon@Zgyoud.demon.co.uk> wrote in message news:<c6c9jp$72k$1$8300dec7@news.demon.co.uk>...

Why not make the magnets all the same, the leaves can be attached while the
power is "on", when power goes "off" leaves fall to ground.
Now the nice part, you can get glues and such that gradually unstick. Hey
presto! leaves would unstick quite randomly..........

This sounds like an interesting idea. Can these guess stick, unstick, and
restick over and over? I would think they'd kind of lose their stick after
a while, although I suppose you could just apply more glue then.

Do you know where I can look for this kind of thing? I've found the local
Radio Shack to be pretty useless, and haven't had much luck with online
catalogs either, mostly because I guess I don't know exactly what I need.
(I guess no store can really help me in that case...)

 

[Niklas Borson]

"petrus bitbyter" <p.kralt@reducespamforchello.nl> wrote in message news:<VPeic.56750$Mg2.56708@amsnews05.chello.com>...

I don't think you need ferrites for this purpose. On the contrary, ferrites
are roughly divided in hard - and soft ones. The first keeping their
remanent magnetism for a long time and the second loosing it almost
instantly. Guess the best core material you can use is simple iron like the
material used for ordinary nails. But even then you will have to do some of
experiments to find the relation for type and dimensions of core material,
number of turns of your coils, current, time to magnetise, weight and type
of the leaves and so on. I'd use paper or plastic leaves with a staple for
the magnetic tag.

Huh, this sounds like the kind of laborious experimentation I was hoping
to avoid. Just lazy I guess. I did try wrapping some magnet wire around a
small nail and hooking it up to an ordinary 9V battery. It functioned as
an electromagnet while the circuit was closed, but the nail itself never
became magnetized. Maybe it was the wrong kind of material -- it was just
a little wire nail like you use to hang pictures with.

Another option I had toyed with was holding the leaves on with ordinary
magnets. Each leaf would have a magnet at the base of its stem so it could
hang on any piece of metal -- the tree, the refrigerator, whatever. The
anchor point on the tree would have a coil around it. As long as there
was no current, the leaf would attach to the metal core of the coil. But
if I sent a pulse of current through the coil it would create another magnet
with the poles aligned in such a way that they repelled each other. That
was the theory, but I couldn't make it work. Also, this design requires
some means of sending pseudo-random pulses of current to individual coils
which sounds complicated to me.

Thanks for the help. I think I need to look around some more for an
approach that's more within my abilities (and time), possibly something
non-electronic. Gordon's glue suggestion was interesting.

 

[Seth Koster]

Huh, this sounds like the kind of laborious experimentation I was hoping
to avoid. Just lazy I guess. I did try wrapping some magnet wire around a
small nail and hooking it up to an ordinary 9V battery. It functioned as
an electromagnet while the circuit was closed, but the nail itself never
became magnetized. Maybe it was the wrong kind of material -- it was just
a little wire nail like you use to hang pictures with.

You could try putting various values of caps in the circuit, each
one discharging through one of your electro-mags, so when you turn off
the current each cap discharges and drops the leaves in a 'random
looking' pattern, depending on the value of each cap.
I have no idea if this would work since this is very far from
anything I've ever tried to do (or even thought of trying to do), so
I'd appreciate a post from anyone who could debunk or verify this
possibility. Maybe coils of different inductance for each node? A
combination?

 

[Gordon Youd]

The idea I gave using "glues" was just to show a different way of doing what
you want.

The other way would be to take a couple of metres of thin wire and starting
at one wind a small coil of about 10-20 turns around a paper clip.

Take out the clip, move on a few inches and wind another coil.

Do this again until the wire is used up.

You will end up with a long strip of coils,.

Make paper leaves and fix a small piece of paper clip to each leaf.

Connect each end of the wire to a battery 3-6 volt, you may have to put a
resistor or bulb in series to prevent too much current.

With the battery connected you will find there is just enough magnetic flux
at each coil to hold a leaf.


If you had about six of these coil strips made you could distribute them all
over the tree like a set of christmas tree lights.

Cutting off power using a timer to each coil strip would only drop those
leaves.

If you made some variation in coil turns and using a variable resistor,
turning the resistor down would make each leaf or two drop off because the
current is unable to hold them on.

Play about with the paper clips on each leaf would make them weigh
differently.

Hope this helps.

Regards, Gordon.

 

[Niklas Borson]

"Gordon Youd" <gordon@Zgyoud.demon.co.uk> wrote in message news:<c6loic$6u4$1$8300dec7@news.demon.co.uk>...

The idea I gave using "glues" was just to show a different way of doing what
you want.

The other way would be to take a couple of metres of thin wire and starting
at one wind a small coil of about 10-20 turns around a paper clip.

Take out the clip, move on a few inches and wind another coil.

Take out the clip? Don't I need something in the middle, if
nothing else to physically hold the wire in place?

Do this again until the wire is used up.

You will end up with a long strip of coils,.

Make paper leaves and fix a small piece of paper clip to each leaf.

Connect each end of the wire to a battery 3-6 volt, you may have to put a
resistor or bulb in series to prevent too much current.

With the battery connected you will find there is just enough magnetic flux
at each coil to hold a leaf.

If you had about six of these coil strips made you could distribute them all
over the tree like a set of christmas tree lights.

Cool. I like the idea of having multiple leaves per circuit
because it seems like it would reduce the number of components.

Cutting off power using a timer to each coil strip would only drop those
leaves.

Having the leaves fall in distinct groups doesn't sound
random-looking enough.

If you made some variation in coil turns and using a variable resistor,
turning the resistor down would make each leaf or two drop off because the
current is unable to hold them on.

Play about with the paper clips on each leaf would make them weigh
differently.

This sounds better. The leaves would fall "randomly" when the current
dropped below a threshold, which would depend on several factors: the
inductor, the weight of the individual leaf, and perhaps even forces
on the leaf due to air movement.

It seems like I should only need one timed variable resistor, right?
I have no idea how to construct one, btw, but perhaps I can figure it
out with a little research.

Thanks again,

--Nick

 

[Gordon Youd]

Hi, Nick,

I was just throwing ideas at you.

You could have a relay operated by a 555 timer and when the relay contacts
open the leaves would fall, if you had made variations in the coil
windings(no core, paper clip leaf becomes the core) and varied the leaf
weights and put a large capacitor across the opening contacts the leaves
would fall quite randomly.

Hope you can understand my babbling.
Best of luck.

Regards, Gordon.
"Niklas Borson" <niklasb@microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:bc2bfdd5.0404271244.1f6e4fc9@posting.google.com...

"Gordon Youd" <gordon@Zgyoud.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:<c6loic$6u4$1$8300dec7@news.demon.co.uk>...
The idea I gave using "glues" was just to show a different way of doing
what
you want.

The other way would be to take a couple of metres of thin wire and
starting
at one wind a small coil of about 10-20 turns around a paper clip.

Take out the clip, move on a few inches and wind another coil.

Take out the clip? Don't I need something in the middle, if
nothing else to physically hold the wire in place?

Do this again until the wire is used up.

You will end up with a long strip of coils,.

Make paper leaves and fix a small piece of paper clip to each leaf.

Connect each end of the wire to a battery 3-6 volt, you may have to put
a
resistor or bulb in series to prevent too much current.

With the battery connected you will find there is just enough magnetic
flux
at each coil to hold a leaf.

If you had about six of these coil strips made you could distribute them
all
over the tree like a set of christmas tree lights.

Cool. I like the idea of having multiple leaves per circuit
because it seems like it would reduce the number of components.

Cutting off power using a timer to each coil strip would only drop those
leaves.

Having the leaves fall in distinct groups doesn't sound
random-looking enough.

If you made some variation in coil turns and using a variable resistor,
turning the resistor down would make each leaf or two drop off because
the
current is unable to hold them on.

Play about with the paper clips on each leaf would make them weigh
differently.

This sounds better. The leaves would fall "randomly" when the current
dropped below a threshold, which would depend on several factors: the
inductor, the weight of the individual leaf, and perhaps even forces
on the leaf due to air movement.

It seems like I should only need one timed variable resistor, right?
I have no idea how to construct one, btw, but perhaps I can figure it
out with a little research.

Thanks again,

--Nick

 

[Terry Pinnell]

niklasb@microsoft.com (Niklas Borson) wrote:

I'm an raw beginner in electronics, and would like some feedback
on an idea before I take it any further. I will first describe
the problem and then my proposed solution. My question is whether
the solution makes sense. Any other advice would also be welcome.

THE PROBLEM

The basic goal is to hold onto something for a period of time
and then drop it. It must be possible to reattach the object
and do this again, over and over. The time might be anywhere
from a few seconds to several hours or more, and should be
adjustable, but accurate timing is not required. In fact, a
degree of randomness would be a nice effect. The object to be
held is light -- less than an ounce. Simplicity, low cost, and
low power consumption are goals.

It may help to know the actual application. My father is a
sculptor, and has been toying for some time with an idea, part
of which involves a tree gradually shedding its leaves.

PROPOSED SOLUTION

My idea is to hold the leaves on magnetically. Each leaf would
have a metal stem, which would attach to an inductor on the tree.
From my reading, I gather that if an inductor's core is made of
something like ferrite, the core will remain magnetized even
after the curcuit is opened. Here then is the process I have
in mind:

1. Charge the magnets. The user would close a switch for some
period of time. Each inductor would be on a different parallel
circuit with a unique resistance so as to magnetize some
cores more than others.

2. Stop charging and attach the leaves (not necessarily in that
order). Once the circuit is opened, the leaves are held on
by the megnetized inductor cores.

3. Wait for cores to gradually become demagnetized, such that
the leaves fall off. This should happen unevenly since some
cores were more magnetized that others.

The above makes a lot of assumptions that I don't know to be
true, e.g., that the inductor cores can be magnetized in a
reasonable amount of time, and will gradually demagnetize once
the current is turned off.

What I like about it, though, is its simplicity -- no digital timers
or complicated logic circuits. My father had an idea of attaching
the leaves with wax and then gradually melting the wax. The above
approach is in intended in the same spirit, only easier and less
messy. The only problem is... I have no idea whether it would
actually work.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

--Nick

In principle it sounds plausible (albeit time-consuming and expensive
to build, I suspect). And, complementing the inherent variability of
cores and magnets, you could add electronic randomness with several
parallel 'magnetising' circuits. But have you done what I would expect
to be the relatively simple test of trying *one* leaf/inductor pair
before you go any further? It's all down (literally!) to that <g>.

--
Terry Pinnell
Hobbyist, West Sussex, UK

 

[Terry Pinnell]

Terry Pinnell <terrypin@dial.pipex.com> wrote:
(on 29th April)

In principle it sounds plausible (albeit time-consuming and expensive
to build, I suspect). And, complementing the inherent variability of
cores and magnets, you could add electronic randomness with several
parallel 'magnetising' circuits. But have you done what I would expect
to be the relatively simple test of trying *one* leaf/inductor pair
before you go any further? It's all down (literally!) to that <g>.

Can I take it that's a No, then?

--
Terry Pinnell
Hobbyist, West Sussex, UK