Recently I got myself a bit of ferrofluidthat is suspended in a clear liquid insidea flask. You can get this practically everywhere onthe internet. Now the special thing about this black ferrofluidgoo is that it gets attracted by magnets.

So by using the included permanent magnetswe can have a bit of fun with it and I haveto admit that it was fascinating to look at...........foraround 5 minutes. I get why this product is so popular but simplyusing a permanent magnet with it is just tooboring for me.

So in this video I will be showing you howI combined this flask with a bit of electromagnetcoil winding, soldering, programming and atad of 3D printing in order to let my ferrofluiddance according to the frequency bands of the music.

The first step was to create the electromagnets. To do that I took measurement of my flask in orderto create this enclosure in Fusion360. I think it is quite obvious where the flaskwill sit as well as where the magnets willbe positioned but you might be asking yourselfwhat this slot underneath the flask is for.

Well, I will be using it to position someaddressable LEDs. This way I can use the individual LEDs inorder to also display the strength of thefrequency bands in the music in front of therespective magnets. And with that explanation out of the way Ilet my 3D printer do the printing while Idesigned this schematic for the project.

An Arduino is of course the heart of the systemthat controls everything. Then we got an MSGEQ7 IC which is a SevenBand Graphic Equalizer that will give us thefrequency response to our music signal for7 frequency bands. So simply put we feed the music signal inhere, the MSGEQ7 does its magic and thus theArduino knows which frequencies are currentlyin our music.

According to this music the Arduino then notonly controls the addressable LED strip butalso 6 MOSFETs whose job it is to basicallyturn on and off our electromagnets. I think if you watched some of my previousvideos then this schematic should be prettystraightforward.

So the next step was to gather all of therequired components and solder them to oneanother according to the schematic onto apiece of perfboard. To make the connections I used solder bridges,silvered copper wire and eventually even somehook up wire because the design was gettingpretty busy and chaotic.

After roughly around two hoursthe circuit was basically done and thus itwas time to not only hook up an audio sourceto it in the form of my smartphone, but alsothe LED strip. After then connecting the Arduino to my computerit was time for programming. But instead of using the MSGEQ7 as well asthe LEDs datasheet in order to create my owncode from scratch, I rather used an existingMSGEQ7 library and the Fast Led library.

With it I was able to create this small pieceof code which basically spits out the bass,middleand high frequencies in 8 bit form over theserial monitor while lighting up the targettedLEDs. By using a frequency generator app you cannot only see that the circuit works on thecomputer but you can also see it through theLEDs light.

Last thing to add to the code was to turnon the MOSFETs depending on whether the frequencyvalues are above or below a low and high thresholdvalue. And with that being completed, I turned overto my 3D print and noticed that I probablyshould have used some more support material. But nevertheless after removing the existingsupports, the enclosure may not look veryappealing but it surely does its job.

So after placing all of the components inits rightful place and connecting the electromagnetsto the circuit, it was finally time for afirst proper test with the function generator. And yes, it does work but I think we needsome more ferrofluid inside the flask. Luckily you can get such fluid pretty easilyand thus I added quite a bit more before Istarted a second test, this time with music,listen.

Now I am quite pleased with the result ofthis project which is much more appealingto look it than by just using permanent magnets. But it is kind of sad that I am not able toshow you how this ferrofluid rocks out tosome AC/DC music. So I guess you will have to give this projecta try if you want to find out.

Thanks for watching. Don't forget to like, share, subscribe, hitthe notification bell and maybe support methrough Patreon if you enjoy my work and wantme to continue producing more videos. Stay creative and I will see you next time.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enRecently I got myself a bit of ferrofluidthat is suspended in a clear liquid insidea flask.You can get this practically everywhere onthe internet.Now the special thing about this black ferrofluidgoo is that it gets attracted by magnets.So by using the included permanent magnetswe can have a bit of fun with it and I haveto admit that it was fascinating to look at...........foraround 5 minutes.I get why this product is so popular but simplyusing a permanent magnet with it is just tooboring for me.So in this video I will be showing you howI combined this flask with a bit of electromagnetcoil winding, soldering, programming and atad of 3D printing in order to let my ferrofluiddance according to the bass, middle and highfrequencies of the play backed music.Let's get started!This video is sponsored by JLCPCB, which isa PCB manufacturer that I can highly recommend.And today I want to present to you one oftheir new features, the pre-order parts feature.It allows you to order the SMT componentsfor your board before doing the SMT assemblyPCB order.This way you will not run into the problemthat there are not enough components availablefor your design.But feel free to check out JLCPCB on yourown to learn more.First off it is pretty obvious that we cannot use permanent magnets to make the ferrofluiddance because we can not electrically controlthem, except maybe with motors.No, instead we need such electromagnets whichyou can get from the Internet as well.After connecting them to my lab bench powersupply and powering them with the voltagewhich was printed onto their label, I noticedthat the small magnet didn't feature a strongenough magnetic field according to my taste.The big magnet however came with a strongenough field but sadly we can not use it forthis project.The problem is that the big magnet is simplytoo big for my idea which is that I will position6 magnets behind the flask in this layout.The left ones react to the low frequencies,so the bass, the middle ones react to themiddle frequencies and the right ones to thehigh frequencies.If there is only a bit of the frequency bandsin the music then only the lower magnet willbe on and if there are a lot of the desiredfrequencies then the upper magnet will turnon as well.It is kind of like a colour organ or VU meterbut with magnets and speaking of colour organfeel free to watch my very first video whichwas a colour organ because I will actuallybe reusing a bit of its circuit design lateron.But anyway while the big electromagnet didn'tfit, the small one did perfectly.So how can we make its magnetic field strongerwithout changing its diameter?To find that out I took the magnet apart andas it turns out it simply consists of a ferromagneticcore with a diameter of 8mm and a coil withtons of windings whose enamelled copper wirecomes with a diameter of 0.18mm.Now to increase the strength of a magnet thereare 2 options.The first one is to increase the applied voltageand thus the flowing current but that wascertainly not possible with the commercialmagnet due to the thin wire which would haveled to a thermal meltdown.So instead we have to add more windings tothe coil which sadly was once again not possiblewith the commercial magnet because the 1.5cmlong coil was already packed full.To solve that problem I firstly brought inmy own 8mm thick ferromagnetic iron core fromwhich I cut a small piece for testing.As you can see it performs perfectly finewith the commercial coil which means we canuse it for my DIY electromagnets.To make them I firstly had to design thiswire holder core model in Fusion360 with alength of 3cm instead of only 1.5 which Ithen 3D printed 6 times.Afterwards I hammered the iron rod piece intothe middle of one plastic core and then utilized0.22mm enamelled copper wire to create lotsof windings around this core with the helpof my electric drill.To determine the perfect amount of loops,I stopped winding from time to time, removeda bit of the varnish from the copper wirewith sand paper, hooked up my lab bench powersupply, limited the current to half an ampwhich this wire size can handle and testedwhether I was happy with the magnetic fieldstrength which I was not yet.So it was time to create more loops and eventuallyI hit a sweet spot at around 7V and 470mAat which point the magnetic field was strongenough for me.And even better the max temperature the magnetreached that way was around 70 degrees Celsius,so still acceptable.So I continued this project by cutting 5 more5cm long iron rod pieces which I hammeredinto the plastic cores in order to then coverthem with lots of copper wire in order totransform them into 6 electromagnets.Next I took measurement of my flask in orderto create this enclosure in Fusion360.I think it is quite obvious where the flaskwill sit as well as where the magnets willbe positioned but you might be asking yourselfwhat this slot underneath the flask is for.Well, I will be using it to position someaddressable LEDs.This way I can use the individual LEDs inorder to also display the strength of thefrequency bands in the music in front of therespective magnets.And with that explanation out of the way Ilet my 3D printer do the printing while Idesigned this schematic for the project.An Arduino is of course the heart of the systemthat controls everything.Then we got an MSGEQ7 IC which is a SevenBand Graphic Equalizer that will give us thefrequency response to our music signal for7 frequency bands.So simply put we feed the music signal inhere, the MSGEQ7 does its magic and thus theArduino knows which frequencies are currentlyin our music.According to this music the Arduino then notonly controls the addressable LED strip butalso 6 MOSFETs whose job it is to basicallyturn on and off our electromagnets.I think if you watched some of my previousvideos then this schematic should be prettystraightforward.So the next step was to gather all of therequired components and solder them to oneanother according to the schematic onto apiece of perfboard.To make the connections I used solder bridges,silvered copper wire and eventually even somehook up wire because the design was gettingpretty busy and chaotic.And if you are interested in pictures of myfinished design and more information aboutthis project then feel free to have a lookin the video description.But anyway after roughly around two hoursthe circuit was basically done and thus itwas time to not only hook up an audio sourceto it in the form of my smartphone, but alsothe LED strip.After then connecting the Arduino to my computerit was time for programming.But instead of using the MSGEQ7 as well asthe LEDs datasheet in order to create my owncode from scratch, I rather used an existingMSGEQ7 library and the Fast Led library.With it I was able to create this small pieceof code which basically spits out the bass,middleand high frequencies in 8 bit form over theserial monitor while lighting up the targettedLEDs.By using a frequency generator app you cannot only see that the circuit works on thecomputer but you can also see it through theLEDs light.Last thing to add to the code was to turnon the MOSFETs depending on whether the frequencyvalues are above or below a low and high thresholdvalue.And with that being completed, I turned overto my 3D print and noticed that I probablyshould have used some more support material.But nevertheless after removing the existingsupports, the enclosure may not look veryappealing but it surely does its job.So after placing all of the components inits rightful place and connecting the electromagnetsto the circuit, it was finally time for afirst proper test with the function generator.And yes, it does work but I think we needsome more ferrofluid inside the flask.Luckily you can get such fluid pretty easilyand thus I added quite a bit more before Istarted a second test, this time with music,listen.Now I am quite pleased with the result ofthis project which is much more appealingto look it than by just using permanent magnets.But it is kind of sad that I am not able toshow you how this ferrofluid rocks out tosome AC/DC music.So I guess you will have to give this projecta try if you want to find out.As always thanks for watching.Don't forget to like, share, subscribe, hitthe notification bell and maybe support methrough Patreon if you enjoy my work and wantme to continue producing more videos.Stay creative and I will see you next time.