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I have a great idea that I want to put to action, but I don't know how to do it...

I just recently got into Warhammer 40k, and I already love it to death; most of all, I like the time and effort that goes into making the miniatures into veritable works of art.

What I wanted to do was make one of my Eldar Falcon Gravtanks levitate without the aid of a flying base. How would I accomplish this, if it's at all possible? This piece would strictly be for display, so the size and material requirements of the base aren't incredibly limiting factors.

My ideas so far would be to have a large, disc-shaped neodymium magnet attached to a motor so it spins very fast and an equivalent magnet snuggly secured inside the bottom of the gravtank. Would this fail miserably?

I recommend building a prototype.

Something I have wanted to try but have been unable to because of a lack of access to magnets is thus:

Have 3 magnets on a base, arranged in a triangle, with a magnet on the bottom of the tank. That way, as it repels it forces it into the centre.

How you'd keep it there is another question, perhaps with a bit of string lol. Or perhaps a "flipped"magnet in the centre of the base (so it attracts the magnet on the model a little bit, not enough to pull it to the base cause of the other 3, but enough to keep it centred)

But yes, if you have access to Rare Earth Magnets give it a go

Ever had one of those toy "pipes" you blow into, and it makes the ping pong ball rise?

Do that.

Make a display base that looks like the top of a building with a "vent" (maybe an AC vent or something) on top. Inside the building, put a VERY HIGH POWERED fan.

Then, you just have to weight the model heavily enough not to be blown to oblivion, but light enough to be raised... and balance the weight of the model so it's even.


No problem. Cake walk.


Eric

I bet if you dig hard enough in the net you can find formulae that will tell you either the weight of the object needed or the configuration and/or strength of magnets required.

http://www.hfml.ru.nl/fingertip.html

Unfortunately its not going to work without a magnet that is constantly in rotation or a magnetic base that surrounds the model itself. You'll just get a model that flips over and falls down otherwise. You'll also want an electromagnet if your going to try and repel anything more than an inch away.

The problem with maglev is that its very difficult to control. Trains get around this by surrounding the track and having a redundant second track to avoid balance issues. If you have a magnet thats spinning it can hover above a few other magnets because the rotation prevents its imbalances from becoming overwhelming (Its the same principle behind rockets and bullets spinning, also a football spiral). However unless your entire falcon is spinning the rotation isn't going to work. You should probably figure out a better way to do it.

Hmm, seems mixed reviews abound. I think Shuma's right though, the magnetic fields of permanent magnets are incredibly unstable. Are you sure, though, that there is no way to keep the model stable?

For example, this globe seems to achieve the effect I want. Does anyone know where I can find a similar, cheaper device for this effect? (Or does anyone know a way to make one? Someone here has to be an electrical engineer...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDVLqzAiGHA&feature=related
This is the only clip I have found with an irregular shaped ie no round elements, floating. It is obviously powered and
i've got a feeling that that huge base+platform combo has got something to do with it!
I think you may have your work cut out.

The elements of this could be embelished and painted as a wraithbone docking station/floating platform if you could find
one strong enough. Just pray you don't have a powercut!!!!

Alex Kolodotschko wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDVLqzAiGHA&feature=related
This is the only clip I have found with an irregular shaped ie no round elements, floating.

It' a round platform that's being suspended, not the toy car which is on it.

This idea will never happen. Your going to have to supend it from above.

Lets say you model it as coming out of a webway gate. the gate would have magnets on the ground, partway up either side of the structure, and one on top. then the vehicle would have magnets on the top, bottom, and along the wing rim. If the magnets were strong enough and you have all your polarity in check....it could be possible?

It'll be like trying to balance a ten foot pole on one end.

The reson the globe and platform examles posted above work is because the objects are round, hence the centre of gravity is simply the centre of the object. Good luck trying to find the precise centre of gravity of a gravtank.

Whatsmore the platform has rotating magnets inside, which means the object is being repelled from many different directions. Having a similar set up would mean the base would have to be considerably larger than your gravtank.

And then, once your past those problems you need to have a magnet which supports the weight of your object.

In other words your better off glueing flies to it and letting them do the work.

Yes, it would be difficult as all hell, but it's not impossible. the OP has already been given a link to a site that will have strong enough magnets. If need be using scenery to cover it up he could also make a similar platform. It all depends on how much effort is put into it.

Get a magnet, put it on the table, then suspend the grav tank from some fishing wire above it.

whatwhat wrote:

Alex Kolodotschko wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDVLqzAiGHA&feature=related
This is the only clip I have found with an irregular shaped ie no round elements, floating.

It' a round platform that's being suspended, not the toy car which is on it.

Alex Kolodotschko wrote: It is obviously powered and
i've got a feeling that that huge base+platform combo has got something to do with it!

I'd kinda figured that out!

point was, there are round elements, not...

Alex Kolodotschko wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDVLqzAiGHA&feature=related
This is the only clip I have found with an irregular shaped ie no round elements, floating.

Well. Seeing as how I work at a High School and our Physics teacher should be teaching at the college level I asked him this question earlier. I gave him the rough shape of a wave serpent and he seems to think that it is very doable with rare earth magents. He said to find:

2 1"diameter magnets
8 smaller magnets but more powerful.

He said placing the large magnet in the center opposed and then place the smaller magnets in an even box towards the outer edges of the model in a (forgot the word he said and it was just 10 minutes ago when I was in his room- god its early) attracted maner. He said its very important that they be evenly spaced and even distance from one another as in the terrain on the base needs to be flat or contoured so that its the same distance from the bottom of the vehicle. Also, you should flip the polarity of the outer magnets so that they should oppose each other if it tries to spin that will stop it.

Might get you started. And hes a very smart guy.

Well if the result will include a wire suspending it either way , get a wire with a spring attached to it, for the imitating boing / hovering effect.

Here is a different idea, though finding magnets powerful enough my be difficult. Magnetism can affect through objects. Place the opposing vehicle mounted magnet at a high point, like if you were to hang the model, and you don't need to balance it from the bottom.

Revell released a few kits a while back that would simulate 'flight' by having magnets in the base and in the plastic aircraft and having a bit of fishing line to attach the plane.

I can't think of anything else that is practical. To have it freely floating would take precision balancing and the moment you want to move to model or even bump the table it would dislodge it. The moment you try to place the magnetic kit on top of the magnetic base it will want to shoot off and land alongside, or it will push the base out from underneath it. Not sure what you mean by having spinning motors and the like inside things but that's not a realistic solution, it just won't work in practice becuase you need absolutely perfect precision and balance.

No, keep it simple. You need a few magnets and a couple of pieces of fishing line to anchor the kit down.

Here's an example.

Being a super magentophile myself, I'm going to go with no. Just making something the weight of a magnet levitate is really difficult and usually just ends up in the item flipping over and crashing into your delicate setup. The linked think-geek item might help, but the wave serpent is going to be far too heavy for that thing, and building your own larger version to handle an irregularly shaped object seems to be overkill. You may as well just start building a working 28mm scale wave serpent at that point.

The strongest, small magnets I've ever come across came from the hard disk of a PC. They were about the size of a kidney bean and about the same shape, except flat. They so strong that you could place one on either side of your hand and they had enough pull that the one on the underside didn't fall to the floor.

I would start with a kit...

like this:
http://yellowairplane.com/yellow_airplane_store/Military_Magnetic_Levitating_Aircraft_Gifts.html

Why not just use a thin steel wire and forget the magnets? Paint the wire black and it will effectively vanish.

The only mini I know that successfully use magnets for levitation was a Warmachine Harbinger model. It also incorporated the chains as restraints.

Ive seen globes and a few toys at a SpencersGifts store that you might be able to take apart and build your falcon around. Not sure if it would have to spin to stay up like stated before, Ive never played with them. Just saw some in passing. You might end up just doing the ol fishing line trick. Put it on a white background so you dont see the string lol

Great ideas, everyone.

To those who don't think I can get magnets strong enough. I know exactly where to get my magnets and I know exactly how powerful they are. Some I have the ability to acquire have a pull force of over 500 lbs and can adversely affect any sensitive electronic equipment from more than 3 feet away. (This is why these magnets are required to be shipped via ground.) Granted, I won't need anything nearly this powerful.

Moving onward. Finding the center of gravity will be difficult, but not impossible. GW did half the work for me and have a very convenient hole where the flying base goes, which is the approximate center of gravity of the model (this is why they balance when you put them on the base). The precise center of gravity is somewhere along that vertical axis, provided that I don't significantly alter the weight distribution of the model.

If I can't find a way to levitate the Falcon from underneath, Tizz's idea would be an excellent alternative (have the falcon coming out of a webway gate and place magnets/electromagnets appropriately above and below). The more research I do on this, the more I realized that this device is almost required to be plugged into a power source. Permanent magnets are too unstable to keep anything securely above them. Electromagnets have the ability to be turned on and off quickly to provide pseudo-stability. No matter what I do, the device is going to be pretty finicky to calibrate correctly. Seems I may have to spend $70 on the base...

This is a great idea; though I can't help you.
If you can pull this off, I'd love to see the results.

In the end, when this is all done, I highly suggest making your base out of a safer material that plastic. At the hobby shop near my house, they have a very compressed 'spongy' material that can be carved, painted, sculpted with other materials, and other stuff done to it. It looks just like plastic when it's all done and is still soft when something hits it. It absorbs the shock of something hitting it. So if the power went off on your base, and your serpent fell, this material could stop anything from being damaged and you'd need no wires in case this is a worry. I doubt you'll need this since you'll probably only run this for show and such, but it's still something worth looking into. It was used to make RC plane landing strips for novices. Now, in this bulk it was enormously expensive from what I was told but Lorgar knows how thick of a layer you'd need. I'll get back to you on the name of the material if it interests you.

Lorgar's_Blessed wrote:In the end, when this is all done, I highly suggest making your base out of a safer material that plastic. At the hobby shop near my house, they have a very compressed 'spongy' material that can be carved, painted, sculpted with other materials, and other stuff done to it. It looks just like plastic when it's all done and is still soft when something hits it. It absorbs the shock of something hitting it. So if the power went off on your base, and your serpent fell, this material could stop anything from being damaged and you'd need no wires in case this is a worry. I doubt you'll need this since you'll probably only run this for show and such, but it's still something worth looking into. It was used to make RC plane landing strips for novices. Now, in this bulk it was enormously expensive from what I was told but Lorgar knows how thick of a layer you'd need. I'll get back to you on the name of the material if it interests you.

That does interest me. When I get this done, I'll gladly show you guys (along with step-by-step instructions on how I did it). Keep in mind though, this is a very long-term project, that I'm not even sure if I can accomplish it. For now though, it's a very intriguing idea to mull over in my head.

tuatha1337 wrote:To those who don't think I can get magnets strong enough. I know exactly where to get my magnets and I know exactly how powerful they are. Some I have the ability to acquire have a pull force of over 500 lbs and can adversely affect any sensitive electronic equipment from more than 3 feet away. (This is why these magnets are required to be shipped via ground.) Granted, I won't need anything nearly this powerful.

Power isn't the problem, it's precision. As Earnshaw's theorem states, achieving magnetic levitation with static magnets is impossible because at the best case scenario, you'd achieve an unstable equilibrium that things like air currents, gravitational anomalies or nearby magnetic fields can alter.

The method described in the HFML link upthread is theoretically feasible, at least insofar as it explictly circumvents the theorem's effects, but it'd be a balancing act not only with weights but with magnetic field strengths and I believe the ensuing system would still be vulnerable to outside forces, such as table-bumping.

The cheapest work around I can think of would be to use fishing line to stabilize your model to the base. You'd still have some issues if the table were bumped hard enough, but it would be better than trying to let it free-float on the magnetic field. You might even be able to use the lines as framework for a "wavy" magnetic field effect under the model. You could even make it removable by cutting small slits into the base and using knots to anchor the lines to it.