Molten Metal LED Display

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMuDudCiPR8]

firstly, we don’t know why they are doing this, and we don’t care. You are watching an LED panel, controlled by molten metal. The panel has the leads sticking down below the bottom of the board, so the metal can make connections as it flows past. They are using Wood’s metal, not mercury so it has to be heated to about 159 degrees Fahrenheit to be fluid. This has been representing problems as the metal tends to stick to whatever container he is holding it in. That actually seems to be what most of the writeup and discussion are about, rather than, what it will be used for.

[Thanks Andre]

19 thoughts on “Molten Metal LED Display

  1. Ha! Replacing mercury with Wood’s metal is the stupidest thing i’ve heard today. He goes on about how mercury is ‘far too toxic for my tastes’ – did he not consider the toxicity of the cadmium vapours? What about the lead too? What a numpty.

  2. Yeah…….conceivably couldn’t any conductive liquid (ie just about anything not oil based) work? I mean I don’t know what the power source is, but using just the woods metal and a lubricant seems unnecessary.

  3. Yep, you’d be better off with Field’s metal rather than Wood’s. Slightly lower melting point (only 3deg C though), less toxic, and a bit less wetting. If you can afford Cerrolow, that would work even better.

  4. I would have wired the leds using darlinton transistors or small fets and use the fluid to bias the base/gate. the devices are so sensitive that I’m sure you could get saline to set them off, you should even be able to get fade effects as their connection’s conductivity changes.

  5. Here is an idea dude is using a paper plate in the video so it can’t be a metal that has to have that much heat applied to it or it will melt straight through the bottom. With that I would still bet on it being mercury or like these guys said the new replacements for it out of some old salvaged medical blood pressure equipment.

    Awesome. Works in the same way that a mercury switch in an old thermostat does.
    Posted at 3:12 pm on Feb 16th, 2009 by Christopher Reitmann

    There are some Indium/Gallium/etc alloys that are significantly liquid down to about 10 C. Expensive, though, with Indium being about the price of silver, and Gallium being more than that. The alloys are considered non-toxic; they’ve replaced mercury in medical thermometers, for instance. Also, they tend to wet (stick to) everything, exactly UNLIKE mercury.
    http://www.indium.com/products/fusiblealloys.php
    Posted at 9:21 pm on Feb 16th, 2009 by WestfW

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