Perpetual motion devices are either a gag, a scam, or as in the case of this particular toy that [Big Clive] bought on AliExpress, a rather fascinating demonstration of a contact-free inductive sensor combined with a pulsed magnet boost for the metal ball. A cool part about the device is that it comes with a completely clear enclosure, so you can admire its internals while it’s operating. Less cool was that after unboxing the device wasn’t working as the detector wasn’t getting the 12 V it needs to operate, requiring a bit of repairing first.
Based on the label on the bottom of the device with the creative model identifier P-toy-002, its standby current is 10 µA which ramps up to 3 A when it’s operating. This makes sense when you look at the two core components: the industrial inductive detector, and a rather big electromagnet that’s driven by a bank of three 10 mF, 35V capacitors, turning it into something akin to a coilgun. Annoyingly, an attempt was made to erase most of the IC package markings.
The circuitry isn’t too complex, fortunately, with an adjustable electromagnet coil voltage circuit combined with a MOSFET to provide the pulse, and a 78L12 regulator to generate the 12 VDC from the coil’s voltage rail for the sensor that is monitored by a MCU.
That looks suspiciously like a model Steve Mould had made..I wonder if that’s where the market for a transparent one sprung from.
I would like one tho!
That’s like the first thing he addresses in the video.
It seems I’m not the only one that reads the article and skips the video. An article that says “hey here’s a cool video about this” and not much more gets skipped by me, and now I see at least one other just like me. HAD getting some ad revenue is fine by me, YouTube, Google and the like, nope.
File under “people mistaking a coilgun for a railgun again.”
Aside from that it’s pretty cool, seems like it would be better if they tuned down the booster until the marble juuuust barely made it to the top of the gizmo again. Its violent arrival gives away the game. Would be a neat desk toy.
It has a tiny adjustment pot he says.
But will setting it low enough to not ‘give it away’ allow it to reach the top? Must be pretty fiddly, and the pot is super tiny.
Maybe a ‘brake’ would work by having a magnet or two next to the upwards bit to slow it in a more gradual manner.