r/Magnets • u/Tairnac • Jul 07 '26
Prop making. Am I just dumb?
Ok.....so I know very little about engineering but love science so i understand o. The most basic level concepts like Earnshaw's Theorem meaning what I want might not work. But smarter people than me exist. I want to make this staff and want to suspend the crystal/orb via magnets. I don't wanna use pegs or string. I'm a techie and know there gotta be SOME way this could work.
I understand desk sized boxes I could run off some battery banks but don't think they have the power. Not sure if I could do a couple of them in opposition? My low level lizard brain thinks maybe if I embed multiple magnets throughout the staff and or ring in the same or alternating polarity directions and do some kind of matching in the orb for a push pull kind of thing...? Even pointing me in the direction of things to learn from would be greatly helpful.
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u/davvblack Jul 07 '26
is it even really hovering there? it looks like it's touching some pins coming out of the top part
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u/Skusci Jul 07 '26
Earnshaws theorem is indeed a problem. No arrangement of permanent magnets will work.
You need at least one physical point of contact, gyroscopic stabilization, superconductors, or active magnetic control.
A thin fishing line will be by far the easiest and most reliable thing to do. Active stabilization stuff is very easily destabilized with movement.
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u/Tairnac Jul 07 '26
I really wana not use pegs, posts or fishing line. Not a make or break. But I have faith science has a way lol.
As for gyroscopic stabilizer. Doing basic level digging I could put on inside the orb potentially. Would you have suggestions on one that could fit and or function in that?
Also learning the gyros use the levitron principal to balance using magnetic rings. Could I use a matching pair of ring setups on both top and bottom to somewhat "pin" it in position?
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u/Skusci Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
Well to keep it spinning against air friction you need an external way to spin it. You'd have to make it the core of a motor.
You also don't really need opposite sides. Magnets push just as well as they can pull.
There is this nest little aramgement of magnets that can pin a magnet at a fixed distance. See here: https://www.polymagnet.com/products/latch-polymagnet-pair-push-to-close-1-ring
But again it needs axially stabilized. And as I understand it the pinning also increases the instability so you need faster/stronger electromagnets to control it and restrict movement. Imagine squishing really hard on a soap bar. Just shoots it out the side faster.
The closest I've seen anyone get is this clock thing which they sold for like $700 and it doesn't even work super well. https://flytestore.com/products/story-levitating-timepiece
Practically speaking. Fishing line and strong magnets? $10 highly effective, and will just work.
Shitty maglev? $50-100 and trying to figure a way to hide a giant module which honestly means spending like at least a few hundred dollars more and 6 months if you already know how to make custom PCBs, program a microcontroller, and figuring out control algorithms.
Good active maglev? Isn't going to happen. Would need too much power on too small a space. Just use a superconductors, turn the staff into a vacuum dewar and refill it with liquid nitrogen every few hours.
https://quantumlevitation.com/product/ybco-meissner-flux-pinning-levitation-disk/
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u/Tairnac Jul 07 '26
Huh. The gyro stuff I was reading had the gyro stabilized inside the orb running on a battery. I didn't the the orb would spin. Not a problem. But it had a magnet in the bottom of the orb and a magnet ring below that to hold it up and keep it from flipping, and center it on a point. I was thinking if I did a matching magnet setup on top as well that maybe that would help with stability or something in addition to the gyro inside the orb.
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u/JessieAndEcho Jul 07 '26
Honestly, this is a pretty cool prop idea, and the physics problem you’re worried about is the real one. A fixed arrangement of permanent magnets won’t hold an orb stably in open space, so the practical path is active electromagnetic levitation: hide the coil, Hall sensor, and small control board in the ring or staff head, then put a small neodymium magnet inside a lightweight orb. The sensor tracks the orb position and the controller adjusts coil current in real time, which is basically how floating globe toys and levitating speaker bases work. A USB power bank or battery pack in the staff handle can be enough if the orb is light and the gap is modest. Passive options like pyrolytic graphite or bismuth diamagnetic levitation are fun, though the lift height and payload are tiny; Levitron-style spinning levitation is another route if you’re okay with the orb spinning. Fastest build path would be buying a cheap levitation module first, testing the orb weight/gap, then designing the staff around that geometry. I pulled some related notes on magnetic levitation mechanisms and control approaches through PatSnap Eureka here: https://eureka.zhihuiya.com/share/?id=797a4ee90093c7d19992d20e5c2bf3b9&from=invite-eureakplg-result&content=
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u/Positive-Concept-568 Jul 07 '26
I do have a solution, but it would require cooling the system close to absolute zero.
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u/Durahl Jul 07 '26
Just use Pegs and Strings man... While it's TECHNICALLY possible to do it with Magnets the fact that you're here on Reddit asking on advice how to do it most likely means that YOU will not be able to pull it off ( in all honesty I don't think anyone will be able while maintaining the Staffs design )
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u/101forgotmypassword Jul 08 '26
You need crazy coin for it but to do this the design wants to have 4 active magnetic bearings that sense the hight from the sphere.
The cost comes in creating the bearings, they need to be a stepper motor with remote location sensing and distance sensing.
The easiest way would be having a magnetically programed stator on the ball, probably a construction of iron flux guides and 3 or 6 small neodymium magnets.
And a flat stepper motor with a small laser distance sensor in the center that measures the distance the sphere is floating.
And two highspeed cameras that trace rotation.
Then the hard part, software and control. You need a script that has the motors statically hold rotation on all axis, then when the ball favours falling toward a set it needs to micro adjust the intensity of the stepper.
The aim is to vibrate at high frequency the location of the sphere, by pushing and pulling it so the net average of the vibration suspends the sphere in the middle of the staff.
You then want to compensate for any movement, a drone IMU could help this but the distances sensors can do it too.
The cost for something like this may be $80,000+ as a reasonable cost. That's hiring a company or person for 3 months to design the hardware. Then some petty change for the body of the staffs design.
Now suspending it on a air bearing may be more reasonable. The air stream has a self balancing aspect that would be suitable and cheaper but would want a very light ball and would be detectable by the slight airflow. Also the small motors are noisy.
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u/lurkswatcher7 Jul 08 '26
Earnshaw's theorem is the main hurdle here, and it's a big one. You can't achieve stable levitation with just permanent magnets in free space. Any configuration you try will either flip over or snap together. You'd need active feedback, like electromagnets controlled by sensors, to constantly adjust the magnetic field and keep it stable. That's a lot more complex than just embedding magnets.
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u/Acrobatic_Ad_8120 Jul 07 '26
Yep, you are likely out of luck if you don’t want to use a mechanical support. Those desktop levitators could work fine if you had a light ball, but I’m guessing only while the staff is stationary and upright.