I want to make a ferrocell magnetic field viewer so i can see the fields (hopefully) of a pancake coil. If it works it should also be able to show a ring toroid field. If the field of the coil is to weak, i could leave it resonating for some hour to let the ferrocell develop.

here ken wheeler shows his ferrocell there are more lile this in youtube. he also has a superferrocell, based on penetrating oil and less ferrofluid. this is what i will use as the field sets quicker.

https://youtu.be/uJi_2Viexng

I need 2 circular glass plates, where the ferrofluid can be in a thin layer inbetween.
I took 2 round mirrors. the back of the mirror has paint on it.
I removed this with nailpolish remover, and some cotton cloth. It wiped right off.

Then the aluminium coating was revealed. This thin aluminium layer I removed with kitchen sink declother (what do you call that) based on NaOH. Sodiumhydroxide.  Pretty nasty stuff, so watch out!
I had a petrie dish  that fitted the glass plate.
The aluminum desolved pretty fast with the NaOH and some water.

In the end I had 2 beautiful round flat glass plates, that fit inside the petri dish.

next step is to mix the penetrating mouse oild, or in my case the wd-40 with a few drops of ferro fluid, and place it on one of the glass plates.

then put the other plate on top, I should not have any air bubbles inbetween, if there are any i will squeeze them out.

Then, I clean the rims, and put some second glue to fixate the glass plates together, leaving the coil inside. Maybe I glue it inside the petri dish.

After that, I will have to make the LED ring.

my salvaged rgb leds strip is only working with the red leds. it still should work with only red.
its nice this strip has so many leds.
18 red leds in a circle.
it all fits well in the dish.
gonna do a quick test soon

DO NOT SPILL THE FERROFLUID
like i did :cleaning:

it works, but the red light isnt the best. the camera also almost doesnt pick up or is able to focus on the red light.

I think i also might need more than 2 drops of ferrofluid. need to get some white led strips...

I tried again with 4 drops added to the plates. the color is much more rusty.
but now i have the leds beneath the glass.
this doesnt work.
it worked better with the leds on the side of the glass plates shinging into the glass sideways.

red is really not working.

Very nice, keep up the good work :thumbsup:

Quote from Lynx on July 30th, 2017, 10:35 AM

Very nice, keep up the good work :thumbsup:

thanks Lynx :)

recieved  white led strip from my supplier. he is great! has colllected so much over the years, and  shares with me if i need it.
thanks man

still no good image from the white leds.
they probably need to shine in from the side.  but the glass plates are really thin and not perfectly flat.

need to try again with some tape. and cover all the excess light. the image still is very faint. But it is there!

i placed the white leds aiming inward from the side of the thin glass plates. then i covered the escaping light with black tape.
this gave a better result. but still its very weak. not much depth. I dont expect a coil to show anything.
but it sure does look nice

yummy

These instructions and results seem better than what you're doing. I would allow the iron particles to settle or use a magnet underneath, dump out the top ferrofluid until very little is left, then use the bottom, iron rich fluid to make the ferrocell. The lightbox is better with multiple colors. RGB LED strips are cheap. Wide aperture LEDs.

https://youtu.be/7zFJS-h0GQU

thanks for sharing zaknick.
but i stopped working with the ferrocell for now. it seems it wont display a coil field unless its very strong