Ekobots - Magnetic Tractor Beam

thingiverse

I'm Building a Magnetic Tractor Beam with Permanent Magnets Like in Star Wars and Star Trek. It's Super Simple and Fun. This is my fifth version, using eight total magnets, six small ones and two bigger ones, each measuring just 5mm. Here's the video that inspired me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRDKOcfrI-Y Special thanks to Latheman666 for his help! If you'd like to support my work, check out my designs on pinshape at http://pinshape.com/users/27920-jsirgado. The OpenSCAD file is available too - feel free to modify it. To make this magnetic tractor beam work, all you need are eight magnets. Just follow the blueprint image. I even added some UFO-shaped covers to make it more fun! The wafer versions perform better because they help prevent the magnets from jumping around. As long as the total height of all the magnets is equal, I think this should work with any height. I've tested this magnetic tractor beam with various shapes, including spheres, cubes, boxes, and cylinders - and it works great every time! However, the best results come from using two spheres that make up half the total height. Even then, they still manage to hold together. To boost the tractor beam's power even more, you can try adding a tiny magnet at the top of the central magnet. It worked surprisingly well when I tested it, despite having slightly varying heights between magnets - just be sure to keep that difference under 1mm! Here are the specs for each type of magnetic tractor beam: Version 5mm tall: I'm using six small neodymium magnets measuring 6mm in diameter and 5mm in height. There are also two larger magnets, each 20mm in diameter and 5mm in height. The wafer version is just a bit different. For the Version 6mm tall design, I'll need twelve smaller magnets measuring 6mm in diameter by 3mm in height, as well as four bigger ones measuring 20mm in diameter by 3mm in height. Finally, for the Version 10mm tall magnetic tractor beam, I've chosen twelve small magnets (6mm in diameter and 5mm in height), paired with four larger magnets (20mm in diameter and 5mm in height). It's time to create your very own Magnetic Tractor Beam. Are you up for it?