Acoustic Levitator Case

Intro: Acoustic Levitator Case

Acoustic levitator from Asier Marzo is a very popular thing here on instructables. I build it, it was working but I noticed couple of issues. For example:

1. The 3D printed space between bowls is a bit fragile.
2. The levitator can't stand on its own because of its curvature.
3. All the electronics are fragile and a bit ugly.

So I built this case. It does couple of things like:

1. Serves as a stand.
2. Hides all the electronics.
3. Iluminates levitated objects.
4. Changes the voltage going into driver which is important when levitating liquids.
5. Shows input and output voltage.

If you look at the second image you can notice that many changes have been made to the original model.

STEP 1: Parts List

You will need these components:

acoustic levitator

LM2577 variable step-up converter

10K ohm precise potentiometer

2x toggle switch

2x white LEDs

2x UV LEDs

Acrylic, MDF or other material what are you going to cut it from

IP68 endoscope camera (optional)

endoscope camera holder (optional)

STEP 2: Tool List

These tools might be handy:

1) laser cutter (I used GCC SLS 80)

2) soldering iron

3) hot glue gun

4) acumlator drill

5) screwdriver set

6) drill bit set

7) cable stripper

8) multimeter

9) marker

STEP 3: Cutting the Case

Why did I choose laser cut case instead of 3D printed one? The answer is simple. It's faster to make, cheaper, and the final case will be very robust.

The thing to do now is to choose material you're gonna cut it from. Wood or MDF is elegant and cheap, and acrylic is futuristic and if you add see throught acrylic you're gonna see all the electronics inside. I chose acrylic.

I designed this case in Corel. If you don't have acces to a laser cutter (as me) there are many local services, that you can give this file to, and they will cut it to you for affordable price. All needed files are included in this step.

Note: This case was drawn for 3mm thick material. Make sure that you have this thickness.

STEP 4: Getting Pieces Together

You have all pieces alreday cut, they all fit, so now you can build the case. Imagine that the case is a prism and the C shape is base. Now with a little 3D imagination sense I'm sure that you can build it.

STEP 5: Adding Levitator Core

Now if you have built the basic case shape, you can add the levitator core. The case is designed that way, that it fits the curvature of levitator. Just insert the levitator between two holes of case, and glue it in place.

STEP 6: Adding Electronics

The levitator is glued in, so now it's the right time to connect all necessary electronics. The best option is to glue driver in the middle part, so wires from top and bottom bowls don't have to be so long and you have to put bunch of other stuff in the bottom part of the case. Wires from driver will then go to arduino nano, which will be in bottom part of case. Very important thing to do is to add a jumper between D10 and D11 of arduino nano.

The DC barrel connector will be also in the middle part. At first, energy from it will go right into driver, but later, it will go to li-ion battery charger module and the driver will be powered from li-ion battery. That means that levitator will work even away from outlet.

I also added a switch at the front control panel. One pin of switch is connected to + of DC barrel and the other to 12V input of driver. This will be necessary when it will be powered from li-ion battery.

STEP 7: Adding Ilumination

In general the particles that can levitate are small. And small things are hard too see. So I think that LED ilumination is a good idea. I just drilled two 3mm holes in plastic at the top and bottom of levitator. Then I glued both LEDs in place and connected them to 3.3V output of arduino nano.

One cool idea is to paint particless that'll levitate with UV highlighter and glue UV LEDs instead of the classic ones. I added both normal and UV ilumination. I also added switch, so I can switch between UV and normal. The best place to place the UV LEDs is in the gap between control panel and the rest of the case.

If you want just normal ilumination, just connect both white LEDs to GND and 3.3V outputs of arduino nano. If you want both normal and UV, follow included scheme. More info about mounting UV LEDs is in step 10.

I uploaded some pictures for comparison of UV and LED. All these pictures were shooted at absolute darkness (no ambient light). As you can see, normal LEDs iluminate the whole device, while UV LEDs highlight the particle itself (and that's super cool at night).

STEP 8: Electronics - Volume II

At first, you need to desolder the original 10K trimmer from LM2577 and replace it with precise 10K potentiometer. Also adding a potentiometer knob is a good idea.

Connect + pole of the DC barrel to IN+ of LM2577 and connect - from the DC barrel to IN- of LM2577. Then connect OUT+ and OUT- from LM2577 to 12V and GND of L298N.

STEP 9: Add Control Panel

When there are so many electronics to control in this device, I think that adding a control panel is a good thing. These are the things that you can control from this panel:

1) turn the device ON or OF

2) switch between white LED and UV LED ilumination

3) control and check voltage going into driver (this is important when levitated object are not symetric and stable)

So, I just drilled three holes for two switches and for potentiometer and glued LM2577 in place. Hole for voltage display is laser cut. Then I glued UV LEDs. It's important to aim UV LEDs precisely (It's a beam more that a light).

STEP 10: Acoustic Levitator Version 2.0

Conratulations! You're done! No more building. Enjoy your device.

STEP 11: Camera

When you're showing your levitator to a lot of people on a presentation (happens a lot to me), or when you want to make photos of what you're levitating, it's useful to have a levitator camera. I bough a cheap small endoscope camera from ebay and made a 3D printed holder for it. You can just insert the camera into the holder, insert the holder into the levitator and you can power up the camera. HERE is the thingiverse page. for the holder.

STEP 12: Organise Your Particles

This isn't necessary, but I think that it's good to mention it. There are so many types of things that you can levitate. But the basic are: styrofoam, water and alcohol. You also need some tools like tweezers and syringe. So I took some small boxes from mints, added some labels, put it in a bigger box so particles for levitating would be organised.

STEP 13: Other Experiments

When I was playing with levitator, I discovered some fun experiments (other than levitation).

So, the first experiment is that people are not supposed to hear levitator (because it's frequency is 40khz). Some people hear very high frequency when close to the levitator, but that is just the acoustic waves bouncing off other objects. But this group of people is very small (1 of 10, mostly children). But if you put some objects into the acoustic field, they resonate and that causes emiting of much lower frequency. Everyone hears this frequency. Aluminium foil has the strongest resonating effect from what I tried.

The second experiment is fire extinguisher. The acoustic pressure field is strong enough to blow a candle. So you simply light a candle, put it into levitator, turn the levitator on and watch. The candle should be blown out in a short time.

Warning: Always put candle into turned on levitator (so you minimize the time in levitator) otherwise you risk damaging transducers.

STEP 14: Final Thoughts

Thanks for reading this whole instructable all the way to this point.

I think that acoustic levitator is a realy cool thing. It's interesting and educative physics experiment. Big thanks to Asier Marzo that he did share instructions for acoustic levitator. It's fun and educative.

I added elegant look to this futuristic device. I hope that some of you reading this will make some nice cases. Enjoy!

Comments

[NotJeffBezos]

Could somebody help me getting the wiring right? Scheme would be nice

[krunal_weld]

I need to make this acoustic Levitator on larger scale like in cm is it possible that you provide us necessary parameters to make it on large scale and to levitate object having more weight??

[sess92ca]

I cant wait to begin this project! Very well done!!!

I sadly only have access to my personal 3D printers; and ive been able to convert the 2D PDFs into correct .STLs; only problem is the scaling has certainly been lost between the conversions.

Could you help by providing "general" dimensions for the 2D PDFs or upload a set of dimensionally accurate STLs?

Thank youuuuu!!!!!!

[Jakub_Nagy]

I'm very happy to hear that!

Hmmmm. I experimented with various programs and file types in order to keep the scaling correct.

The dimensions you have should be less than 0.5mm off. It was drawn in vector with no stroke so if you set the stroke in your program to zero, you should get the part with the right dimmensions.

OK, the dimensions are really very rounded and nice numbers:
back part = 126x186
bottom = 195x126
control panel = 126x67
left side = right side = 195x186
middle part = 120x123
part with hole = 144x126
small part = 126x33
upper part = 150x126

Everything is in mm. I hope this helps.

[danielsrj9]

Firstly, nicely done on this project. I have been following modifications of the levitation project for a while now.

I have plans to build one in the next year and was wondering if you had experimented controlling particle motion in your levitator? That is one of the aspects of this work that I am really interested in. There are optical and magnetic 'tweezers' that perform similar functions.

Also, what are your future project plans?

Best,
Ryan

[Mr&MrsA]

I can’t wait to start this project, hopefully in January! My first thought after reading this instructable was making it like a metronome by tweaking the program or adding a timer on the board maybe!? Let me know if either of you get a chance to test adjusting the acoustics up and down and what you find. Thank you for the cool project!!

[Jakub_Nagy]

Thanks. I didn't experiment with moving particles. I don't need it. You can change the frequency by applying voltage to the arduino nano pin. The particles then move up and down a bit. There is an instructable called "Ultrasonic Array" which explains how to build a similar levitator that can move the particles according to instructions given to it by a computer simulation. I can't explain it very well. Look it up.

Well, I'm working on a second weather station, a hyperspectral flashlight (coming very soon), and a 16x16 RGB matrix T-shirt.

[fdastoor]

Testing the drive:

Exactly, How is the driver tested? Do you use a multimeter or an oscilloscope?.

Where are the probes placed. PLEASE help

[Jakub_Nagy]

You don't really need to test it. I didn't. Cause I don't have an oscilloscope. And didn't even have to test the transducers, because they were marked corectly. You have to stop worying so much. My levitator worked perfectly on the first try and I'm sure that your will too.

[fdastoor]

Jakub,

How are the final tests done? I am still using original plan. Have not modified to your case. But case parts have been cut.

1] How do you check the transducers. With an oscilloscope? where do the probes go. Does ground wire of oscilloscope have to be connected to ground of Nano?

[Jakub_Nagy]

Hi,
I´m happy to hear that they´ve been cut.

I already answered your question on a previous comment so I´ll just repost the previous answer. I'm not the maker of the original acoustic levitator, but I'll answer your question. The original polarity marking method didn't work out for me too. I found out that the easiest way to determine the polarity is simply connecting a multimeter to the transducer and blowing into the transducer. All of my transducers were marked correctly from the manufacturer so I didn't have to correct them.

Here are step-by-step instructions:
1) Connect a multimeter to the transducer according to the original marking by the manufacturer.
2) Blow into the transducer and watch the voltage on the multimeter.
3) If the voltage rises up, it means that the marking from the manufacturer is correct.
4) If the voltage descends below zero, it means that the marking from the manufacturer is wrong.
5) If the marking is wrong, correct it.
6) Repeat this process until you've measured all 80 transducers.

[fdastoor]

I see that the led are connected by some sort of connectors. What are these? where do I get them?

Also is it OK to skip the switch to alternate with the UV Led and White LED

Where is the DC barrell you refer tp?

Sorry for all these STUPID questions.

Also, how can I communicate privately on instructables . private messaging.

Or we can use email. [e-mail] is mine.

I hope to visit Slovakia one of these days

[Jakub_Nagy]

These aren't connectors, those are just soldered wires under a heat shrink tubing.

Sure, if you don't wan't two light sources.

The DC barrel is the power connector. It's on the side.

It's under the user profile.

Thanks for the mail.

[fdastoor]

But I cannot tell for sure what wire connects to what as far as the switches and LED's are concerned. Can you show a simple line diagram?

To my untrained eye it is a jumbled mess.

Where do you attach the plain white LED?

[Jakub_Nagy]

Well, if you use just two white LEDs and no UV LEDs then you just have to connect both LEDs negative terminals to the arduino nano GND and the postive terminals to the arduino nano 3V3. I'll try to make a diagram.

[fdastoor]

I will wait for diagram.

Where are the white Led's placed? One each in the center of the domes?

[fdastoor]

What is the BEST way to determine CORRECT polarity of the legs of the transducers? Can you describe.

I tried the method using the Nano as described by the original maker of the levitator.

I attach a red wire from A0 to Positive mark on transducer. Then a Black wire from GRND on Nano to the other leg on transducer.

Then I start the Serial plotter. The problem is this:

When the signal immediately rises or falls then it is easy to mark the correct leg as in the instructions.

BUT On some occasions the signal starts at '0' stays here for a while and then rises. I am not sure how long I should let the plotter run? If I let it run long enough the signal almost always rises.This is causing me confusion.

Can you advice, please

[Jakub_Nagy]

I'm not the maker of the original acoustic levitator, but I'll answer your question. The original polarity marking method didn't work out for me too. I found out that the easiest way to determine the polarity is simply connecting a multimeter to the transducer and blowing into the transducer. All of my transducers were marked correctly from the manufacturer so I didn't have to correct them.

Here are step-by-step instructions:
1) Connect a multimeter to the transducer according to the original marking by the manufacturer.
2) Blow into the transducer and watch the voltage on the multimeter.
3) If the voltage rises up, it means that the marking from the manufacturer is correct.
4) If the voltage descends below zero, it means that the marking from the manufacturer is wrong.
5) If the marking is wrong, correct it.
6) Repeat this process until you've measured all 80 transducers.

[fdastoor]

Thank you Jakub. May I call you that or in your country is the whole name necessary. BTW which country are you in? I am in Houston, TX USA.

I am a 70 yr old retired Gastroenterologist that loves electronic products BUT with absolutely NO knowledge of electronics. That is why I need to ask so many questions.

[Jakub_Nagy]

It doesn't really matter in our country but you can call me Jakub. I live in Slovakia. I had to google the term Gastroenterologist. Sure, everyone has to start somewhere. Also, you can use private messaging on instructables.