Magnetic repulsion Hover Boards

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the feasibility of magnetic hover boards, specifically focusing on the use of magnets and electromagnets for levitation. Participants explore various concepts related to magnetic repulsion, including the use of different types of magnets, the role of diamagnetic materials, and the practicality of achieving levitation with available technology.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested
  • Mathematical reasoning

Main Points Raised

  • One participant questions whether simple 9V batteries can reverse the polarity of strong magnets for hover board applications.
  • Another participant clarifies that magnets attract ferromagnetic metals regardless of polarity and that diamagnetic materials can only repel weakly.
  • There is a suggestion that a base made of diamagnetic material is necessary for hover boards to work, but the repulsion force may be insufficient to overcome the weight of the magnets.
  • One participant shares a video claiming to demonstrate a hover board design, which others criticize as fake, citing violations of physical laws.
  • Discussion includes the possibility of using electromagnets and high-lift magnets to achieve levitation, though skepticism about the practicality of such designs is expressed.
  • A participant proposes using a coil of wire over a metal surface to create a magnetic field that could induce Eddy currents for levitation, but others argue that this would not result in levitation due to gravity overpowering the electromagnetic force.
  • Mathematical calculations are presented regarding the current required to generate sufficient magnetic force for levitation, with one participant estimating a need for 700A, which is deemed impractical for portable applications.
  • Concerns are raised about the feasibility of achieving the necessary current levels with standard battery technology.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a range of views, with some agreeing on the limitations of current technology and the challenges of achieving magnetic levitation, while others remain skeptical about the claims made in the videos and the overall feasibility of hover boards using the discussed methods. No consensus is reached on the viability of the proposed ideas.

Contextual Notes

Participants note that achieving levitation may require impractically high current levels and that the designs discussed may not be feasible with typical battery systems. There are also unresolved questions about the effectiveness of diamagnetic materials and the stability of levitated systems.

Humunaha
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Hello, I'm New and was wondering about magnetic hover boards. I have seen articles about using batteries to reverse the polarity of 50lb. lift magnets and allowing them to repel metal objects such as a piece sheet metal. I know it's possible to reverse the polarity but can it be done with simple 9vl. batteries like they say?? Also if so can it be done with grade n50 magnets?
Thankyou
 
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Magnets attract ferromagnetic metals regardless of polarity. They will repel diamagnetic materials, such as bismuth, but the effect is far weaker than ferromagnetism.
 
So basically unless you can make a base of a diamagnetic material, it won't work?
 
Right, and even then, the diamagnetic repulsion force is so weak it can't even overcome the weight of the magnets needed to create it.
 
Fake, fake, fake.
 
well you think if i could make a electromagnet using a piece of sheet metal and use that as a base on the floor, Plus using 150 pound lift magnets instead of 50lb lift, I could lift at least some plywood?
 
Sorry, man, but those videos have to be among the worst pieces of crap that I've ever seen on the net. It's so obviously fake that I can't understand why you ever considered it as possible. Even without the blatant violations of physical laws, you should have caught on when he soldered the wires to the battery terminals. Nobody would ever do that, unless maybe for a bomb.
 
Sure, if you face off two like-polarity magnets, you can get levitation; Maglev trains rely on this principle. However, getting it to be stable is a major engineering hurdle. Simply opposing two magnets where one is allowed to move freely results in the levitated magnet falling off, flipping over and becoming attracted and stuck to the lifting magnet because that's the lowest energy state of the system.
 
  • #10
those shoes are so fake it's hilarious. you'd need way more than 2, 50lb magnets to get you to float THAT high, if that's even possible by 'shoe levitation.'
 
  • #11
What about a coil of wire over a metal surface ? Applying alternating current to the coil will create a magnetic field, and won't the induced Eddy currents in the metal surface repel the coil and make it levitate ? (I remember seeing this on one of the electro-magnetism courses MIT has on youtube)
 
  • #12
What you describing is a bit like dropping a magnet inside a copper tube. The magnet does not levitate it is mearly slowed in its decent. Although by use a Fe-Nb-B magent it does take a long time in a 1m tube. I don't think the coil would levitate but maybe it would not fall quickly if correctly set up.
 
  • #13
bm0p700f said:
What you describing is a bit like dropping a magnet inside a copper tube. The magnet does not levitate it is mearly slowed in its decent. Although by use a Fe-Nb-B magent it does take a long time in a 1m tube. I don't think the coil would levitate but maybe it would not fall quickly if correctly set up.

The difference is that the magnet has a fixed magnetic field not strong enough so that the electromagnetic force can overcome gravity. In case of the coil however the magnetic field is proportional to the intensity of the curent. So if we create a high enough current it's possible that the magnetic repulsion will overcome gravity and the coil will levitate.
 
  • #14
Perhaps, but we're talking about impractically high current levels, particularly for something meant to be portable.
 
  • #15
I have calculated that 100 parallel wires, each with a current I passing through them, with length 1m, will generate a magnetic field strong enough to lift 1 kg up to 0.5 m ... if I is 700A, which is indeed absurdly high.
I deduced this from the fact that mirror charges will appear when current is passing through the wires thus creating a simmetric system, only with the current traveling in the opossite direction. Then I used the expression for the electromagnetic force:

F=\frac{\mu I^{2} l}{4 \pi h}

Where h is the height, l is the length of the individual wires, I is the current.
Since we have 100 wires we get that

100F = mg

Replacing F in this equation we find I = 700 A.
 
  • #16
Andru10 said:
Replacing F in this equation we find I = 700 A.

Which you ain't going to get from the 9V battery shown in the video...
 
  • #17
Danger said:
Which you ain't going to get from the 9V battery shown in the video...

I never said the video was real, I also believe it to be fake. I'm just saying that it's possible ... barely. You'd need a really big transformer to get 700 A. The normal ones (for charging batteries) get saturated when a very high voltage or current is applied... and even those transformers are heavier than 1 kg (I'm referring to the bigger, heavier ones), so levitating like this seems very very difficult and unlikely.
 

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