Refining my Electronics!

Excited for all the new stuff coming at microbots.io/
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[@izzieb]

Who wouldn't want more tiny robots made? All great stuff in this video!

[@Splarkszter]

The fact that you teach us the how of your designs and that you give us the files is just incredibly awesome. I seriously thank you for the free, awesome and high-quality education you are giving to all of us. Thank you for making the world a better place.

[@vorg_]

Sick. Congrats, Carl. This channel is one of the best of all time. True innovation.

[@azyfloof]

I like the idea of them butterflies :D Imagine them as art installations or on clothing where they're subtly animated

[@arnavjain7564]

Maybe the 7 seg display would look better when changing numbers if the active pixels are the ones where the flap is not powered? So that there is no wobble for the pixels that are active.

[@nomfg]

So awesome to see your ideas evolve!

[@tampatu]

The reflective flapper could be useful in stage lighting. For some shimmering effect, water ripple, flat disco "ball", light glitter, flame flickering or just as a eye candy object (but that would need to be big)

[@bearnaff9387]

An addressable disco ball would be epic! Seeing patterns chase one another across the surface would be neat.

[@whothefucktookmyalias]

what an amazing idea... now remove your comment, go out there and launch a startup before someone else does ;)

[@bearnaff9387]

@@whothefucktookmyalias Ideas are only worth what you pay for them. Also, I wouldn't want to found a company around manufacturing a device with less than 2-3K customers a year. Especially one with so much hand-assembly required.

[@ianknapp4247]

Very excited about the directions you are going, good luck!

[@Moosems-pk8vc]

Something that I haven’t seen made before is a thin rectangular microcontroller (say 10x20x5 mm). Would allow them to be put inside cylindrical objects or in spaces where it’s very narrow but there’s plenty of length.

[@Moosems-pk8vc]

Narrow microcontroller board*.

[@soviut303]

If you can make it reasonably quiet, the flap could be used to do low profile cooling in electronics that need active coolers.

[@Unique-Concepts]

I really like your videos. I got an idea, I want share with you. First of all Thank you for making these nano electronics videos, they are so cool. IDEA: Take a party ballon, make tiny Mechatronics system that control the nozzle opening/closing. Launch the balloon into the air by controlling it's nozzle geometry, it will start propel.Finally it is ballon rocket, add some more ballon along x and y axes, like thrusters to control orientation and positioning of ballon in space. Try to land the ballon like VTVL with that tiny Mechatronics system. That's all and I don't know if this work, but this actual experiment validate the status of micro electronics and their vast capabilities. Finally for me your videos are really inspiring. I will try to make this project in the future, but it is still beyond scope of my knowledge. Thank you

[@laiquocbao2565]

Dont need to finish the video yet, Kudos!!!! All the best to you mate

[@astroorbis]

dude, I'm getting into PCB design and actual electronics and this is insane, i love it !! such an inspiration, thank you ^^

[@5haun1]

Congrats! Love your work, can't wait to see what you do!

[@PeetHobby]

Congrats! Best of luck with your brand.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

Have you seen the Bitzee toy, which uses a POV RGB flex display?

[@CarlBugeja]

I did 🙂 I will address this in an upcoming video

[@lucasvisser3864]

4:29 *tap* PCB: AAAAAA~

[@jeffkthompson]

Super cool! I wonder if lenticular prints might work as the pixels. They’re plastic so lightweight and could show two totally different colors

[@dr_fish]

Have you see the "Bitzee" toy? My daughter got one for Christmas and as soon as I saw it I thought it looked very familiar...

[@CarlBugeja]

Hi :) I will address this in an upcoming video

[@TWISM1337]

On the topic of designing a latch for the flapper - you could feasibly add a third supporting arm with a slight kink for a super clean and simple solution, although I'm not sure how that would be manufactured...

[@molomono9481]

If the goal of the flaps is having multiple discrete states. Then potentially a bistable mechanical latch can be designed into the pcb in the form of a flexure. This could allow states to be held in different positions without the actuator using power to maintain the off nor on state. Given the precision of the actuator and manufactering you could add more stable states. And in the end designing it to have flappyness in the on and off state is possible. But this would drop the power usage drastically, of course depending on how often switching occurs.

[@nickphillips2797]

Excited to see what you'll do with this new challenge I'm sure it'll be ingenious as always. Seeing the flapping part with the shiny surface and the wobbling it inherently has from resonating when it turns on I wonder if you could do some resonance compensation/cancelation like what 3D printers have started doing with input shaping. Just to get it smoothly transitioning from the 2 states. Prolly depends how quickly you could switch it on and off with the driver but maybe?

[@AlwaysCensored-xp1be]

You could try heat forming some "veins" on the wings to add some stiffeners.

[@OranCollins]

OMG AWESOME! Good luck on becoming a startup! stuff is super hard. you can do it!

[@Everflamen]

Put a polarization filter in front of those reflectors

[@309electronics5]

Congrats on the website and the starting company! I wish you succes and i am looking forward fo the future products/projects and i am definitly going to try some products

[@marcoscabrera6751]

You rock Carl! It's great to see people still trying to innovate. Hoping to see more of your amazing work.

[@hakajiru264]

Pretty cool. The main challenge for running multiple of these will indeed be the power consumption. You can also add a i2c chip to make each module individually addressable, like smart rgb led strips, so wires are minimized. Maybe in the future this will be part of the h bridge itself, like the rgb leds are now. Best of luck with the startup!

[@gsestream]

flap is a pulse ac fan, also if you want state locking, use the magnet coil pad as magnet turn-off, yep sideways turning magnet pair

[@partyroekel9426]

looking forward to the motors

[@TheMrPopper69]

Congrats on the starting the company, look forward to seeing what you produce, hopefully the Adafruit of flexi and micro pcbs

[@timshort3220]

Can you use a polarized filter in front of the little flappers to make it darker?

[@oneilgoisot9615]

Awesome, I can't wait to see what's coming

[@ihopeusteponlego1614]

@CarlBugeja Just an idea, but maybe interesting for you to test out. If the flappiness could be more deterministic and controllable, you could try to make a laser galvometer using two flappers.

[@MarinusMakesStuff]

I think you would be the perfect person to design a revolutionary type of distance sensor that is really precise in the micrometer scale. Or maybe it's just wishful thinking and I need such a sensor for an affordable price. We'll never know! Anyway, congratulations with your new business! :)

[@AzaB2C]

Great video. So many cool projects! I built and shared design files for a servo based Wood Tile display, also based on Daniel Rozin's work. Created as part of Mark Rober's creative engineering course. Cheers!

[@livdbest2942]

Good Luck Carl super projects!! Keep up the good work and congrats for the robotic startup!!👏👏

[@TheEvilGlassRectangle]

This is huge, congrats! I can’t wait to get my hands on some of this

[@bitsRboolean]

Super excited to see what you're working on. I jumped out of my chair when you said "flip-dots" though. I just can't get enough of them

[@miked5444]

Great work as always! On the display one would a fresnel lens with a black and white striped pattern behind. Should be light enough and increase contrast further. Was also wondering about it being on a bi-stable switch to only use power to change state.

[@AlmusFallow]

Those flaps can definitely be a midi board of some kind

[@mortyforty8404]

some old scifi cartoons and movies had this thing happen where when the computer was asked to do something and it would start typing itself on the screen, the effing physical keyboard would start typing too by itself. well with this tech we actually might make it a reality

[@markgreco1962]

Nice work

[@versys-vietnam]

When I see your coils, I was very interested in that. The coil can be use on PCB for the laser glavo mirror, along with some kind of sensor. Im design and testing one rn :D

[@killroy42]

What I'd love to see is something lightweight I could stick to the leaves of a plant to make it "shiver" :) Or perhaps even move leaves into sunlight!

[@excitedbox5705]

for the display, why not make a pcb with a giant pad on the front and then polish it to mirror shine after nickel plating? Then I would add coils to each corner and a flexible pedestal centered on the back. That way you can tilt in 4 directions. If you used an X shaped flex pcb you could even fold the "legs" under and solder them down giving you a "parachute" shaped pixel that can tilt in 4 directions and not need the pedestal.

[@bananasba]

you could probably use polarized tape/film

[@RPrice_OG]

Wow, some exciting stuff. You have already inspired me to do some custom controller boards as small as possible but now I want micro insects. I'm sure my wife, daughter, grand kids and dog won't be quite so excited, heheheHEhehe.

[@stanleyyyyyyyyyyy]

Very nice work! As an embedded engineer with 20 years of experience I can only say - well done!

[@FloydMaxwell]

What about that butterfly as part of a nightlight ? The light is on at night, but has a sensor to detect movement, triggering the flapping.

[@Mister.BreadBoard]

Very happy for you ❤️❤️❤️ best of luck. Looking forward to more amazing things 🎉🎉🎉

[@muse208]

It would be interesting to let the users customize their own butterfly wings...or maybe even provide wing stencils to cut out with paper that can attach to the pcb. I could see it as an electronics kit where parents (or teachers) and children can create together.

[@killsalot78]

love seeing the progress!

[@Incommensurabilities]

This is awesome, looking forward to more updates :)

[@user-qz4xu7dq3q]

I would love to have a flexible pcb butterfly as a decoration! I would really like to see how to use FlexAR for more organic motion - like possibly, a robotic blooming flower. I'm very interested where microbots is headed next!

[@Jandodev]

I'm running a startup too :) Its a stressful but rewarding time! If you ever need any coding automation I'd love to have you using some of my tech too! I was able to program an entire small web-server on a esp-s3 through the esp-idf automatically not a line written using a tool I made at my startup!

[@SarahKchannel]

A polarizing filter might help, most likely the illumination source would have to be polarized too, but still the effect could be optimized.

[@tetraquark2402]

All the best wishes for your new venture

[@KevinHorecka]

Man, your channel is such a whirlwind of cool things! Keep up the great work! Also, for the butterfly, it seems to me you might want to balance the wing size or stiffness a bit against the actuator size to get a less "floppy" effect. It would probably be a small change but fiddling with those parameters for a more bio realistic result could really elevate the project. Also imagine dozens or hundreds of those enough to create a slight breeze. Could call it the Butterfly Effect!

[@likewisepro]

Only one startup company? With so many products? We are facing the same issue. Great work.

[@alessiodimaria3320]

thats cool!

[@SavalioProductions]

Cool stuff man! I always thought that it would be nice to be able to purchase your small PCB motors

[@treugolinik]

on one of mine projects I used magnet sensetive foil, so you can try that instead of flapping the aluminum foil 😊

[@hakimka]

Thanks!

[@4.0.4]

I love how it simultaneously looks like you have a clear goal and just goofing around.

[@lateexe1113]

make the butterfly's wings flexible pcbs with copper traces for rigidity

[@ripper132212]

have you seen the disney holotile floor? maybe a small version of something like that as a demo lol

[@EnergeticAdvantage]

Using a comms protocol like WS2812 LEDs might make the bigger arrangements easier to set up

[@kevinb1594]

My guy, if your flappy thing are able to attract a small amount of ferrofluid, would this allow you to float things on ferrofluid, paper, or copper? I'm thinking some sort of variable friction applications.

[@atrumluminarium]

An ornithopter would be a good application for the flapper if you can make a tiny flight controller. I think the only challenge would be how to power it because of the weight of batteries. Maybe an RF antenna could harvest enough energy if flown close enough to a radio source?

[@svengaefgen5909]

Super projects, I love them.

[@SarahKchannel]

You know the privacy screen protector films for mobile devices, that allow you to only seen the screen at special angles ? such a film on your 'DLP' devices would create much stronger contrast ratios and presumably cheap, since they are a mobile mass product.

[@SarahKchannel]

multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/1881148O/3m-advanced-light-control-film-alcf-p-abr0-75050141441-pdf.pdf

[@MrVyxx7]

Butterflies have 4 wings, add more tiny motors! I love all these things.

[@samocooper9070]

I've really enjoyed the coil series but I think you have more potential looking at other new projects

[@ghostmantagshome-er6pb]

maybe resonating halteres ?

[@DerekWoolverton]

Wonder if you could do two flaps in a see-saw to make a bi-stable reflector, so it doesn't have to stay powered.

[@Raddlesnakes000]

it'd be great to be able to power one of these actuators with a little solar cell

[@osmanpasha_diy]

Did you check H-bridges from other manufacturers, like CJDR9111? It's even smaller, cheaper and has leads (only 6V though).

[@nathanruiz3424]

What if, for the butterfly, you used nitinol as a muscle, add two paths so it can flap back and forth, and alternate the voltage in each one at a high frequency. Is this 3d printable?

[@GeoffHou]

I would like to know what kind of voltages and currents the drivecell can cope with.

[@oeq0616]

In stead of a flat actuator why not a cylinder? so like a tendent for longer areas

[@kevinb1594]

some other ideas: Haptics. Truly silent alarm clock. Neural trainer for commercial EEG devices.

[@zyeborm]

Good luck mate❤

[@chopper3lw]

You might experiment with a polarizer film in front of the flipdot.

[@emertonom]

A question--are the coincells addressable? It would be really cool if they incorporated a tiny microcontroller the way addressable RGB LEDS do, so they could share not only power and ground, but also a data bus line instead of individual inputs. That would greatly simplify the development of things like the flip dot displays, which could be adapted from existing WS2812 libraries. It may already be set up this way, but I wasn't able to tell that from the video or indeed the website. I keep wondering if something like this could be miniaturized further to act as a haptic output, a little like that hackaday Braille output project. Probably not, but it sure would be cool if it could.

[@peter360adventures9]

Awesome

[@datawolk]

Nice steps for the future and good luck! Question: Is it possible to manipulate a hall effect current sensor reliable with your coil pcb's? I need to make some other product think it draws x current but don't need/want to draw this x amount of current through the hall effect sensor.

[@badao8277]

If u can, can you put a light under the flap, 0-1 would be easier to recognize

[@ratchetlin]

Will the thrust increase if the coils are arranged in a Halbach array?

[@yugalsharma13]

Man! You're the revolutionary creator 🎉🎉

[@drewgi7543]

For the thin flat flap, could you make something similar to a piezoelectric fan?

[@User-ec2bh]

Any chance your actuators are strong enough to move a segment of a 3d printed 7 segment clock? Solenoids and normal linear actuators are just way too loud.

[@reastle1307]

Tiny robot are easy to carry too

[@gaeljaton]

butterfly can't fly, but I'm sure it could swin... I'm still thinking about sort of small submarine bot propelled by flapping fins, more or less a jellyfish bot, flexar should do the job. Then no-moving inside part mean less waterproof conception issues as regular remote submarines.

[@eskanderx1027]

That drunk butterfly is a great model for my son 🙃

[@TechyBen]

The flaps, can they generate air flow? They might be cool as a solar powered fan solution? Though as you say, power draw is high.

[@candas1]

Hi Carl, there are now color magnetic field viewing films you could use, I show an example on my channel

[@RolandWalper]

Great projects!

[@womacko]

You might get into trouble for that logo animation of microbots. Maybe Intel is watching your videos :D

[@carolynhudson6858]

For the flap display maybe try a lenticular film so that in one position one image or color is shown and another in the second. Also could you put each pixel on a thin shared axle with a tiny magnet on each edge and position a bit of perpendicular iron behind each for the magnets to stick to and a small electromagnetic coil attached to the bar such that a h-bridge chip could repel the stuck magnet on one end and attract the other.