Entry 3

Equipment arrival

The last of the equipment that I need to start running some tests came in last night!
I was able to add a super cheap ($25) oscilliscope to the order so that should help a lot. As part of my research I've been doing in the mean time I've realize that they rheometer would be unvelievably helpful, and perhaps at some point required. It's a device that measures viscocity for non-newtonian fluids. But those are like thousands of dollars, unless you want to get a broken one on ebay for like 300-500 usd (which is still waaaaay out of budget for me).

I've been trying to research "recipes" for these non-newtonian fluids - both MR and shear thickening. I'm a little concerned that the iron powder I have right now is actually too fine (particle size of ~300 nanometers) for a good MR fluid. I do have "iron sand" fillings but I'm certain those are too large. I'll just have to give it a try and go from there. I think most MR fluids use particles between 1-10 micrometers.

I still don't have the tri-coils ready, but I do have a simple coil that I can use to help test my set up. Here's hoping I don't electrocute myself :nervous_grin:

I did a little testing last night. The scope seems to confirm the signen output. it's not as precise as I'd like (seems to be off by half a volt at times) but there's really no way for me to know if that's the scope or the sigen that's off. That's the real cost of cheap equipment I guess.

I was also able to connect the sigen to the amplifier and verify with the scope that it is amplifying the signal. Turning the volume knob and actually seeing the amplitude changes was kind of cool! I did try to connect the amplifier to the coil but I didn't get any response. Either I need to make some adjustments or this amplifier just won't cut it - but only more testing will tell for sure. I wish I could have properly tested the curent but my 10 year old $5 multimeter seems to no longer give current readings. I'll have to look into replacing it with a slightly less cheap one. To be fair I was running the amplifier off a bunch of AA bateries so that could very well be it. I'll try to hook it to a proper 12v DC adapter and see if that helps. Below are some pictuers of my equipment just cuz :)