Controlling Strength of Electromagnetic Field in MaxMSP
I'm trying to figure out if there is an existing, pre-built solution available for real-time control of the strength of an electromagnetic field(s) via Max. I don't need help putting together a patch, I can handle that. However, I have no idea where to find the hardware. The electromagnetic fields have to be strong enough to work with ferro-fluids and the hardware side of manipulating the field strength has to be as responsive and fast as possible. I don't care if it is a direct USB link, MIDI, passed through an Arduino as an intermediary, pretty much anything will do as long as I can work with it in Max on my MacBook Pro. If it requires a customized solution I have an electrical engineer friend/collaborator who can help design and build it, but any recommendations on hardware components would be very much appreciated.
a pre-built solution for an unknown device?
Well, I'm looking for something that can digitally control the strength of an electromagnetic field through Max, possibly using an Arduino as an intermediary if necessary. How much more specific do you need me to be? It's purely a concept in my mind at this point. If I could be more specific I'd probably have answered my own question by now.
you need some device that you can send analogue data out through, perhaps the PWM ports on an arduino.
in fact, what about just using the PWMs to control electromagnets? you'd need transistors to boost the current, but that should be no problem.
if you then use a field effect transducer back into one of the analogue ports you could have some idea of relative strength of your field.
sorry i meant hall effect
interesting thread!
could you (by a big stretch probably) hack an old woofer from a speaker, then drive your fields from adc~? :)
ok, probably not, but it's a readily-available thing to hack apart and mess with... hardware for audio also easy to get... maybe something could be worked up from it.
I'd hope the project was done by now ;)