Mag-Levitated Spinning Globe Project

Arduino-Controlled Decor A spinning globe of the Earth is a common enough piece of home décor. But Herwig decided to kick things up a notch and build a magnetically levitating, spinning globe. Based on the Arduino Nano, the system is designed to hang in a stable state of levitation while spinning at a constant controllable speed. Topics Discussed How to build a magnetically levitating, spinning globeHow to understand the magnetic levitation principleHow to build the globe lifting control system How to set up the repeating processHow to build the electromagnet assemblyHow to set up the sensorsHow to build the globe How the globe rotation coils workHow to build the globe rotation assemblyHow to use the LED strips Tech Used Arduino NanoLED strips SS495A Hall effect sensor from Honeywell Heatsink3D printer Oh yes, a wooden lantern with a burning candle in it. It feels so cozy! Nevertheless, I decided to replace the candle with something more ambitious: A floating, rotating and illuminated earth globe. While admitting that this item has no functional use at all—it doesn’t switch on the lights when I come home, and it doesn’t open the garage door either—I feel that what I crafted is an amazing artifact—combining technology with beauty and earning a center place in my living room The basic project objective was clear: Make an object float. That said, the realization of the project took me quite some time, more than a year. That's because I had to factor in some requirements. On the technical side, I wanted a well-designed PCB, well-structured and documented code and an Arduino Nano at the heart of the whole thing. Meanwhile, I wanted an object of a certain size and weight (the globe’s diameter is 11cm and it weighs 140g) with a "considerable" distance between globe and lifting electromagnet (actually, it’s 3.5cm). In addition to all that, I of course wanted stability—no jitter, no oscillations. To the human eye, the globe sho