I bought a 'Ring Accelerator Cyclotron' from AliExpress....

Do you get online adverts for seemingly "too good to be true" hi-tech products from AliExpress, BangGood etc.? I thought I'd order some and check them out for you. And the first product in my AliExpress haul is an unboxing and review of a "Ring Accelerator Cyclotron"! (No, I have no idea either, but it's basically a fancy executive desk toy).
Watch the video to find out whether it lives up to expectations!

[Casimir-ti]

Just an fyi... This isn't a real cyclotron. A cyclotron is a particle accelerator that accelerates a charged particle through two half circles using a changing electric field. They top out at about 70% the speed of light which is when time dilation starts to kick in and desynchronizes the particle and the changing electric field.

[radomir]

Great idea! I think this would fare well as a series in which you order many interesting and wacky items from China, then assemble them and show them in action. Seems like something that would attract views.

[DinJaevel]

Combine it with an ir-sensor, an Arduino that counts passages and you have to find the ball bearings to make it count turns. I would change that hard plastic tube to something a bit softer and transparent. It could be a very simple and cool looking puzzle.

[GeorgesDPrinters]

6:15 by my observations all the coils look like they're on and it shuts the coil off just when the ball comes in range so that the coil behind it can keep the acceleration going. And this is mainly because the first try when you placed it in the track was immediately attracted to one side.

[TekGeekDad]

Surprised only 6 out of 10. That works quite well! I would have given it an 8. Could be fun extending it and 3d printing a tubular track that had buildable segments.

[troytaylor]

I'm a former electronics engineering technician but I sell stuff now. I find most kits that require soldering have instructions but it is unclear in Chinese. I'm used to reading Spanish and German but Chinese is hard for me, I depend on OCR conversion. Being good at technical writing I occasionally have to reverse-engineer something and figure out in detail how it works, draw a clear diagram, and write assembly instructions from scratch before I sell the kits.

[dogodogo]

i am very curious what will happen if track was hollow pipe n filled with ferrofluid, will it behave like some kind of pump?

[srth]

It really looks like Iron Man's arc reactor..
The description was dodgy at best, so your explanation was appreciated, and I look forward to seeing what you do with it in terms of escape room puzzles.

[isaacmurray]

I am kind if curious what would happen to make a 5x replica of this with a clear closed tube that has a larger metal ball in it. The tube will be a vacuum tube essentially, hence why it needs to be closed, and the tube will be vacuumed while the machine runs. This should make the ball excluded from nearly all force vectors except gravity. I know the ball will accelerate, of course, but i still think that would he cool to build. I wish i could build something like that. 😅

[peachville]

I've also always wanted to buy those weird and wonderful online gadgets but the skeptic in me always interferes with my fingers clicking the 'Buy it now' button. You're a braver man than I Gunga Din! :)

[HaveAGreatDay]

Wouldn't it be easier if all of the coils were all charged at once and the sensors turned individual coils off and back on again instantly? That seems more efficient than charging an individual coil and turning it off again instantly as is suggested in the video. Obviously, the circuit would have to be interrupted at some point, or the ball would be stuck at the center of a single coil. It just seems to me that turning the coil off rather than on would give more time for the ball to travel since the magnetic field extends well beyond the coil and sensor. Great video!

[nathanielbrown]

Tony stark built this in a cave with a box of scraps

[ludoviclagouardette]

I would use that with several balls as a hardware random bit generator, either by hooking it to a webcam and feeding sections of the video feed to a stream cipher or by adding sensors for the same purpose lol

[themoonkitty]

Loved the video. I'm glad it arrived in one piece xD that itself deserves atleast 4/10. But I'm still curious whether the infra-red is actually playing a part in causing the coil to energize? Because since each coil is connected to the power supply, and has current flowing through it, won't it be magnetized regardless?

[Andrew-rcvh]

It's probably the sort of thing a school science department would have. I'd give that 5/5 myself.

By the way, Chinese people don't need a 100 page manual to run a tap like the Brits seem to need these days.

[rapturas]

Adblocker user: What's an advert again?

[gyujinyang]

Hello, will it work with vertical position (Anti gravity direction) ?

[mikailtyson]

if the ball turns fast enough it will levitate ?

[RaminOhebshalom]

Thank you,
Please share the AliExpress link to the product

[iantcroft]

Nice gadget!
I have just made a ballistic chronograph using IR LED’s and phototransistors, similar to the gates of that gadget. Just need to work out the distance between the gates then work out the time elapsed between the in gate and out gate and you have the speed, if you had the weight of the ball you could then work out it’s energy too!