Arduino opening flower with muscle wire

[looped5]

Looks nice. I'm working on a similar application of the muscle wire, and was wondering how you coded the Arduino to graduate the movement of the wire.

[Maryissuper]

Without the elastic, would the petals remain in the open position or would they slowly close a bit as the wire cooled?

[mariehanas]

@Maryissuper It depends on what type of muscle wire you have, but the one I used only goes one way. There are some metals that would go backa agin, but I'm not sure which ones...

[mariehanas]

Yep, the blue strings are elastic wire. They work pretty well, but are not optimal, and will evetually wear out unfortunately..

[Maryissuper]

How are you making the petals close? Are the blue strings elastic? How are they held under tension?

[marinacora]

oh thanks for the information,  nice flower!

[marinacora]

hello what kind of flexinol are do you using

please help me im working in a proyect with arduino and flexinol but i buy the wrong size

[mariehanas]

@marinacora Hi, it was quite hard to figure out what wire I should use.. Generally, the require shitloads of current. This flower uses 2x2 AA batteries to work, with NiTiNol wire, straight annealed, 0.5 mm diameter. If I went for a thinner wire (less current) it wasn't strong enough to open the flower..

[mariehanas]

@mariehanas I bought it at Flexmet in Belgium. For some reason youtube isn't letting me post a link to their website..

[LSLencrypted]

Wow amazing, could be fun to make it open and close depending on amount of light present :)