A crazy cool piece of paper-looking film that allows you to see where magnets are located on your tech devices has resurfaced this week. Interest in this kind of stuff usually follows a Reddit post, so shoutout to u/SnooWoofers455 for bringing this back for 2022.
Here’s a video that shows the film:
That video was taken seven years ago, and the video shared on Reddit shows the magnetic field viewing film a little more clearly, but the YouTube explainer from RinstarOrg is a great way to wrap your head around what’s going on.
Basically, the magnetic field viewing film is a green translucent film that allows you to easily view the magnetic fields and pole patterns on a magnet or magnetic assembly.
To see the magnetic material, you simply place the film directly on the surface of the device and the sheet will reveal all.
Magnetic field viewing film is used to show the location and direction of magnetic fields. It’s a translucent and thin flexible sheet, coated with a tonne of micro-capsules, which, as we learned from the YouTube video above, contain tiny flakes of nickel within oil. When the flakes are parallel, we see a bright spot, when they’re perpendicular, we see dark. The flakes change their direction based on the magnetic force. Isn’t science wild?
There’s a tonne of super cool videos out there of people using the film, go ahead down the rabbit hole, it is a cold and wet Monday night, after all.