Mood rings work based on liquid-crystal thermochromic displays. Their range of colors is as follows: Black, gray, amber-orange, yellow, green,
blue-green, blue, and violet.
What I was wondering:
If you were to take a large amount of liquid crystal fluid and embed it in a substance, most likely a polymer, could you control temperature precisely
enough to change the color of that substance to precise values?
(Also, where on earth would one get a bunch of thermochromic liquid crystal? There must be some source, or synthesis - mood rings are still a fad, and
it's been 40 years now!)Texium - 24-8-2014 at 17:20
Break a bunch of mood rings?
They also make the bracelets which will probably contain significantly more. It's a really interesting idea. That would be cool to make a sort of
color coded thermometer object.
Edit: It appears that they are actually already used for such applications: http://www.colorchange.com/liquidcrystals
[Edited on 8-25-2014 by zts16]Brain&Force - 24-8-2014 at 19:19
I'm not sure what you're talking about? Do you want to make a thermometer? Similar items are used in fish tanks.Morgan - 25-8-2014 at 06:05
I'm not sure what you're talking about? Do you want to make a thermometer? Similar items are used in fish tanks.
Not quite. Essentially, I want to make a crystal that can change colors and glow. The thermochromism is one part of this, the others would be a very,
very precise (and ridiculously even) heating element and a few RGB LEDs to accentuate whatever color I'm going for.
Because the crystal is meant to be a custom shape, I can't use anything previously existing - I basically have to make this thing from scratch.
[Edited on 8-25-2014 by elementcollector1]elementcollector1 - 25-8-2014 at 17:57
I wonder if the heating element could be a resistor? A few of those placed in series with a logic-level transistor would do the trick, and a joule
thief might go a long way towards easy and controllable heat emission. The only problem I can see is cooling it down...
I emailed the company in zts16's post, and have yet to receive a response. Hopefully they're not sufficiently weirded out by the nature of my query...
Does anyone know the actual temperature range of a mood ring?smaerd - 26-8-2014 at 19:05
I had an idea for putting thermochromic paint on beaker labels/graduations. You know to destroy the old adage of 'hot glass looks like cold glass'.
Never looked into it enough, could be something cool to experiment with.
