Visualizing How Current and Voltage Behave in a Mag Loop Antenna

I don’t know about you, but I’ve missed Jeri Ellsworth’s YouTube electronics videos. She’s baaaaaack.

Last week, Jeri did a video breakdown of her CastAR augmented reality glasses, the sadly now-defunct startup that has consumed her attention for the past few years.

This week, she posted a video with a cool visual demonstration of how current and voltage are distributed in a magnetic loop antenna. Cleverly, she outfitted her loop with neon bulbs and pieces of cooper foil for capacitive touch (to illustrate voltage distro) and shunted LEDs (to illustrate current). The capacitive touch foil is used to give the neon bulbs a needed boost.

I love projects like this which allow us to see unseen forces and physical behaviors. Jeri informs us that this video is part of “Nerd Thunder Month” [thunder crack], a collab between science nerdy YouTubers.

To further your understanding of this video, she points to Ben Krasnow’s (highly-recommended) magnetics video and an LED hacking vid on the channel, Hack a Week. You may also want to bone up on magnetic loop antennas.

Welcome back, Jeri! We always feel smarter with you around.