Everything Sand Talk for your Oasis Mini
Who, what, where, and cool fx sand?
Any suggestion?
You know I like the gif, but I haven’t figured out what your question means yet.
Hahaha went searching for that gif.
Main question is, where or what sand should i/we search for?
any cool sand colors or would we just mix sand and glitter?
Haha, it comes with sand that works very well. The other material I’ve found that works well is glitter hippo’s micro holographic glitters. Their packets are randomly already the perfect size for Oasis Mini as well.
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Awesome Awesome, thanks @Zach
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Glitter Hippos products are amazing… This may give me some ideas 
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Yeah, they have a ton of cool stuff. I will say if the size of the glitter is too large the motion of the ball is a lot less smooth. The 1/360" products work the best, and the 1/128" work okay.
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Just got my three packages of Glitter Hippo 1/360 in the mail today!
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I am unlikely to be the ONLY person who asked this question or pushed Zach to do unholy things to his pre-production model Oasis Mini.
But people please DO NOT use magnetic sand or kinetic sand.
MICA as opposed to glitter gives color; glitter as opposed to MICA give better holo and refraction/reflection effects. The smaller the substrate the better and least resistant pathing. Because grit of the substrate matters for pathing which then impacts the DEPTH of effects - results may vary and void any expressed warranty.
Tread carefully my sandy friends!
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@Zach are you able to tell us about the original substrate (sand) provided with each Oasis Mini by specification so if people experiment and need an OEM replacement - what to buy or where to buy it? Pretty please?
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You also have to keep in mind some “glitter” materials are statically sticky and that may cause unintended issues with designs and the oasis mini components! I have several dozen glitter hippo/solar color dust products. Some even have static differences between colors in the same line.
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Haha, yeah the iron-filling experiments made a mess.
Smaller substrate being better is true to a point, but if the substrate is too small caking becomes an issue. There is a sweet spot that seems to be somewhere around 0.1mm. Cooking flour for example doesn’t work well at all.
I’m hesitant to give out the details for the sand we’re using, but I think people will figure it out eventually as it’s not all that obscure. I haven’t seen anyone else using it, and I do think it’s somewhat of a competitive advantage. We’ll also have additional packets available on the site in the not too distant future.
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Yes! Many people have noticed that when we use the glitter hippo materials they stick to the ball. That’s not an issue when we use the white sand.
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Hi! Looking at the Glitter Hippo website, are there any thoughts on the use of the glow in the dark glitter?
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Ever-so-slightly related… What about a textured ball? Nothing too ornate, even one squiggly line, and perhaps less than 0.1mm depth ( or much larger, so as not to gather sand), but it might be enough to add some random texture to the output.
For the glitter hounds, what about a PTFE (Teflon) coated ball?
Also, different diameter balls?? Are there max/mins?
Lastly, will the magnet hold onto more than one ball, say, 2 or 3 of smaller diameter (might drag them, I get it)?
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I’ve used the glow-in-the-dark glitter in a few videos. They don’t sell it in the 1/360" size, so the ball’s motion is a bit less smooth. The glow effect isn’t super noticeable if it’s charged by sunlight, but if you use a UV light it glows pretty brightly for a few seconds.
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The textured ball is a fun idea. This company does very large versions of that. The tough part with different ball materials is that rolling around in sand all the time is pretty much as bad as it gets in terms of abrasion. The ball needs to be both very hard and magnetic which pretty much limits you to steels. There are some coated steels that I’ve been meaning to experiment with, but I’d expect the coatings to get worn down.
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Thanks, Zack. I agree, I suppose we’re going to be “sanding” the ball down to nothing, eventually! I may get crazy, buy a similar steel bearing, chuck it in my rotary table and cut a few small grooves or facets on my mill. If I dont launch it across the workshop, I’ll let you know how it works.
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That would be sweet. But also please don’t launch ball bearings across your shop. Weird way to re-create a musket.
I had a machinist friend tell me a story of milling scrap aluminum that was melted down and re-cast. The aluminum had a ball-bearing lodged inside that literally got shot across the workshop and went through a wall.
I would try it, but cutting HRC 60 metal isn’t my idea of a good time.
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If you’re going to try this, I’d go with a 440C bearing instead of Chrome Steel or something case-hardened. You’ll have a better time milling it, and 440C works in Oasis Mini although it’s a bit softer than what we ship with.
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