Sources and Stuff

Here are the sources I used for this project:
http://www.solarbotics.net/starting/200111_dcmotor/200111_dcmotor.html
http://www.howmotorswork.com/history.html
And then the work sheet we received in class.

And just as a heads up, the blog will be more effective if you start from the prologue at the bottom, and work your way up. Also though the majority were published on the same day, they were done and finished at different times throughout the project. Thank you, and ENJOY!

Final Words on the Motor Project

Finally, this motor is done. Before I move away from this chapter of experiment and adventure, I just wanted to leave my recap and my wisdom to those who may follow in my motor-building foot steps. First and foremost, this motor was really just "MacGyvered" together. In other words, I didn't follow the instructions to the letter. Rather, I used what I had and what I thought may have been a better substitution. Truthfully, this is what science is about. It isn't about doing what was done before, but experimenting and thinking outside the box, improving from the original design. Yes, I went out and bought everything the instructions called for, but I still did my own thing. For example, the cork was my idea. Also, shaving off the enamel with a knife, and putting the spool on and steadying it with styrofoam was all my idea. I really enjoyed this project and thought it was a fun way to see how regular house hold items and a little (okay a lot) of wire can come together to create something that at one point would have been considered magic. Though the 16 gauge magnet wire may have thrown me for a loop, it ended up being a fun project that I might just fiddle with at home afterwards. So, thanks to my mom for helping me buy things, the board that the motor was on, for it has been used through out three different Corbett generations (me, and my two brothers- reuse, reduce, recycle) and finally thanks for my fellow classmates who were along for the ride as well. Have a nice day!

The Final Product

Now that all of the parts are done, they need to be pieced together. The one end of the field magnet is directly attached to the battery, using alligator clips. The other end of the field magnet is attached to one of the brushes, either alligator clipped together, or soldered, which ever works. Finally, the other brush is directly attached to the battery. As you can see, this creates one complete circuit. Here is a video of my finished project.

In this video I am still holding the brushes for maximum effect, but by the time of the experiment I should have them stationed perfectly to the point I don't have to move them.



Okay, so after this I thought it was done. For making a motor work, I was. For making it work REALLY well, not so much. You would think the difference between 16 and 20 is not that great. Maybe the difference between a pea and a marble. You would be wrong. This difference of four (for gauge for the wire) is quite literally the difference between a pea and the sun. That being said, I went to Lowes, Home Depot, Radio Shack, and NONE, despite the word of my classmates, were able to provide me with what I wanted. Ideally, ordering it online would be the best solution. Unfortunately  I don't trust the whole online thing- partially because you don't see what you are getting, and partially because of past experiences with cross country skis, Fedex, and well that is a story for another time. Therefore, I was not able to find it anywhere no matter how hard I try. BUT, there was one place. ONE place. So, if you are not into the whole online thing, this video is my mom coming out from this place. It will say everything you need to know.

    This is honestly as shady as it gets. In order to find 16 gauge single strand magnet wire in New Jersey, you need to go to the SHADIEST places, right in the middle of Newark. A shout out to my mom for doing this for me on her way home from work one day after she had done some more research. This trip was not in vain, as you will see in the final, final motor video below, this smaller gauge wire really does make a difference. It is much heavier and produces a much stronger magnetic force for the field magnet.

     And that, is officially everything. In the video you can barely see the armature because it is moving so much faster than it was before, only because I changed the field magnet. I also put styrofoam at the ends so the pole would not go out of place. Thank you for watching, have a nice rest of the day.

The Parts

Within this motor, there are four main parts- the field (base) magnet, the armature, the commutator, and a pair of brushes. Keep in mind, though I may say how to construct it, and how I constructed it, a lot of it is improvisation. The original guidelines provided to us, a lot of the times, just didn't cut it. I had to think of my own ways with what I had at my disposal, and what worked for me may often not work for someone else. In this post I will describe the parts, how I built them, and their purpose.

First is the field magnet. First, a "U" shape needs to be created out of metal. This can be done by using either two "L" brackets or simply bending a strip of metal at the ends. The distance between the ends will change depending on how large your nails are for the armature, but the distance between mine is about 4 inches. After this, choose your single strand magnet wire, preferably low gauge (14 or 16) and wrap it around the base of the U around 400 times. I ended up using 20 gauge wire, only because Home Depot and Radio Shack were in no means helpful in supplying wire, and 20 gauge was the lowest gauge I could find in a larger quantity. Leave some extra wire off the end when you are done and tape over the field magnet with electrical tape. Here is how mine turned out:

Here is the field magnet, with the armature inside it.

Next is the armature. Tape your two nails together with electrical tape, find the center, and put your metal rod through. Make sure the nails don't spin freely on the pole. Now, comes the winding. Using 24 or 26 (I used 26) gauge wire, leave some extra before you start, and wind the armature. For this, you start winding to the right, leaving gaps in between each wind, that way on the way back once you reach the end of the nail, you are not overlapping. So, you wind to the end of the nail toward the right and back, then toward the left end of the nail and back. Ideally, the wires should not overlap, it should look very pretty and neat, and all that good stuff. Realistically, if you are someone like me with a patience level of a very impatient puppy, it doesn't end up that way. Don't be afraid to unwrap and rewrap, because the closer you are to perfect the better. Here is what mine ended up looking like:

     Also on the pole you notice the white spool, where the string will go on so you can pull a toy car. For the spool, I cut little pieces of Styrofoam, glues them together, and then put them inside the spool. Then, the pole went through it, and the spool stayed stable on it.
Here is a picture.

     On the bottom is the commutator. I drilled a hole through an old wine cork, and then slid it up the pole. You can really use any cylindrical object that fits on the pole, as long as the diameter is roughly an inch. After this is done, tape two pieces of copper on, leaving a gap between each piece. Tape the excess wire from the armature onto the copper, WITH THE ENAMEL STRIPPED OFF. The gaps on the commutator should be directly in line with the ends of the nails- so two gaps, two ends. Depending on your brushes, the gap should only be a couple of centimeters long. The purpose of these gaps is to give a break in the flow of electricity, that way when the ends of the nails are parallel with the ground, they have no charge and just continue to spin. At this point the charge is back on and they are pulled back to being parellel with the ground with the charges switched, after doing one rotation. So, charge moves them up, gravity moves them down.
    Finally, are the brushes. These are positioned beside the commutator. Using the lamp wire, the multiple strands should be positioned vertically, so that way when the pole spins, the ends of the wire are touching the pieces of copper. Really, you just need to fiddle around with the brushes to find the most effective position. This can really make or break the project.
    That is all of the main parts of this motor! If all of these are sound, then pulling a toy car shouldn't be a big deal (knock on wood).

Materials

Before building the motor, I had to gather materials. First, was 4 L brackets, and a long metal bracket. Then, you needed wire and lots of it. For the base magnet, the best would probably be 12 or 16 gauge single strand magnetic wire, which is thicker. I, however, no matter where I looked, ran into trouble with this. Home Depot was actually a surprisingly big disappointment. With that in mind, I ended up using 22 gauge wire for the base magnet which is thinner. As for the armature, the ideal single strand magnetic wire is 24 or 26 gauge. 30 gauge would be too small. To be on the safe side, the wire for the base magnet should be around 70 or 80 feet, and the wire for the armature should be 60 feet. This should be plenty. Also, you are going to need around a foot of lamp wire. Lamp wire is NOT single stranded, and this will be used for the brushes. Next, you are going to need a metal rod, about a foot long. You are going to need a spool for the string, lots of electrical tape, cork, hot glue potentially, screws, a wooden board, two 3 and a half inch nails, and that really should be it. You might need a couple tools here and there, like enamel strippers, wire cutters, scissors, a drill, etc., but generally you'll be able to find this in your house's tool box- this was the case for me.
Here is a picture of a few of the main materials of motor:

History of the Motor

     The history of the motor really started when the fundamentals of electromagnetic induction was introduced. Oersted, Gauss, and Faraday are three scientists in the early 1800's who came up with these basic principles. Hans Oersted was responsible for making the connection that magnetism and electricity are closely related. In one of his experiments, he found that the magnetized needle of a compass was deflected when he started or stopped an electric current from a voltaic pile, also known as the early battery. This was the catalyst for much research to come on electricity and magnetism.

     Next was Carl Friedrich Gauss. His major contribution to electromagnetism was that he invented an early form of the magnetometer, a device measuring the direction and strength of a magnetic field. He also developed a consistent system of magnetic units. With the help of Wilhelm Weber, he built one of the first electromagnetic telegraphs. In addition, his laws describing magnetic and electric fluxes influenced James Clerk Maxwell with his famous equations and electromagnetic theory. Maxwell's later equations describe how electric and magnetic fields are generated and altered by each other and by charges and currents.

     Finally, a major contributor to the fundamentals of electromagnetic induction was Michael Faraday. In 1831, Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction, which is the idea behind the electric transformer and generator, or our motor. This was crucial in enabling electricity to be transformed from being a non-productive mystery, to a powerful new technology. He built two devices that produced what he called electromagnetic rotation, which is circular motion from the circular magnetic force around a wire. It was after this that he began his experiments that led to the discovery of electromagnetic induction, the basis of modern electromagnetic technology. Really,  Faraday set out to confirm or prove wrong a lot of the speculations made by Oersted. His experiment's purpose was to see whether or not a current-carrying wire produced a circular magnetic field around it. The two devices mentioned above were when he took a dish of mercury and placed a fixed magnet in the middle. Above this he put a free moving wire, long enough to dip in the mercury. When he connected the battery to form a circuit, the current-carrying wire circled around the magnet. The second devise was this in reverse, with a fixed wire and dangling magnet, where again the free part circled. These were the first electric motors. 

     After these fundamentals were laid out, the expansion on the motor began. Ten years after Faraday's first motor, Joseph Henry improved on it. He constructed a simple device whose moving part was a straight electromagnetic rocking on a horizontal axis. This automatically reversed its polarity by its motion as pairs of wires projecting from the ends made connections with two electrochemical cells. Two vertical permanent magnets attracted and repelled the ends of the electromagnet, making it move back and forth at around 75 cycles per minute. 

     Finally, William Sturgeon invented the commutator. He is credited with the making of the first rotary electric motor. Sturgeon used horseshoe electromagnets to build rotating and stationary magnetic fields. This DC motor was the first to produce a continuous rotary motion, using all essentials of a modern-day DC motor.

Prologue

How to build a direct current motor. However intimidating this may seem, the time has come for me to research, experiment, and construct. Though I have yet to buy the materials, I have officially read over the instructions multiple times, and have a general sense of how I am going to go about doing this. First thing is first though, and I have decided to do some research on the motor before I build it. Overall, this blog will encompass the who, the what, the why, and the how behind the motor, as well as the experience I have with making it. Enjoy.