User:Ablomme1/Mendocino Motor

My Instructor's user page which points to this.

Week0 Preferences
Our class had a choice between these 5 projects: The team and I decided to do the Mendocino motor, because it's self-sustaining and we want to try using the motion of the axle to possible turn a brush electrical motor that will power the rectenna's team
 * Magnetic levetation
 * Solar Harvesting
 * Mendocino Motor
 * Rectenna

Week1 Narrative
Week1 - We researched the mendicino motor and saw many different designs for how to do it. In doing this I noticed that designs were varying in how the motor works. As you can see from this Design the person decided to put the solar panels on 4 sides while this Design 2 has an octagonal shape to its frame. For this reason my team and I are going to do two different models of the motor to see which one is more efficient/reliable.

Week2 Narrative
This week we took apart an old microwave to take out the magnets within it. We then got 4 more magnets that were the same size, then found 3 metal dowel rods to act as the axles so the magnets are inline with each other. Right now Ryan is doing the CAD mock up of our current design, this is the four sided model that we will try first. We had the body of the motor 3D printed so it would be exactly to specifications. We are now waiting upon receiving the rest of our materials. After we get the rest of our materials we will be able to try and test our designs.

Week3 Narrative
During this week I was successful in getting a simple setup of the mendocino motor without the solar panels attached. By doing this it has allowed me to see what needs to be changed so that it will be more efficient when we do attach the solar panels. The way I had set up the project was using a 1/2" plywood (or can be any piece of wood that will fit 4 magnets), some modeling clay to act as a cleat for the magnets to stay upright. Then I screwed a backstop perpendicular to the wooden base, this keeps the motor in the same spot without being pushed out of the same poles of the magnets causing the top to attract to the lower magnets. I then used a metal dowel rod that I found off an old printer and slid the 2 other doughnut magnets so that the axle can hover using the repelling force of the magnets. You have to make sure that all magnets have the same poles facing each other to allow the axle to float above the lower part creating a friction-less surface for the motor to spin. Next step is taking the housing for the solar panels, and putting that on an axle to make it a functioning motor.

Week4 Narrative
During this week I have taken apart a HDD (Hard Disk Drive) and have taken the motor out to use it as the generator for the motor. After I had taken out the motor for the HDD I needed to test to see what terminals were positive or negative. I researched online but I kept finding motors that had 4 terminals as opposed to the 3 that I had. I attached the motor to a generator to see if I could spin the motor, if I could then I knew which pins did what. While testing it I could feel the current going through the motor, but it was seized up. I later found that the reason for this is because the motor needs an ESC (Electronic Speed Controller) in order to get it to move. To make sure though it wasn't a defective motor, I took apart another hard drive and tested the motor in it. I had the same result. Then as I was prying the terminals up and the black terminal separator the very small magnetic wires had been severed from dissembling the HDD. So Finding this out I had to take apart another HDD.

Week5 Narrative
During this week I have assembled a rectifier Circuit.I had a couple of attempts at making the rectifier circuit,for I did not know how to read a schematic.So with some research I found the symbol meanings and was able to create the rectifier.In doing this I had several attempts before making it work to where I could spin the a regular brush motor and read voltage. Although this was a very small reading because I was manually spinning the motor. The objective is to see which motor creates more electricity. I hope to connect our Mendocino motor to it and act as a generator. Then I realized turning power from a solar panel to rotate an axle just to turn it back into electricity, doesn't make sense. So now the question is, do the solar panels produce more electricity than what can be generated by the spinning motor. While searching for Mendocino motor examples I stumbled across a video of perpetual motion projects. This made me realize I can combined the aspects of the Mendocino motor with the Perpetual motion. Create a device that is frictionless and all the movement is created by magnets.

Week6 Narrative
At the beginning of this week I had stumbled across some pretty interesting projects that dealt with magnets making a motor only using magnets. This gave me an idea to combine the magnetic levitation that the Mendocino motor uses and use the idea from the magnetic motor, and create a generator that is frictionless. Before being able to do so I looked up various designs of magnetic motors and see how they work. I then came across this thing called magnetic flux. Magnetic flux is a complex and intricate principle that uses the combinations of various laws such as Faraday's Law. Then upon researching that I came across another law called Linz Law, while reading this I then found out there are a couple more laws that are in affect with magnetic flux. Such as Gauss Law for Electricity, Gauss Law for Magnetism, and Ampere's Law. The purpose of this is to figure out the mathematical equation for magnets, and also get a much better understanding of how magnets and electricity work.

Week7 Narrative
This week I had taken the 3D body shield that Zach Cote made using his 3D printer. We decided to use this because we thought it would make things easier if it was exact dimensions, and eliminate human error. I had started wrapping the body shield using magnetic wire wrapping each side 50 times, while switching sides of the shaft after 25 rotations. After I was done it look like this. Then after wrapping the wire I had decided to hook up the solar panels to the armature. Before doing so, I decided to test the solar panels using a DMM (Digital Multi-Meter) to see what kind of voltage was being produced. At first I wasn't getting any readings on it so I decided to test something I already knew the voltage of, such as a 12 Volt battery. I still was not receiving any readings, so I decided to grab another DMM. Did the same exact thing and still wasn't receiving any readings. I then looked at the leads that were plugged into the Multi Meter and had switched them around. After doing that I was then able to read voltage, it turns out I had the wrong leads hooked up to the terminals of the DMM. I then went back to connecting the solar panels to the armature and test the armature to see if it was receiving voltage from the solar panels. It appeared there was no voltage coming through, so I had asked my instructorJason Singh if the magnetic wire had any insulation on the outside of the wire that could prevent the current from being conducted through the wire. He said yes there is, so I had to remove the solar panels and sand the ends of the magnetic wire. I then was able to create a magnetic field with the armature. I am now working on the 6 sided model, and have set up the base to see how it sits on the base housing. Here is a video of the 6 Sided mendocino motor model. Next week I am going to construct a dowel that will fit in the motor casing and through the rare earth magnets.