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Alright I wrote it all. The schematic, the details of the parts, the brush wiring, and the motor outline.
You can cut and paste from below or get link here. Motor Details
Any questions or improvements let me know.
It not going to rain tomorrow so I'll be building something to test the the torque. So most likely I won't be around during the day, I'll be in the shop.
Enjoy
Matt
Hey Matt,
I ordered two of those Razor scooter motors that you have an abundance of. I just finished wiring it up today and took it for a test run.
I have wired it up exactly like you post in your diagram. I used 23 AWG instead of 24 and could only comfortably fit about 55 "z-pattern" turns. I remember a post back where you said that you had 240 + turns on yours. 23 AWG is not much bigger than 24 AWG. How did you fit all of that wire on there?
My motor draws about 2 amps at 48 volts. It doesn't spin very fast maybe 1000 RPMS. I'm using a 1N5404 diode which is a little sluggish but shouldn't account that much of the poor performance.
Also, I attached a picture showing my rotor and the commutator section. The commutator section is burning up pretty badly and I only had it hooked up for about 2 minutes.
The recovery brushes don't seem to be spaced correctly without modifying it. Have you checked your commutator to see if the same "pitting" is happening?
Hey Matt,
Also, I attached a picture showing my rotor and the commutator section. The commutator section is burning up pretty badly and I only had it hooked up for about 2 minutes.
The recovery brushes don't seem to be spaced correctly without modifying it. Have you checked your commutator to see if the same "pitting" is happening?
Thanks for the help,
Dave
Mine is fine. You may want to unhook the third commutator slot. Since yours is new the recovery and the power brush's might be making a connection and you getting an ARC when they do.
The drawing based on My first good effort. I burnt it up though, something happened I can't remember. So I made another. A bifiliar 240 turns 24 awg with 2 diodes. Same spacing.
It runs alot better.
You may want to also try adding more turns to yours.
80 turns of 24 has 2 ohms of resistance. At 48 volt I would a surge of 24 amps.
80 turns of 23 has 1.6 ohms. At 48 volt you'll get surge of 30 amps.
So you can see 23 - 24 might make the difference in the.
I'm not going to calculate the step up voltage coming out the back of that thing but follows a similar pattern. Also draining the coils with current present which is probably whats happening leads to Inrush currents showing up on every rotation.
Cut one slot loose and see how it acts. Use 100 ft of wire which is 2 ohms and see how it acts. And get some fast diodes from Digikey or some one, Radio shack is over charging you.
I figured out why my RPM's were so low and my amp draw so high. I had put the rotor in the wrong way. The 2 degree offset from the commutators had my motor working against the magnets for a brief moment. Now I am getting much better speeds and lower amp draw.
When your commutator breaks the power pulse connection, are your recovery brushes instantly making a connection?
OR
Do they still have the width of the groove between the commutator slots to travel before they make the connection?
I visually checked mine and checked with a multimeter. My commutator does not allow me to break the power pulse and instantly connect to the recovery brushes since there is one width space between commutator slots to overcome. I think this is why I am getting such bad pitting in my commutator. Although it is only for a split second, that transient just jumps out too quickly and is really doing a number on the copper.
I don't think that it is being caused by an arc between the power and recovery brushes. I used a 12 Volt lamp connected to the recovery instead of a battery and still got the pitting going on.
Please let me know how much commutator space you have between the "break and make" of the switch. Until then I'll just keep scratching my head.
3 commutator spots, usually breaks the connection just as it makes connection to the recovery. So there is just a little time off. If they both were making connection to each other your amp draw would go up to probably around 6 amps and you would see above input voltage coming out of your recovery side.
It definitely isn't making a connection between the power and recovery brushes so that can be ruled out as a source of arcing.
That first picture that I posted a couple of posts back showing my commutator damage was a result of a bad connection. There was still too much enamel on the magnet wire connected to a commutator slot. This was causing the inductive spike to discharge one full commutator slot too early so the spike never made it to the recovery brushes.
After I fixed that problem, I still had signs of pitting, but they were not as severe. It is still too much of a problem to ignore.
So you have absolutely no wear on your commutator using this setup?
If you are not seeing any signs of wear, I am thinking that it may be that my brushes are too new. They have not completely worn to the shape of the commutator. The edges on the arc of the brush are still slightly rounded.
How are your flywheel and prony brake coming along?
Get a chain saw file and reshape the brush's. That might help.
I suspect mine might get a little black over time but there is no noticeable wear anywhere else. But then I haven't taken it apart. It runs fine so no reason too as of yet.
I made my first pony but it cooked the leather belt. I have not tried another since. I have flywheel but I have not had the time to set it up.
I have alot of work coming in at the moment, so I have to take advantage of the "Feast", cause tomorrow it might not be there.
I'll report what I get when I get chance to get it setup and run it all.
Below are my early results with a Prony brake. It would be appreciated if someone checked my calculations.
Equipment:
brass shaft attached with set-screw, 0.870 inches in diameter -> 0.2278 feet in circumference
spring fishing scales 0-50lb, lowest reasonable reading 2lb (a 2lb 2oz weight deflects the scale by 2lbs)
leather laces from an old Docker shoe
rope and rope pulley to suspend the scales from the ceiling
oscilloscope to read pulses in msec (instead of tachometer) (2 pulses per rev)
efficiency calculations as per Peter's 1st motor DVD
Readings (volts in, amps in, pounds on scale, msec between adjacent pulses):
1. 12.10V 1.4A 2lb 35msec -> 52% efficiency
2. 12.62V 1.4A 2lb 35msec -> 50.6% efficiency
3. 24.18V 2.3A 2lb 16msec -> 34.7% efficiency
4. 24.10V 2.4A 2lb 17msec -> 31.3% efficiency
5. 36.12V 2.0A 2lb 8.8msec -> 48.5% efficiency
6. 35.98V 2.2A 2lb 8.5msec -> 46% efficiency
n.b. pulling the rig to 2lb caused the motor to slow down considerably, e.g. free run at 36V was 6.2msec, loaded was 8.5msec.
n.b. The fishing spring scales don't leave me very confident with the results. I might need to get better ones or use a different setup. I'm entering new territory, for me, with this - suggestions most welcome.
I know that Prony brake measurement are difficult and subject to errors. but your average result seems to be good.
My recent experiment with the axial 1 pulse per revolutin motor shows about the same results.
This results in a first wiew is really disappointing, because we wanted the approach of the 200 % as figured in the Peter's DVD if we would have any chance to realise a Lockridge device.
But i am now considering that this result is not so bad at all.
If we consider that the one pulse power has to power the " prony brakes " all arround the 360 degree of the rotation, than if we multipy the "one pulse separately all arround the 360 degree of rotation we can get a much better results.
Or other said if your one pulse is not used all arround the 360 degree of rotation but only some degree (as for instance to hammer-shoot a flywheel) the overall efficiency will be much better.
So for example i decided to add a coil on my basic axial motor. So the 2 coils are independently powered. And the result is that with 1 coil i get a prony brake efficiency of about 35 to 40 % , and with the 2 coils the efficiency increase to 53 % to 60%. So adding COMPLETELY SEPARETED coils ( as if you have 2 separated one pulse motor hooked to the same load) seems to increase strongly the efficiency.
Or other said for 1 coil ( 1 one pulse motor) if we take out the torque on a shorter radial arc, the efficiency on that shorter track is really efficient.
I included here 2 diagrams to explain my point of view
Don't hesitate to discuss that "non conventional" explanation
....spring fishing scales 0-50lb, lowest reasonable reading 2lb (a 2lb 2oz weight deflects the scale by 2lbs)...
pt
Your doing it wrong. if your using a pony break you need only to attach the scale to the stick at the end. Make sure the motor first freewheels at high speed then start to adjust the brake to make the motor have to work. take it down to a certain RPM then look at the scale for how many pounds are being pulled.
Get a 2 foot length of 2x2, drill a hole in the centre the same diameter as your shaft. Make a diagonal cut from one side to the hole. Place a bolt through this split to tighten it on the shaft. A second bolt can be placed on the opposite side to balance the weight.
Once fitted to your shaft adjust the bolt to get the required speed on your motor and read the torque on an accurate electric balance
@Matt: I'm not using the stick method (I haven't figured out what it is, yet :-). I'm using the two springs and a strip of leather method. Pull both springs upwards and slow the motor down, then take readings. I think that you are suggesting that I focus on different RPM's and create a graph of the results. Yes? I need better resolution to do this.
I've got an accurate kitchen scale. I'm thinking of weighing it down with some know weight, then rigging the ropes and friction in such a way as to slow the motor down by pulling against the weight on the scale, then read the scale. The amount of weight would be the difference between the starting (no load) and friction weights...
@Woopy: Thanks for your previous very helpful advice about brushes and lathing of commutators.
I'm not sure if I understand what you are suggesting about two coils. Are you suggesting that we lay two coils into the same set of slots? One going one way and the other going the other way? Then they both fire at the same time? Or two separate coils in the same direction in the same slots? Both of the coils fire in synch at the same time?
My rig has one coil which fires every 180 degrees. In the first orientation, it fires with N in one direction. In the second orientation, the coil is 180 degrees rotated, but the commutators are also reversed, so it fires with N in the same direction as the first time. Bang, 180 degrees turn, commutators reversed, bang. Very simple.
I need to "sleep on" your thoughts about efficiency for a pulsed motor before I can comment/question further...
When you look at the 'scope shots I posted of the various commutator settings, you see that for one setting, the BEMF is -ve, for two settings the BEMF is +ve and for another the BEMF goes from +ve to -ve (and the last setting simply didn't run).
Might it not be possible to employ the BEMF to generate a little more "pull" by arranging another coil on the recovery brushes instead of a battery/cap? Then drain the secondary recovery pulse into a set of brushes 2 sections away?
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