Tuning your motors

fritsl's picture
On old trick to get more power out of your cheaper motors

 

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Here's an old trick, but it it's good.

if you have a setup with a (cheap) motor, and you'd like a little more juice out of it.. get some of them strong magnets, ofen refered to as "rare earth magnets, and place them on each side.. watch video :)

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Chainer's picture

Excellent tip, and I hope to

Excellent tip, and I hope to be able to make use of it soon (should be ordering my parts on Tuesday), I love how you can tell the difference by the sound alone.

Any possibilities to long term damage from this method though?

fritsl's picture

"Any possibilities to long

"Any possibilities to long term damage from this method though?"

I should not think so. Not apart from the fact that it is running faster and what that brings along.

The copper is to be attracted to the magnets inside. But they are cheap ones. Stronger magnets outside makes them stronger.. I think that is all that is going on..

Chainer's picture

Gtocha, I am sure that it

Gtocha, I am sure that it would reduce the lifespan of the motors a bit, but I don't really suppose that's a terribly problem as this would really only be needed on the cheap motors (based on what you said).  Although I would be willing to risk some higher end motors to see waht kind of effect that gives...kind of a quick Turbo Charging thing I guess.
Addy's picture

back in the days of stock

back in the days of stock cars, people would rewind their motors to increase performance.
rik's picture

need more input!

Since we're all being scientific about things and all... Frits, could you measure the current drawn by the motors with and without the extra magnets?

5ik

fritsl's picture

Sure.. if you can tell me

Sure.. if you can tell me how to hook up my measure-thingey to do this.

19072008174.jpg

Ant's picture

move the red plug to the

move the red plug to the other hole, turn the knob one more click clockwise, then hook it up in series with the motor (so the meter becomes part of the circuit). But be carefull of the motor and power supply you use, as your meter can only go to 200mA.
rik's picture

YEAH, do it!

Do it, do it, do it now Beavis!

gneheheheh!

robologist's picture

Might not be a good thing

If your meter only goes up to 200 mA, you probably should not be trying to measure motor current with it. There is a chance it will burn that function out of your "measury thingy". Cause motor current can quite easily be more than 200 mA

Options:

1. Better to attempt to measure the resistance across the motor terminals (kind of a hack, twitchy)or

2. Place a small(1 ohm or less) resistor in series with the motor, and measure the voltage drop across that. Safer

option 2 is best, most accurate, if you have a small resistor. 

Addy's picture

My multimeter "only goes to

My multimeter "only goes to 200mA" too, but that's just on the fused line. If I plug it in nonfused, I can go to about 10 amps. It appears frits also has his multimeter using the unfused line.
robologist's picture

No unfused line available.

If you check the pic closely, there is no unfused option for Fristls' Wavetek 5XL meter. In checking the  5XL meter manual, there doesn't appear to be any connection for measuring greater then 200 mA, other than the voltage across a known resistance.

I do have a cheapy meter that will do 10 A unfused, and another more diverse meter that will do the same too.

Addy's picture

Ah, my mistake. The red

Ah, my mistake. The red image appeared to be a warning for the no fuse line, as is the case on mine. I have a DT-830D cheapie, truly wonderful device. I can't imagine what I would do without this thing.

 

guibot's picture

nice hack!!where do you get

nice hack!!
where do you get rare earth magnets??

Isn´t this the same of applying extra voltage to the motor?
godtripp's picture

You can harvest them from

You can harvest them from any old hardrive. You wont get the cyllinder shape but you could always cut them. Look online theres plenty of youtube videos and instructables on how to do it.
godtripp's picture

So I wonder.... would you

So I wonder.... would you get better, same, or worse results using 3 or 4 magnets in series instead of the 2.

 I would think 3 would increase it a bit but with 4 id be afraid it may start having opposite pulls. Then again the motor is being forced and not relying on some magnetic pendulum 

 

Another fun idea would be eliminating the motor and creating a magnetically propelled bot?! Fun challenge perhaps?

 

I'll post the challenge offering one lucky american  penny to the victor!

300px-1990-issue_US_Penny_obverse_2.jpg

 

fritsl's picture

I'll never get into

I'll never get into measuring on it; Will no understand it. I just know one can tune the motor like that. Substantial.

Some techie, please take it from there for more techie-info :)

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