Hello everyone,

I have been a keen visitor to this site plus a few others for some time now but have only recently started small scale experiments of my own. My reason for posting is two-fold.

Firstly I wish to keep a written account/diary of sorts and what better method than to have the collective input/response of thousands of minds who may have been there before and can offer me their input. I am very new to the concept of electronics, pulling apart and maintaining my paintball marker (which is electronically controlled) gave me a very basic insight into the timing and structure of an electronic device, but if you asked me to put a resistor (<- insert any electrical term here) in I'd likely not have a clue what your talking about. So saying I am keen to learn, which sould count for something.

Secondly, I have been a member of other forums where knowledge was imparted through the use of tutorials which I found imeasurably helpful. Hopefully this thread will grow over time and will help others who in the future may be walking down a similar path.

I started my journey out with intentions of replicating firstly the minato wheel, and then moved on to the electromagnetic side, with an attempt at a magnetic wankel, similar to Sprains design. I was partly successful in this attempt, but I realised that power and speed were very much related to the size and power of the magnets positioned in the fibbonaci style spiral.

I then moved on to the pulse/adams motor config and have managed to build a simple yet functioning device, capable of reasonable speeds considering its configuration. I am hoping that others can help me with my design process and offer me assistance and knowledge in my quest to discover more about this fascinating device.

I built my replica out of the parts I had readily available and was stoked to achieve minor success within a couple of days of tinkering. I used an old bike wheel (approx 25cm diameter) from a kids bike as my rotor. I removed the bearings from it and replaced them with bearings from my skateboard wheel which are much better. At equal intervals I placed 4 neo magnets of 10mm by 10mm together to form a stronger bigger magnet. This was harder than it looked and I had to force them together and apply copious ammounts of electrical tape to hold them together. I now had 5 magnets measuring 20mm x 20mm x 10mm. These I placed at each point of the five pointed star which is formed from the spokes of the wheel. (no particular reason for selecting 5 points, was just easy to break up the wheel evenly).

The first electro magnets I made followed don addists principles on winding coils and were wound out of wire scavenged from a 1000w drop saw that had just packed it in. I'd say it was 22 gauge. For a timing mechanism I first tried reed switches, which seemed to be inconsistent or would just stick open after a while. I moved on to attempt a hall effect with transistor, but when wired up it stayed on constantly so I soon gave up on that. My real success came with a micro switch, with which I was more knowledgeable of, being used in the paintball gun industry to control rapid firing high end electro's. This had some good points and bad points. It was very easy to wire up, but the magnet draws it out and it creates some friction. It did however allow for easy tuning and helped me to grasp just how important precise pulse timing was.

The magnets themeselves bump the switch at the correct time to close the circuit and repulse. With a simple 6-12 volt dc varible plug and one coil I achieved perhaps 150rpm (ballpark, as I have yet to obtain a laser tacho to accurately measure rpm). What really excited me was when I re - made 3 coils and wired them up the thing really took off!

I know its very basic, but I was excited to get such fast results. I also noticed that the volts dropped slightly to around 10 volts and the voltage through the coils also dropped about 0.10 volt. Whether I measured correctly I dont know. Perhaps this is just common electrical sense, of which I have none!

The coils were wound on cotton reels, with a small iron bolt inside. They were bifilar with 100 grams of 22 gauge and an equal length of 24 gauge. These just happened to be the best choice from my local jaycar store, unfortulately they sell by 100 grams, Its seems to be  a little difficult to obtain larger ammounts here in Australia, all on the same reel anyway. Both bifilar coils were hooked up to the power, I tried to use second wind to suck some juice back, but air gap is about 2-3 mm so was only able to obtain millivolts, with great fluctuations.

I will post some pics tomorrow and perhaps a small movie.

Looking forward to constructive comments and criticism. Hopefully this will be the start of a long and fruitful journey.

Thanks in advance.

I did some more work tonight. Removed small circuit that was attached and attached 4th coil. Using the first winding to drive the wheel I am getting voltages back through the second windings, which arent hooked up to anything. Is this back emf? Its small, jumps between .2 and 2.5 volts all over the place. They only send back a voltage when the power winding is pulsed.

This voltage could be induced by the rotor magnets passing by the coils.
When you say  "pulse/adams" motor configuration you should first familiarize yourself with the Adams Motor
http://www.angelfire.com/ak5/energy21/adamsmotor.htm
I find Jason's setup in the last thread to be an interesting and efficient way to go. He is also very helpful.
The Hall IC / transistor combination does tend to "stay on constantly" but I found if you use the Hall switch that is turned off by a North pole, this problem is solved. You must then add a magnet to your timing wheel  after each S pole.
I hope you continue to share your progress.
Tropes

Ren
It's easier to keep track of you if you post in one place so how about going to Nastrand2000's (Jason's) thread where you posted last.
Peter