@deepcut;
This is your engineering conscience speaking...
"Keeping you on the straight and narrow and away
from unnecessary developments in anti-grav."

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Don't give up...The series regulator does an admirable job...except
that it is not efficient. It acts like an intelligent resistor, it produces
the correct voltage on the output by throwing away input power.
And another bad thing it dissipates that power in itself, so it requires
a worst case heat sink to work correctly. For example. Regulator in is
10volts in at 10ma = 100mW you throw away 50mW as heat, so you
have 5Volts at 10ma = 50mW. Note that the current is always nearly
the same for both input and output. That's how a series regulator is
supposed to work. Simple, low parts count, inexpensive and not efficient.
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There are three ways to build a power conserving voltage converter.
Especially if you ve any kind of toroid capability. Any old toroid core
should work and you can wind this with plastic insulated hookup wire.
1) Use your voltage regulator to build a (boost) bucking voltage
converter by using a toroid as the inductor. This circuit is described
in the Application note Document for the series voltage regulator
you are using.
or
2) Use your toroid as a pulse AC transformer. Try 12 turn winding on primary
and 6 on the secondary. The primary connects to the motor coil output.
Have some extra lead length so you can adjust the number of turns from
instrument readings under load. These turns counts are on the low side,
so the transformer inductance will be on the low side, but it will demo
things so you can adjust correctly.
or
3) Switch a capacitor between the DC output and another
capacitor approximately twice that size on the input. The motor
itself should be capable of supplying you the "clock" signal to do
this. Adjust the capacitors.
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You may be chasing your tail: Ie. getting closer and closer to unity
gain, but these circuits are not that complex, so you should not
be wasting your time. You should be able out read out the efficiency
now and then.
:MarkSCoffman