If you've just come from my
Electrical stuff
menu, you'll know how, as a school-kid, I discovered a "science experiments"
book in the school library which I now refer to as Book X (because I've
forgotten its title and the name of its author).
One of the projects in Book X was a simple two-pole electric motor. I was
taken with the idea that it should be fairly easy to build such a thing from
bits and pieces which might be lying around in the basement/garage. So I
started digging around, and asked my Dad for some help. The result was my
first home-made motor. I've still got it, and it's the first item on the
sub-menu at the bottom of this page.
When I found "Model Making for Young Physicists" by A.D.Bulman in the same
library, perhaps a year later, I discovered that there were other types of
motor that a kid could build (with a bit of help from his Dad!). One of
these was called a "synchronous wheel" by Bulman. The present incarnation of
my own model features as the second item on this sub-menu. Simple though it
may be, it is in some ways the most interesting of all my little home-made
motors.
Yet another "moving parts" electrical gizmo in Bulman's book was a "Solenoid
Motor". This looks more like a small steam engine than an electric motor;
again, it seemed that it should not be too onerous a task to create such a
thing - and, yes, it turned out that my Dad had an old solenoid lying
around, so that the work could be considerably simplified. As we say in
Australia: "Beauty, mate!".
The resulting little machine didn't work terribly well, and didn't stand the
test of time and was ultimately dismantled. Eventually, in 2002, the
solenoid turned up again (among my old Meccano parts!), and became part of
item 4 on this page's sub-menu: a weird contraption which in fact features
two selenoids.
What about item 3? Well, eventually (shortly before item 4, above), I did
indeed build a single-solenoid motor, this time with a home-wound solenoid.
It works heaps better than the old original from the late sixties, and has
all sorts of additional silly "bells and whistles". So - get into this
sub-menu and read all about it!
ELECTRO-MECHANICAL MODELS
Single-solenoid electric engine
Sometime in the future, I may get inspired to create more projects of this
type. Possibilities include Triple- and Quadruple-solenoid engines with
switching systems for reversing direction. Also, somewhere among my "junk"
is a partly-constructed three-pole electric motor. If it ever turns up, I
may finish it and post the result here. Stay tuned!
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