Question by chris78walker: hand spun elecric motor can it create electricity? if not a permanent magnet motor what other parts do I need?
Ok I pulled a motor out of a vacum what do I need to make it generate electricty. Assuming I can spin it fast enough.
Best answer:
Answer by Dave D
That is the wrong kind of motor, being series wound. It would be much easier to get a permanent magnet motor. Then you just spin it and electricity comes out of the terminals.
Unless you are a EE, I would not try to mess with a series wound motor as a generator – they are very finnicky and unstable.
Edit:-
This motor will certainly produce a voltage if you connect it to a load and spin it. The problem is that if the load increases, the current and hence the excitiation will also increase. This feeds more and more power to the load, giving the unstable performance. The output voltage swings wildly, depending on the load. You do not need a permenant magnet to generate power, you need it for a stable generator of known voltage. A shunt wound motor would also work if you provide suitable excitiation.
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3 Responses
Another way of saying the same thing is that it is DC motors with permanent magnets that generate power easily and the motor in a vacuum is almost certainly an AC motor that requires AC for activation of the magnetic field.
A motor is a load, meaning it receives electrical energy, not produces it.
You are looking for a generator.
The universal motor from a vacuum is fine. Just connect it to a load. If you want to use it more seriously, you may need a regulator to react to varying speed in whatever you drive it with.
As a quick test it is working, you can connect the wires together and see if its harder to spin by hand. If you connect a small flashlight bulb, you will be able to light it easily by hand.
The people that say it wont work without a permanent magnet are very mis-guided. There will be enough residual magnetism in the iron to start the generation – something that many small generators rely on. Yes, its series wound – so what, you are making a small home project not a 500 mega watt generator for National Grid.