5-Speed Homopolar Motor Video

[Renegade]

This is pretty cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu4375T1jro

Just thought a few people would get a charge out of that.

[Renegade]

And a dragonfly~!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRkj53QTCYE

Lots more fun stuff out there too.

[40hz]

You had to show me that didn't you? Now I'm gonna have to build one.

[Renegade]

You had to show me that didn't you? Now I'm gonna have to build one.

I built one today. Well, you can hardly call it building when it's so easy... Mine was just a very, very basic one. I don't have any thick copper wire, but I'm planning on buying some~!

[40hz]

Finally found a magnet I could use.

What a terrific little toy. And it only takes a few minutes to...not build...maybe more like twist together?

Thanks for finding that. My GF Alex took one look and...well...I get the feeling our AA battery budget is about to get shot to hell.

[IainB]

Thanks for finding that. My GF Alex took one look and...well...I get the feeling our AA battery budget is about to get shot to hell.

Yes, thanks for that @Renegade.
I almost wish you hadn't shown it to us. Fascinating and interesting. Fun!
Did you notice the other interesting video links associated with that video?
This one shows what looks like a more "elegant"(?) homopolar motor with NO wiring at all - just two bits of glass as a low-friction bearing, one magnet, and lots of stationary batteries of various types arranged in a circle.
I'm not sure I fully understand the physics of it. I have not assembled one, but I assume it's not a con.

[Renegade]

Thanks for finding that. My GF Alex took one look and...well...I get the feeling our AA battery budget is about to get shot to hell.

Yes, thanks for that @Renegade.
I almost wish you hadn't shown it to us. Fascinating and interesting. Fun!
Did you notice the other interesting video links associated with that video?
This one shows what looks like a more "elegant"(?) homopolar motor with NO wiring at all - just two bits of glass as a low-friction bearing, one magnet, and lots of stationary batteries of various types arranged in a circle.
I'm not sure I fully understand the physics of it. I have not assembled one, but I assume it's not a con.

There are a LOT of videos for similar homopolar motors, and I did see that one. I actually tried to replicate that one first, but couldn't manage to get it working. I tried that first because I didn't have any free copper wire, which I ended up cutting an old RCA cable for.

But, I only have AA and AAA batteries -- no 9V batteries. I'm not sure if that's important or not.

Incidentally, the link that 40hz gave above has a link to the same place where I bought my neodymium magnets from. But I think it's about time to buy some more. I'd like to fiddle around with some other kinds of motors. (I'll only be able to buy some of the smaller ones though, as larger ones are only shipped by ground, and they seem to be about 2x as expensive domestically.)

[ewemoa]

Awesome stuff  

quite the collection

http://danyk.wz.cz/index_en.html

[Renegade]

Awesome stuff 

That link is looking like 33 flavours of pure deliciousness~! (I'll be sorting through there!)

[ewemoa]

FWIW, part-way down the following, there's an explanation of the homopolar motor:

 http://www.evilmadscientist.com/2006/mhd-i-demonstrate-magnetohydrodynamic-propulsion-in-a-minute/

Search for: OK, so how the bleep does it work?

[Renegade]

Just sorting out what new magnets I want to buy and saw this:

http://www.kjmagnetics.com/calculator.asp

Very cool calculator.

[attachthumb=#]