Question by Thuja M: What appliances or electronics can I take apart to find a good DC motor to use in wind power experiments?
I am wondering if I could pick up some piece of trash appliance or electronic gadget at a garage sale and pull a good DC motor out of it to use in experimental wind power projects. The motor would need to contain magnets, and generate a current at relatively low RPM. Do VCR’s or blenders or tape decks or vacuums or shavers or ??? have any good DC motors in them for this kind of application?
Bigger is better…
? (to a point.)
I appreciate the answers received so far, excellent ideas! Toy cars, cordless drills and alternators all sound like they are worth experimenting with. I’ve also been reading about treadmill motors, which are a bit bigger and capable of producing more juice! I intend to leave this question up and open until the answers stop coming in, thanks to all contributers.
Best answer:
Answer by ancient_nerd
Find something that runs off of a battery. AC motors are cheaper. They do not need brushes. So anything that can plug in is probably not using DC.
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mike says:
September 11, 2011 at 2:49 pm (UTC 0)
toy cars.
MIKE
AnswerMan says:
September 11, 2011 at 3:12 pm (UTC 0)
One good source would be to go to an auto junkyard and get a permanent-magnet motor from a car.
Power window or power seat motors are fairly large, low speed permanent-magnet motors. However, they are not designed for continuous duty and cooling may be a problem if you try to run anything close to their rated current for more than a few minutes.
A blender or vacuum cleaner will not have a permanent-magnet motor; these have so-called “universal” motors which use the current that drives the motor to also create the magnetic field. You could in principle use one, but you would have to re-wire it with a separate field.
Tape decks, VCRs, etc do have DC motors but they are small. You will have a hard time getting more than a couple of watts. If that’s all you want then they will work, but don’t think, you are going to be powering a reading lamp or any significant fraction of household power demand.
You didn’t ask about it, but for what it’s worth, I think your best plan would be to get an alternator from an auto junkyard, preferably from a police car or a luxury car or SUV. (These tend to have heavy-duty alternators that often will put out 100 amps or more.) You will have to supply a field current here as well, but it comes pre-wired for it. It will be easier to have voltage control over your output if you use this rather than a permanent-magnet motor. Also an alternator will come with a built-in cooling fan. To get the maximum output, you will need to drive it at 3000~4000 rpm, but the good news is, if you can get this speed, you can get over a kilowatt of power, and it’s designed to have adequate cooling and a reasonable life at rated output.
carol says:
September 11, 2011 at 3:46 pm (UTC 0)
A CORDESS DRILL. This is what I used for some experiments and had a blast. And you’ve already got a battery and a means to connect to a propellor (the drill chuck).
belladonna deadlynightshade says:
September 11, 2011 at 4:44 pm (UTC 0)
Have a look at the It’s Not Easy Being Green Forum. They are all playing around with homemade wind turbines,solar panels, geothermal etc on there.
Dick Strawbridge who did the TV programme of the same name. They are very helpful.
http://www.itsnoteasybeinggreen.org/forum/