Tiny Mendocino solar motor

cults3d

I wanted to build the world's smallest 3D printed Mendocino motor: here it is with my best wishes for 2015 ;-) see it running here: http://youtu.be/PVJAtb6spAQ The Mendocino motor is a solar-powered light commutated magnetically levitated electric motor. The motor consists of a four-sided rotor block in the middle of a shaft. The shaft is positioned horizontally and has a magnet at each end. The magnets on the shaft provide levitation by repelling magnets in a base under the motor. The rotor block has two sets of windings and a couple of solar cell attached to each winding. When light strikes one of the solar cells, it generates an electric current thus energizing one of the rotor windings. This produces a magnetic field which interacts with the field of the support magnets generating a force perpendicular to the length of the coil (Laplace's law dF = I.dL^B). This interaction causes the rotor to turn. As the rotor rotates, the first solar cell enters shadow and the next solar cell moves into the light and energizes the second winding, The clever idea is that the second solar cell of each coil is wired in parallel but reverse (+ connected to -) creating a current in the opposite direction to the first thus maintaining the rotation. This process repeats as the motor spins. Electrically a non lighted solar cell acts as a diod this is the reason why they can be wired in reverse-parallel: the non lighted solar cell diode is blocked when the other solar cell is illuminated. It is then a light-commutated motor !!!