How to Build a Homemade Electric Motor
Make a motor at home out of a few easily-available parts. This motor is housed in a toilet tube and uses scrap booking rivets for a pivot point. The wire is simple copper wire available at electronics stores like Radio Shack. This is ideal as a school project with adult supervision (and help at certain points).
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Things You'll Need
- Toilet tube Magnets (preferably neodymium) Craft glue Salvaged clear plastic (from food packaging) Wire (stiff copper, 1 to 2mm.) Tin snips (or old scissors to ruin) Rivets (small scrap booking type) Wire (flexible) Battery
Instructions
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1
Find an empty toilet paper tube. Glue two neodymium magnets inside the middle of the tube across from each other. Cut out a section in the side of the toilet tube and use craft glue to make a window with clear plastic salvaged from food packaging. Make sure that the plastic is clean before use.
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2
On the empty toilet paper tube, fold one edge so that it meets the inside of the roll on the other side. Do this on both sides of the toilet roll. Put a rivet (a small scrap-booking type) into the two flaps where the two rivet holes are centered in the tubes. These rivets should be hollow and have holes in their centers.
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3
Stretch out a 4-inch length of wire and then make a coil of wire around two of your fingers next to that length of wire. The coil around the two fingers should be eight wraps around. Leave 2 inches of wire coming out the opposite side of the wire coil of the 4-inch length. Use a small strip of tape on both sides to keep the two wires sticking out of opposite ends of the coil.
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4
Squish the coil down to make it less circular and more oblong with the sires sticking out of the coil at the farthest ends. Do not smash the coil down entirely.
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Open one end of the toilet tube. Insert the longer of the two wires sticking out from the coil into the toilet tube and out the hole of the flap on the opposite end of the tube. Grab the wire as it sticks out and pull it all the way to the coil. Close the other flap and fish around with the short wire sticking out of the coil until you coax it out the hole on the flap you just closed. Center the wire coil inside so that it is roughly centered over the magnets and can turn freely inside of the tube. Bend both ends of the wires so that the coil can still spin but will stay centered. Each end should be bent into a T shape. At this stage, check to make sure that there is nothing preventing the metal of the wires from touching the metal of the rivets. Trim the excess from the wires.
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To operate the motor, simply hook up a battery with wires touching each rivet. The motor spinning will be visible in the plastic window of the toilet tube.
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Tips & Warnings
Make sure the wire is at least twice the thickness of fat pencil lead (2 x 0.5mm =1mm).
Do not cut yourself. Metal is sharp unless you make it otherwise. Do not use anything but that 9-volt battery and be aware that the wire may be hot if the gauge is too small or resistance to the current is too high. If the gauge is too small, the coil also will not stay centered.
