[Chris] sent us this fantastic tutorial, introducing beginners to H-bridge motor drivers. While many of you will consider this stuff basic, those who are trying to expand from building only things the arduino board can handle to bigger more expansive (and powerful) projects will find this quite helpful. [Chris's] tutorial is very in depth, not only going through the construction of the basic circuit but also showing you how to make your own PCB. Pop on over there and learn some theory and some practice. Then you can build that battle bot you’ve always been dreaming of!
Wireless controller, more powerful custom-made motors, stronger frame, and with a name like DeathBlades, we can’t think of a single reason why you would prefer heel treads, well everyone was young at one time.
[Charleg] has been testing out a slightly new frame, despite having only half the motors necessary, and is getting great results hitting around 23Wh/mi. If you’re looking to build your own, his blog has a post for nearly every aspect of the design.
[HP Friedrichs] wrote in to tell us about an upcoming book titled Marvelous Magnetic Machines. Ordinarily, we skip over promotional hype. After watching his promo video though, we couldn’t help but share. We want a copy of this book. In this book you’ll find details on how to build a number of different motors from scrap. You can see several variations in the promo video. He also notes that the music was created by himself and some friends a few years ago. If [H.P. Friedrichs] sounds familiar, it is because he’s been sending us fantastic projects since at least 2006.
Here’s something that the R/C airplane crowd might think of as old news. These directions show us how to rework floppy drive and CD Rom motors to be high power airplane motors. There are several listed, with details on each, but those unfamiliar might want to start with the most basic CD Rom version. It covers winding your own copper and installing the magnets in the “bell”, putting it all together and mounting it. This is a great writeup for those who haven’t seen this done before. If you want something even simpler though, you might enjoy the homopolar motor post. If you’re more advanced, they have tips for you too on machining and balancing the motors as well as winding density.
We’ve served up dozens if not hundreds of machines with a practical purpose, but we are always interested in machines like those [Steven Laurie] makes, which serve no other purpose than looking impressive, spewing smoke, leaving tire marks, and making a lot of racket. We’ll give you the scoop on Steve’s motor art after the break.
