This bug has been itching me for a very long time now and it's starting to annoy me. I really want to build a design based on lafonte's ideas whether it would work or not is currently of little significance, let's call it a psychological thing.
The biggest struggle was finding a design that fulfills these criteria:
-Simple to build
-No secondary or tertiary motion
The last one is critical if you studied lafonte's concepts. I wanted something that spins continuously at any given speed without any secondary or reciprocating motion in between 1 cycle. This would ensure the system to be simple, have little moving parts and handle high speeds.
The only simple design I came up with is a generator that uses the famously "zero gap zero force" effect, lets call it the ZGZF effect in short, idea shown here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDDPHJY0s90 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDDPHJY0s90)
The point is that two magnets, irregardless of relative polarity, enclosed between steel will have no longitudinal, in the direction of motion, forces acting upon them. This concept is simple, easy to prove and simulate. In fact many of my FEMM simulation showed that the longitudinal forces remain negligible small, compared to no steel bars, the smaller you make the gap. For instance some showed a reduction of a factor of 185x less force. It doesn't matter if they are in attraction or repulsion or if one of their fields is stronger than the other
This basic idea is then translated into a generator where one of the magnet is a coil that generates a magnetic field due to the passing of the magnet. In a standard generator the coil will try to inhibit the motion of the rotating magnet, but the ZGZF effect will eliminate these longitudinal forces and the magnet will pass by effortlessly while the coil is generating any field it desires. Thus the field of the coil will have no effect on the magnet and you essentially have a back torqueless generator.
I had posted a similar design some time ago, but it would have been a pain in the a** to build such a design. That's why the latest design is intended to be more "user friendly" or rather machine friendly. The stator is made up of three main parts, these parts are meant to be laser cut on steel sheets and then bolted together through the holes. Then there are the smaller steel pieces that will attach to the block magnets in order to create an upper and lower curve as to the minimize the gap.
Currently I'm planning to make a cad drawing and sending it to a laser cutting company in order to get a price quote.
I will follow closely. Nice drawings, but it is some how hard to see the actual procedure during rotation. Is the orange parts a coil wounded around a magnet?
Vidar
Yes they are coils fixed to the stator.
A small update.
I found a company that will cut the steel sheets for a reasonable price, they have started the process and I should have them in a week. When I get them I would be able to assemble the stator.
There are still some questions;
1) What to use to insulate the plates from each other.
2) A good rotor design that will hold the magnets, and their end steel pieces, which is easy and cheap to machine (will probably need to ask another machine shop for this). If the stator is very precise then the air gaps can be chosen to be reasonably small for the magnet, but it would be a pain in the ass if the stator is uneven. Ideally I would like to be able to adjust the magnet on the rotor up and down easily to have an even air gap on both sides.
Also for bearing holders I'm considering these:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-pcs-shaft-end-supports-horizontal-type-SHF16-/180790637567?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a17f633ff (http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-pcs-shaft-end-supports-horizontal-type-SHF16-/180790637567?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a17f633ff)
They are actually meant to fasten/support a shaft but I think they would do equally good as bearing holders? It's probably much cheaper than machining something that holds the bearings. One of the bigger advantages is that the holes of the SHF16 are 40mm apart exactly the dimension of my stator holes.
Would appreciate any suggestions or feedback.
Just a thin coat of varnish should do as insulation. You can buy these lacquer sprays in any hardware store.
Vidar
Doing some simulations I discovered the thickness of the upper and lower curved steel pieces effects the ZGZF-effect badly. So I decided to tackle this by reducing their thickness as that increased the effect positively. However this meant that I needed to use a bigger magnet in between the pieces but instead of that I decided to use an additional steel block, which in fact also has a mechanical structural property besides economy. Since the block has holes, bolts can be used to fasten the whole piece to a rotor easily.
Today the laser cut stator pieces arrived. After some cleaning I started spray painting. Then when the pieces dried I took a multimeter and checked whether there's a short on the painted side, and to my surprise it's conducting as if it's shorted! Could the layer be too thin???
I now sprayed a second coat on one piece only and let it dry to check it's resistance.
Edit:
Also forgot to mention that I found a good guy in an neighboring country who decided to make the other needed parts. He has already started on the rotor block that go between the magnets.
Edit2:
Second coat has dried and it's no longer conducting. Seems like the first coat was too thin after all. Will be needing more spray cans :D .
New update. All the rotor parts are machined now as well, I just need to pick them up from the guy. Currently I'm still waiting on a facemask I ordered in order to finish spray painting the stator laminates, because the only spare room I have has a small window and realized I can kill myself without proper protection. And next week the magnets and shaft holders should arrive as well.