would this setup work?

[Raish]

Here's the setup:

The permanent magnets A1..A4 as well as the smaller and weaker (maybe 1/4 strength) magnets c1..c4 are fixed in position. The inner circle is the rotor with the magnet z.

The Idea is to have the strong magnets push the rotor magnet away in one direction but stop them from doing so in the other direction by putting the weaker magnets in the way.

The diagram on the rotor shows the force on the rotor in rotary direction at each position the way i think it should look like (i didn't calculate anything)

So .. could this work? Would this work?

[nievesoliveras]

Must of the time what happen with that kind of configuration is that the magnets after the initial rotation find an equilibrium state that is called the sticky point. It could be that by using the weaker magnets you can solve that problem. But, Must of the time, it does not work.

Good luck though!

[gyulasun]

@Raish,

I more or less agree with your force diagram,  red colour shows force behavior against rotation and green colour shows the aiding force behavior I suppose.
If so then the question is whether the rotor is able to accelerate to enough speed so that it will be able to defeat the repel forces you indicated in red.  Unfortunately, normally this does not happen and even though you may play and help ease the problem of getting through the "red" area by making the mass of the rotor to be advantageous (flywheel effect) probably you are forced to use some extra pulse energy for switching on an electromagnet at or near the most "reddish" place to smooth or reduce the repel forces.

No theory can substitute reality so the best is to build your setup and gain practical knowledge.  If You happen to have or collect discarded floppy disk drive hardware, you can find in them good ball bearing "hubs" for your rotor and you could easily attach an unused compact disk (CD) to it for holding your Z magnet.

rgds,  Gyula

[Paul-R]

You might need some mumetal shielding to get you out of a sticky spot.
Paul

[Raish]

red colour shows force behavior against rotation and green colour shows the aiding force behavior I suppose.

Exactly.

No theory can substitute reality so the best is to build your setup and gain practical knowledge.  If You happen to have or collect discarded floppy disk drive hardware, you can find in them good ball bearing "hubs" for your rotor and you could easily attach an unused compact disk (CD) to it for holding your Z magnet.

Thanks for the tips. Since noone seems to totally disagree with the design idea i'll take your advice and do some experimenting.
I happen to have had an old floppy drive - now only some minor parts like the magnets are missing

How would you attach the CD - just glue it to the thingie, or is there a better way?