Dia. Mag. Alternator

[Lakes]

You could do with a couple of stepper motors attached to that mini-mill..

[z.monkey]

You could do with a couple of stepper motors attached to that mini-mill..

Yups...
3 axis would be nice...

[z.monkey]

Finally got a chance to finish cutting DiaMag7-2.  The cutting went faster because I had less issues with the milling table.  Also getting more experience with the machine in general.  I am moving the mill 60 mills between cuts, and then doing a side mill finish in the slots.  The Y Axis on the table wasn't quite square, so the slots are a little slanted.  On the next set of plates I'll try a finish the slots before I break the ends to make better, uh, smoother slots.  The plywood sacrificial block was kind of a problem.  It started disintegrating under the plates in process.  This made clamping a little more difficult.  I may use a piece of poly for the next build.

Now need to cleanup the plates, cut some 1/4 inch aluminum tubes for the standoffs, and assemble the frame subassembly.  I am going to wind 8 individual 26 AWG coils on this one.  Each will have its own full wave rectifier, and then the outputs will combine in parallel for the test...

[z.monkey]

Got the standoffs built.  Next is the vinyl inserts, and winding...

[z.monkey]

What do you do at work on Friday afternoon, when you got nuthin' to do?

Draw alternator plates, of course.  This is NeoMag8.  This one is going to take four plates.  Two plates make the wire form, and the other two plates are for mounting the bearings which hold the shaft and the rotor.  The wire form plates are 4 inches in diameter.  They will use the same standoff scheme as the DiaMag7, but this time the winding slots are open on the inside.  So there is a big opening (2 inches) in the middle of the wire form plates.  This is clearance that is needed to wind the coils.  Then the rotor will fill up that space, and we will use the external bearing plates to hold the rotor in place.

Now I need to liberate the four plates from the rest of this piece of stock.  This plate was clearance priced.  Apparently it was cut for a customer and then not purchased.  So the retailer marked it down.  It is a little larger than what I need, but I'll have some decent sized scraps left over for something else.

Back to shredding metal!