Troubleshooting

Brushes

The primary issue with the build was the choice of material for the brushes and their placement.
Different materials were tested including copper wire, dedicated carbon brushes and copper desoldering braid. While most of these worked quite well, each had their drawbacks.

The carbon brushes were mounted in housings with a spring exerting a force outwards, so that
continuous contact was maintained with the commutator as the carbon wore away. This force, while
useful in regarding long-term operation, greatly impacted on the speed of the motor.

The use of copper wire, both braided and individual strands, was investigated. These worked quite
well, however keeping them in contact with the commutator with a uniform force proved difficult.
Small cuts of the shaft wood were glued to the side of the bracket which secures the bearing. Onto
each of these, the copper wire brushes were attached. This resulted in an intermittent operation of
the motor due to the contact issues. Furthermore, the epoxy glue used to secure the cuts of wood did
not adhere well to the sides of the bracket and failed after a short time.

The de-soldering braid worked particularly well as a brush, even without removing the rosin flux.
This type of arrangement was noted by an ATC staff member to be employed to good effect by
some as replacement braid in Scalextric sets. Again, however, the overriding issue with this method
was keeping a constant pressure on the commutator, this being the most flexible and soft material
ventured.

The decision was made to use two small brushes recovered from a small DC motor. These came
mounted onto two small strips of copper, providing a slight spring action. These were mounted,
using epoxy, into a bracket cut and shaped from aluminium.

Brackets

As the brackets used to support the motor assembly was cut and shaped from aluminium, a flexible
material, during initial operation the assembly would shake at a low RPM. This was countered by
cutting 2 more pieces each of aluminium as supports and fixing them to the brackets with epoxy

glue. While the brackets were being secured to the base, however, one of these supports worked its
way loose. It was then decided they should be attached with rivets instead of epoxy. Holes were
drilled in both the brackets and supports and pull-through rivets were installed.
Commutator

While a number of materials were considered to construct the commutator, the final choice was a
small sheet of soft metal that was supplied with a breadboard, its intended use being a mounting
plate. This was checked with a multimeter and found to be sufficiently conductive.

After three small cuts of this material were made, the primary issue became how to attach the
enamelled copper wire from each of the windings. Several attempts were made to solder these to the
metal, however the solder would not adhere to the material. It was eventually decided to cut small
tabs out of the metal, tin the copper wire, wrap the relevant ends around their respective tabs and
clamp the tab down onto the wire. This resulted in a good contact and an assembly that did not work
its way loose during operation.

Self-Starting

Self-starting of the motor became an impossible task once the build was completed, as the strength
and amount of magnets used meant there was a particularly strong attraction to the bolts used in the
armature. The position of the magnets could not be altered much further from the armature, due to
the constraints of the size of the base board.

Identification Plate

The aluminium plate used to identify the project was to be written in calligraphy and marked out
with a Dremel tool. This proved a far too difficult task and block lettering was instead used.
Use of the Shaft Rotation to Generate Current

Early on in the assignment an idea was ventured to use the rotation of the shaft to power a stepper
motor in reverse as a generator, thus producing an AC current.

The motor in question was recovered from an ink-jet printer and came with various gears and belts

attached. Three ways of rotating the motor were attempted: using the gear assembly as it was
installed in the printer; using a small belt attached to each of the motors' shafts; and directly driving
the stepper motor by connecting the shafts together opposite each other.

In each of these cases, however, there was not enough torque from the motor to successfully spin
with any accessory attached. The idea was then abandoned, as it was not critical to the completion
of the assignment.