Linear Motor DIY Explained

This video is an overview of my linear motor build. It is going to be the introduction for a 9-part series on how the pieces and parts interact as well as more detailed breakdowns of the subsystems.

Music from YouTube Studio - Just Dance by Patrick Patrikios

[danielselectronicslab]

I was thinking about this and I wanted to link to Attwood's PHD Thesis which I found quite helpful when I was watching Professor Laithwaite's Magnetic River Videos. Attwood goes through and gives some diagrams and is quite approachable.

[johnwright]

I remember Professor Laithwaite's lectures on linear motor's, but he never explained how to make one. Thanks for the practical tips.

[calegoethals]

Awesome explanation on magnet motion! Seems to be more frequent applications of this in automation industry. Would be interesting to see how to control the direction of a surface item using a programmable VFD. Conveyor systems move over!!!!

[cndbrn]

I'll never forget the 1st time watching the "Magnetic River" and "The Circle of Magnetism" Eric Laithwaite is the inventor of the Linear Induction Motor (LIM) he's also the father of Maglev. This guy was levitating shite back in the 50's and you'd be hard pressed to find anything on him. The Royal Institute black listed him for doing research with gyroscopes disproving laws of physics. He was the only presenter of the Christmas special at the Royal College to do 3 specials, this is the platform of Michael Faraday and other's that invented electricity in the beginning. You can find some of his patents online along with his assistant and co-inventor last name Easton.

[MYFormula]

Very well done Daniel! You are very good at at explaining the technical aspects of a subject or process. Congratulations on your channel I'm sure it will fare very well!

[theguitarman]

Will you be making the rest of the videos in this series? Really looking forward to them

[alizand]

Can’t wait for the next video. Great explanation.

[AeroLens_by_SP]

Hi, I am eagerly waiting for the next part!

[borghorsa]

Thanks, very interesting! Like the way you explain technical things

[robertoguerra]

Great experiment :)

The “traveling field wave” generator could also be used in a switched reluctance linear motor.

[jacoblovr]

still waiting for the next part of this 9-part series

[rishichavda]

Hey, change your title to a question like ‘how linear motor works’ should hopefully get some more engagement.

Really love this idea and concept!

[johannescordier]

Looking for this for a long time ... Thanks

[bpark]

How did you fabricate the laminations?
Motors like this have one HUGE problem. They need iron behind the mover to complete the magnetic circuit. Without that, the magnetizing current is 2 to 3 orders of magnitude higher than the working current. If you put the iron behind the mover, you must deal with an attraction force that is about 10x the working force. Or you can have 2 stators with mover between to at least largely balance out the attraction forces. The mover's structure needs to mirror the stator's structure, with slotted iron with aluminum or copper closed loops in the slots, to achieve any sort of reasonable efficiency.
If you intend to run the motor "open-faced", the flux density is so low that you should change the geometry of the lamination slots. They should widen out in the bottom almost to the point of breaking through to one another, to permit more room for heavier windings to carry the large magnetizing current.
Design like yours (except double-sided with aluminum fin between) is used on numerous "launch" type roller coasters. The efficiency is so low that insane utility power or energy storage is required along with insane cooling to get it to survive. For this reason, that design has been abandoned in favor of permanent magnet synchronous motors.

[margots]

Loving this series already, really looking forward to your next video!!!
I was wondering if the insulation layer adds a significant amount to the total width of your motor or if its can be neglected?

[htheh]

Can you please provide with the resources you used to make this motor?
I’m working on a linear motor project right know and i don’t know how to start.

[victoryfirst]

You will find that getting information on electric linear stuff is like top secret. You will have to read a few books and then you can have some understanding of electric magnetic things.

[Tassie-Devil]

A "simple" question before I even finish viewing the video: Can we do a practical mag-lev <thing> without using 3-phase?
Seems everything I've viewed so far uses 3-phase for the propulsion aspect.

Me, I'm OK with 2 phases that are 180º out of phase, creating double the voltage across the actives... but once we have 3 phases 120º out of phase... just obtaining it is insanely complex (assuming you don't have a 3P supply to your house), and understanding the math across the phases is worse. And that's before trying to work out current-lag, collapsing-field reverse current, hysteresis and all that crap. That's where I left my studies in electrical theory, many years ago.

Listening to your "power supply", it sounds like an old-school mechanical rotary inverter, artificially inducing local 3-phase from a single-phase supply.
They used small 'dynamotors' back in the 2WW, to produce 1 and 3 phase power from a 24V accumulator, so the concept isn't exactly cutting edge. I still HAVE one, that works, tho the efficiency is terrible.
You see why I detest projects that require 3 phase energy of any voltage.

Please tell me that there is another way to do these experiments that doesn't require 3 phase power?

[TheKoodus]

Hey man thanks for the video. I'm subscribed....if you choose to make more I'll be here watching thanks!

[TheIndustrialphreak]

How hard would it be to turn this into a linear generator? I have an application i need to generate electrical current around 72v and 100A with linear oscillation .