Lego Solar Powered Levitated Motor

A fun project for me and my son to build. We were inspired by two solar motors on display by Tom K. at the 2007/08 First Lego League state tournament in Illinois. We included the levitation after watching http://youtube.com/watch?v=N3NU22KxDaQ, details at http://mtinfopage.com/mendocin.htm. Special thanks to Tom for providing guidance. All parts, besides the legos, came from Radio Shack

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• lego
• solar
• motor
• levitated
• electronics
• gadgets

[JohnFMUTube]

Actual build time was around 3 hours. This excludes gathering/purchasing of materials. A time consuming part was figuring out a good combination of Lego parts to form the armature frame to mount the solar cells and wind the wire on. Glueing the small gears squarely in the hole of the magnet took some time.

That's a great idea to integrate this into a Lego star wars ship or space station. It would be cool to place it by a window and have something spin whenever the sun shines on it.

[memoz1991]

the details link doesn't work :(

can u plz sent me the right link, Thanks in advance

[JohnFMUTube]

@memoz1991 - looks like the period at the end of the sentence is included in the details link, after the "htm" You can delete the period at the end to get to the details web site.

[spanglerangle]

how does it spin?

[JohnFMUTube]

@spanglerangle - really just like any motor. In this case, light shinning on one solar cell at a time generates an electric current to run through a wire coil. The current creates a magnetic field around the coil. The large magnet positioned on the base plate and the coil magnetic field are positioned to repel each other. The repelling force causes the movement of the coil assembly. Each solar cell when positioned in front of the light takes it's turn to generate a coil magnetic field.

[cory1915]

whats the torque on that?

[JohnFMUTube]

@cory1915 a rough guestimation would be 0.0001 in-lbs

[theret5]

try putting another set of magnets on top to reduce bouncing

[armand009]

excellent.........

[nbrwn9]

Hohow about a how to

[circlemer]

thats so sick!!

[SuperNoobdude]

SAY WHAT!?!?

[killerbeenl]

LEGO's :D I''ve once build a bedini circuit lego machine thingy --> Lego is ideal for testing stuf.

[Adrian5893]

magnets 

[Mrbandit81]

That's pretty cool looking, how long did it take you to build it?

Plus have you thought of building a Lego star wars ship around the set up you've got there, kinda like the center of a space station or a out post power plant?

[ChevyToughRebel]

Hmm, thats pretty neat

[francisroan]

nice.................

[wwwKx]

:O