Making a Small

Motor





Emma Khazzam

Acadmie de la Capitale

Mme Neena

11th grade, Physics

January 20th,2014#
The purpose of this experiment was to build a small direct current motor. Motors are
used in many objects in our daily lives such as computers, fans, hand dryers, elevators,
amusement park rides, and much more.



Materials (gure 1)
at least 2 large paper clips
masking tape
ceramic magnets
coated, 16 gage copper wire
sandpaper
a C cell battery
a pencil









Procedure

1. Take a pencil and insert it into one of the paper
clips. Twist the paper clip around so that it forms
a circle as shown in gure 2. Bend the paper clip
so that it resembles the paper clips in gure 3.
Repeat with second paper clip.






2. Tape the paper clips to a solid surface about one
and a half inches apart, as shown in gure 3. The
battery must be able to t in between the paper
clips. This is the base of your motor.





Figure 3
Figure 2
Figure 1


3. Wrap the copper wire tightly around the battery
about 10 to 15 times (gure 4). Leave about two
and a half inches of wire loose at each end.
Gently slide the coil off the magnet, and compress
the loops together.





4. Wrap the loose ends of the wire into and around
the coil two to four times to secure the coil in
place, as shown in gure 5.










5. Remove ALL the coating off ONE end of the wire
using the sand paper, as shown in gure 6.
IMPORTANT: On the other end of the wire,
remove only HALF of the coating. (Figure 7) This
is your rotor.
















Figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6
Figure 7
6. Insert the ends of the wire through the paper clips as shown
in gure 8. Make sure that the wires are straight and that the
rotor can spin smoothly.












7. Slide the magnets underneath the coil (gure 9).
Adjust the height of the magnets so that when
the coil spins it just clears the magnets but does
not touch them, about 2mm.










8. Place the battery in between the other ends of
the paperclips and touch them to the poles of
the battery as shown in gure 10. Give the coil a
small spin to start the motor turning.













Figure 8
Figure 9
Figure 10
Observations

How does the motor work? The basic principle behind the simple DC motor is that
current-carrying wires experience force when placed in regions that have a magnetic
eld. There are three key elements in a motor; a magnetic eld, a current source and a
wire. When a wire carrying an electric current is placed in a magnetic eld, it will
experience a force. The direction of the force can be determined with the right hand rule
for the motor principal (gure 11). The right hand rule for the motor principal states that
when the ngers of the right hand point in the direction of the magnetic eld and the
thumb, pointing perpendicularly to the ngers, points in the direction of the current, the
palm will point in the direction of the force. If the current-carrying wire is bent in a loop,
the two sides of the loop will experience forces in opposite directions. The forces cause
a torque, a rotational force, which rotates the coil. When the upper part of the loop spins
or rotates downwards, the forces switch, causing the coil to spin. An important factor in
making the motor spin, is leaving one side of the end wire coated while the rest of the
wire is uncoated. If all of the end wire were to be uncoated, the rotor would oscillate
back and forth, 180 degrees one way, then back 180 degrees the other way. The rotor
would never make a single complete rotation. When one side of one end wire remains
coated, the current is cut off for a small fraction of time. When the current is cut off, the
forces acting upon the coil stop, causing the inertia from the spin to complete the turn.
This repeats itself over and over again causing the rotor to spin.






Figure 11
After the initial spin the rotor will continue spinning using energy from the battery. The
electrical energy from the battery is transformed into the mechanical energy of rotation
of the rotor. There are three factors that determine how fast the motor will spin; the
amount of current derived from the battery that is in the wire, the strength of the
magnetic eld from the magnets, and the length of the wire. These three factors
determine the size of the force. One loop of wire would have a certain amount of force
and two loops of wire would be two times that about of force. The number of loops can
signicantly increase the speed of the motor, but, at some point, it can be detrimental to
the speed of the motor. If one hundred coils were used for the small motor experiment
above, the coils would have too much mass, and the magnets would not be strong
enough to spin the motor. The materials used in the experiment have to be carefully
calculated for motor to work properly.



Conclusions and Improvements

When I started working on the motor, I went through multiple designs. Figure 12 and
gure 13 are some examples of templates that I tried when doing this experiment. After
several days of trouble shooting I exchanged non-coated wire for coated wire and the
experiment worked. The experiment taught me that when conducting an investigation it
might take several attempts to achieve success. I learned that with a few simple
materials I can build a functional motor.






















Figure 13 Figure 12

Bibliography:

R, Nave. "How Does an Electric Motor Work?." . N.p.. Web. 19 Jan 2014. <http://
hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/magnetic/mothow.html>.

Beauvais, Kristy. "The Simple DC Motor:." . Massachusetts Institute of Technology, n.d.
Web. 19 Jan 2014. <http://web.mit.edu/cmse/educational/motor_lp_kristy.pdf>.

Physics 11 University Preparation. Toronto, Canada: Nelson Education Ltd., 2011. Print.