Is a Cored PCB-Motor more efficient? 

Thanks for sharing your engineering cycle with all the successes and failures as they happen. I get frustrated in my own making when I have so many stumbles, so often I want to give up. Watching you persist and keep trying and being creative is an inspiration.

Glad you know falure is part of the process! A lot of people seem to forget.

The song used in this video is "Five Card Shuffle" by Kevin MacLeod. Guy Collins made a nice animation "The Printer" set to this song about technology struggles. This seems like a fitting song given the content of the video.

I don’t think cogging will be an issue so long as the core material is symmetrical enough, and that the rotor and stator poles are sufficiently indivisible. Because the attractive force of the rotor approaching a piece of iron should be cancelled out by the attractive force of the rotor moving away from another piece of iron. That said, you may need more rotor poles for this to work properly. That glimpse of a future model looks promising! If you’re after more extreme changes, see about looking for sheet mumetal or silicon steel.

A balanced single pcb circuit would have back iron connecting rotor magnets with rotors on both side of the pcb. This is the best configuration with proper flux paths for a single set of coils. When you place the steel behind the coils, it isn't working properly because it's also extremely close to the magnets and shorting them, since the coils are without stator to focus the magnet flux between phases. Awesome projects man! Motors are tough!

What I like the most about this video is the fact that you are presenting a negative result. I do not know about the other areas, but in scientific community people mostly present positive results (i.e. they succeeded to do something), while the negative ones are shelved. I think it is important to publish stuff that does not work so that other people can do their reserach and improve based on the negative experience. Great video, and good luck in your future projects!

Those plates with holes in it have a specific name in english (washer(s)) Love this design, I can't wait to see them used in cybernetics 😌

Love your PCB videos! Very interesting engineering!

Always so well explained

I really like the idea of that PCB motor. Thanks for your videos.

Carl, don't be too disappointed. I know that engineers working on micromachines and nano-tech have run up against many of the same problems. In fact, the whole field of nanotech got stalled out for a while because they were bummed out when their motors wouldn't lift or rotate much of a load. I think what they've done is to start looking for applications where their tiny motors do have enough torque to move things...like in the microscopic scale! Back when I was a neuroscientist, I used to use micro-pipettes to make "suction electrodes" to record nerve impulses from the outside of nerves, and intracellular electrodes as well. (We would make them by heating-then-pulling the micropipettes so that they formed a sharp point. Then we would break it off at a convenient point, and under a dissecting microscope, file or nick it with a diamond file to the right diameter for an exterior "suction" electrode (followed by fire-polishing the end), or the correct diameter and angle for penetrating the cell for an intracellular electrode.) But we were limited in a part of the actual cell membrane penetration--in other words, cells that we wanted to record from had to be large enough, and/or on a suitable substrate. I won't go into the details of what I mean. The point of all this is to say that---back then--I read a paper that described how another researcher made a device with a piezo crystal to actually penetrate the cell membrane. By controlling the voltage and the pulse duration, he could control the force and amplitude of the thrusting crystal, and therefore control the trajectory of the electrode. The crystal would thrust the elecrode just a tiny bit, like a tiny lance, so that he could make recordings from very small sensory cells, as well as from cells that were in small groups that--by any other means--the electrode would push through the cell, and break the tip on the underlying substrate. We used things called "micro-manipulators," with fine rack and pinion controls, but they were massive compared to these crystal piezo things that could push the tiny javelins just far enough to penetrate a cell membrane. It's all about scale. So, that's my advice to you! Either use a different motor, or find smaller things to push or rotate! (Sorry!)

Even a relatively tiny improvement in torque is worth having if it does not increase weight too much. For example putting this motor through an epicyclic gear box with say a 36,000 to 1 reduction (some applications are perfectly good with a 6RPM speed) just 1mNcm increase would give you about 0.2Nm assuming near 50% losses. That is plenty to align a mirror for example.

Have you ever thought about making a multilayer board so that the turns go through several layers?

Great work as usual ! I didn't known flexible PCB manufacturing had that much option, kinda cool My suggestions to make it better are the following : - being a flat coil design (PCB) I dont think there is a lot to gain adding Steel especially on top ! For one if not laminated or powdered agregate it will just work as a Eddy current brake at speed, for two core purpose is to improve airgap flux density by reducing magnetic circuit reluctance, having on open back stator and core would not add much since the magnetic flux still have to curve back in air to close the magnetic loop. So keeping it coreless and as thin as possible is the best bet. - The bigest adding you could make would probably be on an Iron backing rotor for lower reluctance and with a powdered Iron backing on the stator (as you saw, the Steel washer was the best for reluctance reduction but still act as a brake when the motor turn). Going back to a doubled Iron backed stator would be also really good (rotor don't need to be powdered or laminate because the magnetic flux is stationnary in his reference frame). Keep up the good work !

Interesting as always 👍

I love the explanation I which u were my physics and power electronic teacher

Never stop experimenting

I'm glad you made this video.....all the best for the PCB wheeled robot project....😊...when will the next video on the project be out??....good luck.....

Somalloy cores mayb in holes at the center of the coils of a regular fr4? That would make a massive difference in torque. Also make a 16 layer coil with wider traces, that would improve things even more allowing for a bit higher inductance while maintaining low resistance. Maybe theyd help you out at höganäs if you tell them about this project, with the somalloy part. Also, move the coils to the absolute maximum distance from center and try a sine or foc drive, to reach even further.

cant wait to see the pcb drone

If that's the magnetised ferrite rubber sheet, AFAIA it's always magnetised into a Halback array so it's far more strongly attractive on one side than the other. This also results in a repeating pattern of poles that you can feel if you cut a bit of the sheet off and attempt to stick it to itself, when they're orthogonal to each other attraction will be very low, and when they are parallel you'll get a click-click-click "cogging" effect every 3-5mm or so.

This might be an effect of the grain alignment of the steel used. If the steel is grain aligned, it will possibly create magnetic poles which are fairly long lived. If possible, try to use steel which has no grain alignment.

PCB motors for micro & Nano Machines,Robotics ,a new age technology ♻️ Congratulation 👍

I figured that would have worked better (admit it, other 299 of us). Thank you for sharing your work!

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work". Thomas Edison

Should work for Panasonic. That little motor would have been ideal for their last few portable cassette players.

Love this and I think it can be put to use in smaller applications to do with even gadgets that can be for your body or something imagine iron man suit without the weapons

what would happen if you could have few additional circuits in between main ones, and would use mildly different settings on it? could you "pre-drive" the field produced by changing the oscillation?

Hi thanks for your video it's good to have a RU-vidr Maltese, you don't see them hopefully will have more RU-vidrs or building computers especially electronic engineer keep it up hopefully your RU-vid get stronger. Thanks😀

Did you test, that the triangle shape of the coils does not negatively influence the magnetic field? Couldn't a circle be better even though it would cover less of the area?

Try to put smaller magnets on both side for stronger magnetic field!

One suggestion: Try layering the board/magnets with multiple layers, essentially doubling the output for any doubling of the layering, making use of the other side of the Flux field of the permanent magnet. I see a future in this, if you successfully can create a multi layer design of higher power output and torque, without the creation to collapse on itself, due to the strength of the magnetic field. If you create shift the magnetic polarity of each layer by an x-amount of degrees, and create a master controller to control the controller of each blade, the rotor won't wobble, but will be forced to follow the direction of the field. Making ac motor controllers (especially tri phase), able to trigger the right magnetic pull on a rotor isn't easy!

I would be curious to see what happens if you were to somehow glue graphite powder on the bottom side of your pcb motor. It is a diamagnet.

what happens when you split that washer up in to segments that match the magnets? The segments should focus the forces while not cogging.

Very interesting project. Would it be possible to test a multi layer PCB based motor? Might be able to make actual stacked coils a few layers high.

Hello thank you for good videos and great ideas. I have som ideas for you. You could try to use magets that have the magnetic flux point horizontaly so one maget uses both north and south i have seen several bldc motors in a small formfactor that has 6-8poles on the stator and 12-13 magnets that then gives 24-26 magnetic poles since it uses both north and south on one magnet. I hope you understand what i mean. Peace

have you tried sandwhiching the iron core with 2 stators, and using the same source of power? or making a laminated style of stator-rotor like a voltaic pile, but the rotors are fused into the shaft, and the stators are mounted on a 3d printed holder, so the rotors can spin together?

A good configuration would be to have PCB's on both sides of the rotor, should improve flux shape where it interacts with the rotor. Probably having no core at all would be best, but having windings on both sides of the rotor would allow you to use a core that would complete the magnetic circuit (encase the thing).

Hi Carl, I have an idea: what if we had two rotors, one one each side, one output and one input shaft. Shouldn't it be possible to apply a transfer function on the coils to replace a clutch and gearbox? Could be interesting for hybrid drivetrains. What do you think?

Cool!

i think i saw a similar motor dissasembling an italian magnetic tape video recorder

What about a high power axial bldc motor using pcb coils

Science well done!

Does the magnetic field on your PCB extend 'downwards' strongly as well? I imagine blades on both sides wouldn't work that well though...

Would there be enough power to do a nice flat cocktail stirrer? 😜

Funfact: this video was not sponsored by pcbway

Hi Carl! Have you tried to make a sandwich of two coils and magnets between them? It should improve the torque. Or maybe stacking together multiple coil-magnet systems on single shaft should help to increase performance.

Maybe you'd like to try three axial flux faulhaber wound coil on a PCB. Alternatly, maybe try an altogether different direction. Puns intended. Use three radial flux faulhaber coils printed on a flexible PCB would work very much like the motors made by thingap

Would stacking them help?

Nice approach on the ss inserts. Though, instead of inserting a core may be a sandwich of 1 rotor and 2 stators could make something more powerful! Consider creating a discord server?

Would it make a difference if instead of covering the whole back of the motor PCB with a solid sheet of steel or ferro material you cut that pice into segments for each individual coil? I am thinking of transformer cores how they are made of stacked thin plates instead of one solid core. Though I don't really know what I am talking about something I read or saw once seems to be nagging me in the back of my mind.

And also about this video the ferrite sheet you are using i think regain its magnetic field for too long you should try laminated sheets to get less eddy currents. Peace

Like you thinking, my name is Glenn Forbes, I’m building a large 3 phase flat alternator and think I could use a portion of your tiny motor. Is it possible to purchase from you just the flexible 3 phase coil section, say about 200 to 300 ? Thank you

Ingenious 101

That's a long absence. Where were you pro?

Add a gear box

What about a PCB motor, but with slots or feature for manual windings, and solder pads to fix winding 🤓🤔

He's do be flexing with these flex PCBs

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-yCJ5vstBRdw.html I recently saw a video describing this ‘new’ motor design and I immediately thought of your motors. Sounds like the real solution is to have a rotor on either side of you PCB stator to balance the shaft and keep the magnetic fields contained. Another video I saw also mentioned that powering two winding simultaneously and ramping the power up and down instead of switching them on and off can improve the efficiency even more. Just some new ideas to consider in your next iteration of motor design. You may also want to check their patent applications because it looks like they are claiming to have invented ideas that you posted first?

Wroom wroom

There are some ads that are just so much more annoying than others and that damn Google Fi ad is the worst I've ever seen... well, actually it's the music. Everytime I hear it I have to mute it as it is anger inducing...

oof

U need help too sir

New cool video about a commercial PCB motor ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7F2sV6PWgKE.html

I guess i wouldn't buy a pcbmotor for power anyways. It would be for small footprint applications. I guess solving the thermal issues would be a priority.

I like the r&d videos but you might be over engeenring

Please, work faster, I want more content!!!! Your videos are awesome! Excellent work man! Keep going!

why did you SCREAM at me like a problem child or some kid that doesnt get their way at certain parts in the TITLE?? i dont understand the idiocrasies