Projects:

Dad's Mendel Screw 3D Printer was created as a design concept for a 3D printer with highly accurate movement. Each axis was driven by a T8-8 trapezoidal threaded rod. A functional prototype was made (I am bad at documenting my projects) all the way to the point of firmware loaded and was ready to print. I scrapped it because it ran into binding issues. This is the project that made me realize there is a give and take between compliance and rigidity. And in order to get the most out of both, you must increase precision. Having so many parts be 3D printed introduced flex, where the linear guide blocks needed rigidity. The T8 threaded rods also need a certain amount of backlash in order to smoothly move, but the amount it needed reduced the accuracy of the motion. It was a good thought experiment, but an overall bad design given the parts used. If I had to do it all over again, I would use a belt reduction to get higher accuracy and stayed well away from T8 motion drive in any non-vertical axis.

I wanted to see how a helical toroidal flux Halbach array permanent magnet arrangement would do in a motor. This is an idea that I had from my time researching what makes the different motor configurations most useful. There are loads of configurations you ca choose from since the stator has an open design and the rotor has 12 spots for magnets. My current setup is to have a Halbach array on each rotor face and on the middle rotor segment, then when putting them together, I offset the magnets by one mounting hole, or 30 degrees, making the helical flux pattern in a toroid shape. My winding strategy is going to, at first, use a concentrated coil pattern in 9 slots around the stator. That is 3 slots per phase wire. Since the rotor has 6 poles, there should be a "sliding" effect with the pulsed magnetic attraction, and would act more like a sine-wave than having only one or two sets of magnets. I will also be trying out the triple concentrated Halbach array by having all the like-poles aligned, which I will have to fight to keep together, hence the 3mm through holes on the rotor, allowing for 3mm threaded rod to bring the segments together and fight the magnetic repulsion of the like-poles. This should create a massive amount of "cogging" in the device, allowing for way more torque. But the back EMF will only tell. I'll keep you posted on the results. Right now I am waiting for the stator segments to ship.

This is a project that will take a considerable amount of time, especially compared to my last Power Wheels build (link to play list). Below is the budget and parts list with links. The next tab is the battery research and cost comparison. The amazing drift truck above, I am using for inspiration, that is not my vehicle. I will populate with updates and Images as we go along.