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My daughter has a science project coming up and the subject is Energy.
She was thinking of using rubber bands to power a windmill, kinda like the old rubber band driven balsa wooden airplanes from way back in my youth.
So, I’m looking for a small motor that we can hook to the rubber band that can generate 12 volts when it spins.
Most small motors work on battery powered input to spin the shaft, we’re looking for something that does the opposite- you spin the shaft and that produces the power.
I guess it would be like an automotive alternator, but smaller?
Does such a mini motor exist?
I searched online and came up empty. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
I believe that most electric motors will produce electricity when spun by mechanical means. I'd recommend something from Team Brood. They make some of the best motors for RC vehicles.
5v is enough to power a small LED, and more than likely, the term you want for your generator is "Dynamo", it implies permanent magnets so no field current is required to start generating. Look at "sparkfun" or Google "Arduino supplies" to find the electronics you're looking for cheap!
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Ebay used to sell cheap DC gear reduction motors. I have used one as a speed and direction sensor in the past. One with a 20:1 reduction would easily produce 5V.
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As was pointed out, any permanent magnet DC motor should work but a geared down motor is going to be hard to turn to use as a generator since when turning the shaft you'll be overdriving the armature. Might not work well in your application.
Reminds me of something from my younger days when I was working for a small company building IFF/TACAN antennas for the F117. At least I'm pretty sure it was for that. We referred to the customer as "Across Town" but everyone knew it was Lockheed and that was the only plane they were building at the time.
Anyhoo another guy thought he had found the problem on why one of the antennas he built failed on current draw. He found the gearmotor was harder to turn than usual. I gleefully pointed out the leads were touching. Never liked that guy.
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My daughter came home from school with a similar project idea. She watched this video https://youtu.be/k7Sz8oT8ou0 about making her own. She thought it was super cool. I busted out my Dewalt Glue Gun, some wire, and magnets for her and let her at it. Then she got all fancy on it and it worked pretty dang well.
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toothofwar wrote:Way back when for my science project, I had disassembled a remote control car that I had a broken wheel on. I took one of the wheels and fixed it directly to the shaft of the motor. Then took one of the little light bulbs from the cars head lights and wired it directly to the motor. The science room I was in had a water faucet in it, so I gently placed a portion of the wheel under the stream of water and used it as the foundation of my hydroelectric dam project.