Electric motors

Electrical motor is an electrical machine that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. Most electric motors operate through the interaction between the motor's magnetic field and electric current in a wire winding to generate force in the form of torque applied on the motor's shaft.

There are many tipes of electrical engines: solenoid motor, collector motor, stepper motor, servomotor. Some is very simple in work but there are of difficult configuration, for example stepper or servo motor.

Solenoid motor

A solenoid engine can be defined as an engine that works by passing electricity through the coils which are making the pistons move back and forth due to electromagnetism.

If an electric current is applied to the solenoid, the coil will create a magnetic field around itself, which will draw a metal rod into the middle of the cylinder. If there is no electric current in the coil, the magnetic field of the solenoid will cease to act on the metal rod and the kinetic energy of the flywheel will pull it out of the cylinder. When the coil is switched off and the flywheel is in the special position, the switch (A) closes the contacts of the coil and the power supply and the metal rod is pulled by the magnetic field of the coil in the middle of the cylinder and the cycle is repeated.For the motor to work properly, the solenoid must be switched on and off at the right time.

Efficiency of this motor is very little because much energy spent on friction and heat coils. For better work of motor it has 2 or more coils but it still does not increase its efficiency. This video can tell you about the operation of the solenoid from a practical point of view.

Collector motor

DC electric motor (DCM) is a DC electric machine that converts DC electrical energy into mechanical energy. According to some opinions, this motor can also be called a synchronous DC machine with self-synchronization. The simplest motor, which is a DC machine, consists of a permanent magnet on an inductor (stator), one electromagnet with pronounced poles on the armature (two toothed armature with pronounced poles and one winding), a brush collector assembly with two plates (lamellas) and two brushes.

In this engine we have several coils that rotate in a magnetic field. When the vectors of the magnetic field are directed perpendicular to the coil in which the electric current flows, the Ampere force acts on the coil, which rotates it. Due to the operation of the collectors and brushes in the coil there is always an electric current that makes it rotate. For better motor work, you need as many coils wound on the cores and also many collectors. This video can help you understand the work of the motor.

Stepper motor

A stepper motor, also known as step motor or stepping motor, is a brushless DC electric motor that divides a full rotation into a number of equal steps. The motor's position can be commanded to move and hold at one of these steps without any position sensor for feedback (an open-loop controller), as long as the motor is correctly sized to the application in respect to torque and speed.

The principle of operation is to turn on the coils with a given frequency with a given order. Each position of the rotor has its own coil that turns on when an electrical signal is applied to it.

A stepper motor is a very good option for engineers when you need to control the position of the rotor or the speed of the motor. You need a driver and a driver control board to control the engine. A good option for this task is the Arduino board, which can control various parameters of the motor.

This videos can tell about stepper motors more.

Servomotor

Servomotor is a rotary actuator or linear actuator that allows for precise control of angular or linear position, velocity and acceleration. It consists of a suitable motor coupled to a sensor for position feedback. It also requires a relatively sophisticated controller, often a dedicated module designed specifically for use with servomotors.

The best way to control servomotors is to use an Arduino board and a special library Servo.h. With this library you can control servomotor work very well.

And with this video you can connect the servomotor to the Arduino board and start experimenting.

It was not all configurations of electrical motors but it was configurations of the main species of electrical motors. Once you learn about the different types of electric motors, you have a small question: " Is a perpetual motion machine possible?".