Paul Kimbrel's Musing

Okay, I hooked up the capacitor across the left and right terminals of the rotor and viola! It works!

Here’s the whole test assembly:

Here’s a close up of the capacitor:

I took the power off the transformer’s secondary leads and run it to an old two-position knife switch of mine (easier than soldering up to small switch). Then I used alligator clips to hook the knife switch to the left/right rotor contacts.

Here’s a close-up of the transformer:

Yep, those are 120 volt lines coming in there. Nice hot bare wires! I treated this setup with kid gloves. Speaking of kids… kids, don’t try that home. Or work. Or school. Or ever. Very dangerous. My next step will be to get that sucker in a box (and yes, I did unplug it for the night).

Here’s a video of the whole thing in action:

That “clunking” sound you hear when it stops is the motor’s axle dropping and hitting the workbench. It appears that it pops up a bit when it rotates. Cool!

Next up… starting the controller. I want to make sure that sucker works before I go through with the rotor mod.