World's Simplest Motor

This is the simplest motor in the world. But what unexplained phenomenon makes it go? Make an ultra-simple homopolar electric motor with only a battery, a magnet, and a piece of wire. Cool science fair project or weekend project.





This is a new version of my famous "The simplest motor of the world". Now it uses a rechargeable AA battery and runs very much faster. WARNING: If you try to do this, don't let the copper wire touch the battery poles being stuck because it can warm up and burn your fingers. Make sure the wire moves freely.






This is a unique variation of the worlds simplest motor, the homopolar motor. The difference here is that both the AA battery and neodymium magnet are the rotating motor parts. The battery and magnet hang from the steel welding rod wire holder, and a copper wire controls the power.

For Homopolar Motor Kits, with 3 magnets and 6 feet of copper wire, order from the good folks at the American Stirling Engine website:
http://www.stirlingengine.com/ecommerce/product.tcl?usca_p=t&product_id=93

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Electric Motor Kit

Electric Motor Kit - 3 Pack. Build three homopolar electric motors - a great value.

Our Price: $29.95

If you are interested in alternative energy energy it's very important for you to understand electric motors. Of course the best way for you to start learning about electric motors is to build one yourself.

We put together a kit for what is probably the world's simplest electric motor, it's called a homopolar motor. The motors are really easy to build but hard to understand. For starters there is no obvious reason why they rotate at all! Humm...

If you have some powerful magnets, stiff copper wire and batteries in your junk box, you can get started right away. However the magnets are often hard to find.

If you live outside of North America, stiff copper wire may be hard to find too because the copper wire that is sold for house wiring in countries where 220 V is standard, is stranded and is too flexible to make homopolar motors easily.

We put all the hard to find items (and some batteries to make it even easier) in a box along with a great set of instructions. This kit includes three neodymium magnets, four AA batteries, and 6 ft (2 m) of copper wire.

This is enough material to build at least three motors and have some extra copper wire for experimenting with new designs.

Keep these magnets far away from your Ipod, your laptop, or any hard drive. They are very powerful and can quickly damage any kind of magnetic hard drive.

After you have used the batteries in a homopolar motor you probably shouldn't put them into any electronic equipment, because the batteries are more likely to leak after being used in a homopolar motor.

You can download the complete set of instructions for our homopolar motor kit in .pdf form for free. (Warning 5 Mb file size)

The 3 minute video below tells how to build our homopolar motor kit.





http://www.stirlingengine.com/product/93