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HDD -Motor ---> LEDs

I pulled a spindle motor out of an old HDD, and it has four gold plated spots on a piece of flexible PC Bd glued to the surface that faces outside. I measure about 4 ohms between any 3 of the spots, and about 2 ohms between the three and the 4th spot (the DMM isn't very accurate at those low ohms readings). These lead me to believe that I've got the classic three phase windings.

It has permanent magnets so when I spin it, a LED across any 2 of the 3 spots will light up. Coooool.

Now, should I connect the diodes up in wye or delta? I've been doing it delta. I think I'll use the LEDs anti-parallel, without the rectifiers. But if i do use rectifiers, should I use schottkys? Thanks.

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My email address is whitelisted. *All* email sent to it goes directly to the trash unless you add NOSPAM in the Subject: line with other stuff. alondra101 hotmail.com Don't be ripped off by the big book dealers. Go to the URL that will give you a choice and save you money(up to half).
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You'll be glad you did! Just when you thought you had all this figured out, the gov't changed it:
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Reply to
Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun, th
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Sounds like the motor is connected in 3 phase Y with the common also brought out (for unipolar drive). If you want to use it as a generator, ignore the center tap and connect diodes to each of the legs. Six diodes total - each leg connects to a diode cathode and anodes all connected to ground, each leg connects to cathode and anodes tied together to +. Just like an automobile alternator. Schottky diodes would help.

I used to have a 12V rated bipolar step motor that I connected similar to this and added a crank to spin it. made a nice emergency flashlight. I worked in the center of the building and the emergency lights were a bit unreliable in the occasional blackout.

"Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun, the Dark Remover"" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com...

Reply to
Oppie

brought

connect

diode

cathode and

Eh? Anodes to +???

to

bit

Yeah, I found this:

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But I think it will take a lot faster turning than a hand crank to make this one light 'em up. They recommend super capacitors for storing the current vur I don't see how that will help much. The turkey 'Forever Flashlight' i bought has a super cap, and it glows brightly as long as is't being shaken, but runs poorly off the cap alone. It's just another poorly perfoming product, just like this "2 in 1 stripper cutter" I bought at the hardware store. I got it home and found that it also strips some of the strands of the 22 AWG wire, along with the insulation. Also the cutter sucks. It basically just sucks! So I took it back to get my money back, and they told me that there's a sign on the tool cage that says, "no refunds on tools". Sorrrry. Grrrr! >:-(

So I spent a couple rounds of emails getting the custoner service person to believe me that it was defective. They're supposed to send another to me shortly, but I think I'll just be stuck with _two_ pieces of crap. Try

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if you want to see the turkey, but just don't buy one!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming....

wrote

plated

about 2

at

the

the 3

doing it

rectifiers.

Reply to
Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun, th

Couldn't read the article as I'm not a subscriber

The motor I used was a 1.8 degree step motor and hand cranking at about 2 rev/sec worked OK. ========== "Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun, the Dark Remover"" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com...

Reply to
Oppie

You must have the coolest junk box...but what is the point of your questions? what is the objective? Or am I being too pragmatic here?

"Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun, the Dark Remover"" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com...

Reply to
DAW

I'm not a subscriber, but maybe Google is, and Google can read them, when you do a search. Search for Our Fantastic Human-Powered LED Torches.

about 2

I used a door drive motor out of a defunct CD drive. What's nice is that it has a gear train that must have a ratio of 40 to 1. So I can easily spin the motor at a few hundred RPM. Problem ias that me fingers become raw after a short time!

wrote

make

the

'Forever

as

Reply to
Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun, th

The 'coolest junk box' is a scrapped 0.5GB hard disk from an old '486 PC. The neodymium whatever magnets make awesome refrigerator magnets, or should I say file cabinet magnets. But here's what I said in the other followup:

"[Google] Search for Our Fantastic Human-Powered LED Torches."

You shall then become aware of what can be done with a motor and a few LEDs.

wrote

plated

about 2

at

the

the 3

doing it

rectifiers.

Reply to
Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun, th

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