Posted: 09:33pm 12 Sep 2005

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First you need to register. Its easy and free and means you can upload images and files , etc. Once registered you get these extra buttons on the screen, one of them is the image upload button.

Click on it to pop up a screen where you can browse for and upload your image. Couple of tips - Keep the pictures small, say 800 pixels wide. The discussion board will reject anything over 500k ( I dont know how to increase that limit yet ). Any only send GIF or JPG files. You can use Paint ( comes with Windows ) to do this.

If you stuff it up, dont worry. You can do a preview before posting to see if it looks ok. And if you totaly stuff it up, just send me an email and I'll delete the message for you.

Posted: 01:06am 13 Sep 2005

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Re Matt Lyons Neo rotors (previous board)

What do you expect the magnets would cost you for one rotor if you did the config you’re talking about (56 30x10x5mm neo’s)?
60amps @ 14v ~ 800+ watts is darn good we all hope you succeed, what would you estimate the average power would be. 
I'm planning something similar and also toying with the idea of using a metal rotor, the F&P stators are excellent but the standard rotors are average and inhibits potential, bellow is a pic of an old flimsy cake tin though I'm think I can get new thicker ones from department stores maybe these might work, anyone got other ideas?

Create- Believe –Achieve

Posted: 01:44am 13 Sep 2005

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We played around with using the F&P as a motor to drive a solar car about 6 years ago. This is our test rig, with a standard hub.

The stator on test was rewound with 4mm wire ( yellow insulation ). To increase the output power we had a new hub cast from aluminium.

You can see it here with the new rare earth magnets getting glued in place.

And on the car. The motor had great potential, but we gave up after a few months, had too many problems with the drive circuit, kept popping power mosfets. Ended up using a DC motor and drive chain.

I think Matt is on holidays. He was going to contact me when he got back with his latest developements.

Posted: 11:16am 13 Sep 2005

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Nice hub, did you lathe it out of billet aluminium?

Steel intensifies the flux to the coils and aluminium does not have the same properties, maybe the use of steel laminations inside the alloy rotor?

Posted: 11:43pm 13 Sep 2005

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That hub was cast and machined. The second one we made had steel laminations embedded.

Keep looking into your cake tin hub. Especially at ways of making it stronger. I did look into using steel pipe, a lasercut end plate and 2 stacked stators to get some serious power. If I were to use 3mm thick magnets, and have a 1mm air gap, I would have needed a pipe with a internal diameter of 262mm. Well nothing was close, all I could find was 250id or 300id. The 250id pipe has a od of 273mm. It might be possible to machine it out to 262mm, leaving a 5.5mm wall thickness, nice and strong. Cost stopped me, but still its an idea.

I wonder if there is a car or small truck brake drum of about that size. 3mm thick magnets mean you need a 262mm id, 6mm magnets = 268mm, etc. 

Posted: 12:33am 14 Sep 2005

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It made about 1.5kW, a couple of HP. These solar cars are very light so 2 HP will drive it at over 100kmh.

We built our own controller. Back then we didn't really know enough about what we were doing.

Posted: 11:24am 14 Sep 2005

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Nah, motor in a box somewhere at one of the solar team members  home.

I thought about buying a old Nifty Fifty motor bike and fitting an electric motor to work with the petrol motor. There is enough room under the seat to put a couple of batteries. Oatley Electronics sell a 450 watt motor for about $70 that would have enough power.

You could use the electric motor in traffic, then start up the petrol motor for longer streaches.

Posted: 07:06am 14 Nov 2005

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I want to buy that motor. will you sell it to me? I built a solar powered bike that worked ok but I want a hub motor. I have a great source for frequency drives too. Do you have the Magnets?