Collaborate Disseminate
Electrostatic motors are now common in MEMS applications, but researchers at the University of Wisconsin and spinoff C-Motive Technologies have brought macroscale electrostatic motors back. [via MSN/WSJ] While the first …read more Continue reading Electrostatic Motors are Making a Comeback
The average Hackaday user could probably piece together a rough model of a simple DC motor with what they’ve got kicking around the parts bin. We imagine some of you …read more Continue reading Drone and High Voltage Spin Up This DIY Corona Motor
If you want something to move with electricity, odds are you’ll be using magnets. Deep inside every servo, every motor, and every linear actuator is a magnet and some coils of wire. There is another way of making things move, though: electrostatics. These are usually seen in tiny MEMS devices, and now we have tiny little electrostatic speakers making their way into phones and other miniature devices.
For [Nathann]’s Hackaday Prize entry, he’s building electrostatic actuators on the cheap, and not just tiny ones, either. He’s building ‘human’ scale electrostatic devices.
The reason electrostatic devices are usually very small is …read more
Continue reading Better Motion Through Electrostatic Actuators
Most of the electric motors we see these days are of the electromagnetic variety, and for good reason: they’re powerful. But there’s a type of motor that was invented before the electromagnetic one, and of which there are many variations. Those are motors that run on high voltage, and the attraction and repulsion of charge, commonly known as electrostatic motors.
Ben Franklin — whose electric experiments are most frequently associated with flying a kite in a thunderstorm — built and tested one such high-voltage motor. It wasn’t very powerful, but was good enough for him to envision using it as …read more
Continue reading Ben Franklin’s Weak Motor and Other Forgotten Locomotion