how do you build and electric motor for a school project we have to use a D battery for the power!!!???

Question

project

one more thing to know is i CAN'T! use a kit!!

Answer 1

One way to build a nice motor for a project would be to buy a kit. The best kit I have seen on the internet comes from a company called Science First. It is a small DC motor kit that runs off a AA battery. More accurately, this kit is a universal motor since it could technically run off AC or DC, but I digress. You could easily tape some wires to a D battery and connect to the battery terminals (since the D battery will obviously not fit in the AA slot). It comes with some nice instructions and simple experiments to try (only $4.95 too).

Or, if you have to build your own from scratch... you can look at the instructions in the second link to build a REALLY simple motor.

Also, you can read this very good howstuffworks.com link (3rd link) about simple DC motors. Basically, a DC motor sends electric current through a wire coil which creates a magnetic field through the center of the coil. If you have a permanent magnet nearby, the coil's magnetic field will try to line up with the permanent magnet's magnetic field. When the coil's magnetic field just about lines up with the permanent magnet, you need to switch the connections such that the electric current will flow the other way through the wire coil (and thus switch the direction of the magnetic field from the coil). Then, the wire coil will keep trying to line up with permanent magnet, yet never succeed. This will make the coil spin continuously, and so you have a motor. The howstuffworks.com article has pictures and animations that probably show this more clearly than I can explain it.

Answer 2

Try this link:

http://sci-toys.com/scitoys/scitoys/electro/electro.html#motor

Basically, you make a loop of enamel insulated copper wire and sand off the insulation on one half of the wire so that as the motor spins, it does not have power for half of the time.You put a real magnet underneath it so that when power is connected, the coils turns to try to line up with the magnet. The site above explains it much more clearly.

Answer 3

RadioShack sells little kits where you can wind your own motor (and it can use a D-cell). There are other online-kits available, also:

http://www.sciencefirst.com/vw_prdct_mdl.asp?prdct_mdl_cd=10135

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