How come the windings in a motor appear to be uninsulated wire?Or is it clear insulation?Help me understand.?

Question

Doesn't it need to be insulated to make the current go round and round in circles?

Answer 1

The wire is completely coated with clear enamel. The enamel is tough enough to withstand a lot of heat and some 'rubbing' due to vibration, but it doesn't last forever. Enamel 'holes' causing shorts is one of the major causes of motor failure.

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Answer 2

There is definitely insulation. Some are a copper-colored varnish that is hard to tell from the wire's own color or even a clear varnish baked on. Trust me they are all insulated or the motor will not turn.

Answer 3

It's coated in a clear resin called 'Shellac' which is an insulator.

(Shellac is an organic, natural finish created by the lac bug found in Indo-China in places like the country of India. Removing it from trees where the lac bug nests, dissolved and purified to different levels depending on its end use. Shellac is more flexible than lacquer and will not crack as does lacquer. Shellac is used in many industries such as electric motor winding coating ...From..
http://www.arslanianrestoration.com/faq.cfm

Answer 4

Negative (get it? negative, electricity. It's a joke). Current actually needs a conductor to flow. Insulation prevents current flow, or in the case of wires, causes current to flow only in the direction desired.

The way a motor works is, the current flowing through the wires causes a magnetic or electromagetic rotor to spin. I could go into this really indepth, but suffice it to say, the wires need to be bare in order to provide the flow of current. The cool thing about this is, generators work the exact same way. In fact, if you could spin the rotor, instead of current turning the rotor, the rotor would cause current to flow out of the motor/generator in the opposite direction.