Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Solar turntable with unusual motor
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Solar turntable with unusual motor
This is a very common and cheap display turntable sold by many Chinese vendors. It has a generous four amorphous silicon solar panels and a motor/gearbox arrangement built in the same case style as a clock motor, but with very different internal construction.
It takes very little light to get the motor turning, and it is self-starting. There's no specific direction, so you can manually stall and reverse its direction if desired.
While reassembling the unit I discovered that there are two gearing options. The standard one with one revolution roughly every ten seconds, and a much faster one. You simply leave out one of the gears and move the other into a different position.
The faster mode is a bit too fast for most turntable applications, and also reduces the torque available.
The circuitry is very pleasing. It's based on a classic bistable multivibrator, but with two coils as the loads. There seems to be a natural feedback interaction between the coils and the magnets on the spinning rotor.
The motor mechanism can be removed easily from the turntable if you just need an ultra-low current solar motor.
If you place bits of dichroic mirror and cut glass crystals on this turntable it will project beams of light around the room when placed in a sunny position. Just be careful not to load it too heavily as the gears and bearings are plastic and will wear quickly with a high load.
These units are widely available on places like AliExpress (not a sponsor). If you search for these they may also pop up in the bundle deal section.
This is the listing I bought this one from:-
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007244986343.html
If you enjoy my videos and wish to support the channel to keep it independent, you can do so by supporting me on Patreon. I release videos without adverts for critique and feedback on Patreon as soon as they have been made. I also release Patreon-only backstage videos when I'm working on shows.
https://www.patreon.com/bigclive
Alternatively, for a single contribution you can use PayPal:-
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/bigclive
#ElectronicsCreators
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2CwLx-EmUQ
It takes very little light to get the motor turning, and it is self-starting. There's no specific direction, so you can manually stall and reverse its direction if desired.
While reassembling the unit I discovered that there are two gearing options. The standard one with one revolution roughly every ten seconds, and a much faster one. You simply leave out one of the gears and move the other into a different position.
The faster mode is a bit too fast for most turntable applications, and also reduces the torque available.
The circuitry is very pleasing. It's based on a classic bistable multivibrator, but with two coils as the loads. There seems to be a natural feedback interaction between the coils and the magnets on the spinning rotor.
The motor mechanism can be removed easily from the turntable if you just need an ultra-low current solar motor.
If you place bits of dichroic mirror and cut glass crystals on this turntable it will project beams of light around the room when placed in a sunny position. Just be careful not to load it too heavily as the gears and bearings are plastic and will wear quickly with a high load.
These units are widely available on places like AliExpress (not a sponsor). If you search for these they may also pop up in the bundle deal section.
This is the listing I bought this one from:-
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007244986343.html
If you enjoy my videos and wish to support the channel to keep it independent, you can do so by supporting me on Patreon. I release videos without adverts for critique and feedback on Patreon as soon as they have been made. I also release Patreon-only backstage videos when I'm working on shows.
https://www.patreon.com/bigclive
Alternatively, for a single contribution you can use PayPal:-
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/bigclive
#ElectronicsCreators
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2CwLx-EmUQ
View all episodes
By bigclivedotcomThis is a very common and cheap display turntable sold by many Chinese vendors. It has a generous four amorphous silicon solar panels and a motor/gearbox arrangement built in the same case style as a clock motor, but with very different internal construction.
It takes very little light to get the motor turning, and it is self-starting. There's no specific direction, so you can manually stall and reverse its direction if desired.
While reassembling the unit I discovered that there are two gearing options. The standard one with one revolution roughly every ten seconds, and a much faster one. You simply leave out one of the gears and move the other into a different position.
The faster mode is a bit too fast for most turntable applications, and also reduces the torque available.
The circuitry is very pleasing. It's based on a classic bistable multivibrator, but with two coils as the loads. There seems to be a natural feedback interaction between the coils and the magnets on the spinning rotor.
The motor mechanism can be removed easily from the turntable if you just need an ultra-low current solar motor.
If you place bits of dichroic mirror and cut glass crystals on this turntable it will project beams of light around the room when placed in a sunny position. Just be careful not to load it too heavily as the gears and bearings are plastic and will wear quickly with a high load.
These units are widely available on places like AliExpress (not a sponsor). If you search for these they may also pop up in the bundle deal section.
This is the listing I bought this one from:-
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007244986343.html
If you enjoy my videos and wish to support the channel to keep it independent, you can do so by supporting me on Patreon. I release videos without adverts for critique and feedback on Patreon as soon as they have been made. I also release Patreon-only backstage videos when I'm working on shows.
https://www.patreon.com/bigclive
Alternatively, for a single contribution you can use PayPal:-
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/bigclive
#ElectronicsCreators
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2CwLx-EmUQ
It takes very little light to get the motor turning, and it is self-starting. There's no specific direction, so you can manually stall and reverse its direction if desired.
While reassembling the unit I discovered that there are two gearing options. The standard one with one revolution roughly every ten seconds, and a much faster one. You simply leave out one of the gears and move the other into a different position.
The faster mode is a bit too fast for most turntable applications, and also reduces the torque available.
The circuitry is very pleasing. It's based on a classic bistable multivibrator, but with two coils as the loads. There seems to be a natural feedback interaction between the coils and the magnets on the spinning rotor.
The motor mechanism can be removed easily from the turntable if you just need an ultra-low current solar motor.
If you place bits of dichroic mirror and cut glass crystals on this turntable it will project beams of light around the room when placed in a sunny position. Just be careful not to load it too heavily as the gears and bearings are plastic and will wear quickly with a high load.
These units are widely available on places like AliExpress (not a sponsor). If you search for these they may also pop up in the bundle deal section.
This is the listing I bought this one from:-
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007244986343.html
If you enjoy my videos and wish to support the channel to keep it independent, you can do so by supporting me on Patreon. I release videos without adverts for critique and feedback on Patreon as soon as they have been made. I also release Patreon-only backstage videos when I'm working on shows.
https://www.patreon.com/bigclive
Alternatively, for a single contribution you can use PayPal:-
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/bigclive
#ElectronicsCreators
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2CwLx-EmUQ