How to design a PCB Motor?

[@Simon_Rafferty]

A couple of things that might improve the motor design. First, add a ferrous washer behind the magnets. This effectively shorts out the magnetic field on the top surface (where it's doing nothing) and increases the flux density on the face adjacent to the coils. Second, the torque the motor produces is inversely proportional to the 'slip angle' - the max distance between the magnetic poles of a coil & a magnet. You can reduce the distance by increasing the number of poles. Since you are using a multi-layer board, I would consider, instead of stacking the coil layers to give more turns, have one layer per phase - so on the top layer, all six coils connect in parallel (or series). On the second layer, the coils are rotated 1/4 phase - and connected in parallel - and so on. Then you switch the layers rather than the coils on one layer. That way, you quadruple the number of poles on the stator, dividing the max distance between a magnet pole and an electromagnet pole by a factor of 4 (for a 4 layer board) - you would have to drive it as a 4 phase motor too of course. To increase the number of permanent magnet poles, you could either do it the same way as a stepper motor, or use radial bar magnets to pack more into the circle. Lastly, instead of using a washer on the top face of the rotor, you could stack another stator - and use the other set of magnetic poles. The more layers in the stack, the less of the field is 'wasted'.

[@shubhamkhare8749]

3:50 - 4:05 didn't realize that the sound is background music sick beat bro

[@TheJay6621]

so much details to be considered .. hats off

[@halbishton64]

nice video dude, just a pointer, there is a fillet tool in the sketch environment in fusion as well as and offset tool.

[@ronintate770]

Instablaster...

[@halbishton64]

@@ronintate770 ???...

[@ashokvinoth2011]

Dear Carl, If you use Cadence Allegro PCB Editor with Productivity tool box option you can make these coil in single click which actually help you spent more time board bringup

[@Muzkaw]

You may want to take a look at filet functions, linear patterns and various other functions that would have cut down your drawing time by at least 10 folds ! An awesome project none the less !

[@2allbclear]

Another function to look into, the offset command. Most 2d drawing tools have one. It would have saved you hundreds of clicks.

[@dosgos]

That was impressive geometry work!

[@chaitanyasindagi1237]

@Carl Bugeja if you click on a track and click Tab in Altium it selects all connected traces on that layer. Tab again selects on all other layers too. Works on things other than copper layers too

[@droidclone]

So this made my head hurt. I'll watch it a few more times though and hopefully I will understand what is really happening. Great job and thank you.

[@fzigunov]

So no calculations to estimate available torque? Just print the PCB and pray?

[@bitsurfer0101]

Can you show how to make those calculations?

[@Gabriel-no6wv]

Yeah, i am searching the way to do these calculations

[@fzigunov]

@@Gabriel-no6wv FEMM is a free (but limited) electromagnetics simulator. There's many other FEM simulators for electromagnetics, but most are paid unfortunately. =\

[@gendragongfly]

I would suggest you sandwich the rotor between two stators for extra torque, or just stack a whole bunch of them (stator > rotor > stator > rotor > stator) to make a powerful motor with a modular design :)

[@gabrielduarte413]

Awesome project! But did you come with some of the formulas that predicts the electro magnetic behavior of the coils, final inductance, etc?? Thanks anyway, thats the only channel that I see covering this topic

[@kreynolds1123]

im pretty sure non standard geometry is difficult at best to accurately model mathematically. To save time and energy its often best to simplify the model but overly simple models will perform very different than their real world versions.

[@kreynolds1123]

@@po1nt1776 every coil will ultimately perform different than an idealized coil. So many things to factor. Skin effect, proximity effect, stray capacitance, magnetic permeability, electrical conductuctivity, area turns thickness gap distance, driven frequency ect ect. In general, yes it is very likely an actual coil will not perform as well as the model used.

[@michaelmilberger9013]

@@kreynolds1123 There is software for this kind of thing.

[@antonwinter630]

i normally watch youtube at 2 times speed, but for you, i had to put it to normal. you move fast!

[@hanswurstusbrachialus5213]

@Carl Bugeja There is an easier way to do your spirals with the use of offsets. draw the shape you want as a continous line. cut the shape in half on the MOST straigt sides, that are PARALLEL! copy paste the half and move it parallel to the line of cut by the width of the gap between circuits. mirror this half on the other side of the cut line. do an offset of the first half by the width of the circuit. do the same on the other side. connect both middle mating points. delete one of both open loops (for easier proceed) select the loop and continue to do offsets of it until you got enough loops. the endpoints of each loop wont be connected (this is necessary because fusion cant offset doubleloops) just grab an endpoint.. move the mouse just a litte and the point will connect to the other point on same spot (turns black) if you now close the loops on both ends with an additional line you will see your coil :) hope this will help.. if not.. ask. Hint: you need to delete some constraints while doing this or errors will occur..

[@RajendranathBehera]

Awesome work. Loved it. It is a revolutionary innovation of motor mechanism. Keep testing.

[@lastnamefirstname9972]

This is really cool! I would be really interested whether you could use a similar technique to make a pcb guitar pickup! Now that would be a cool project. Love the work

[@TheBaconWizard]

Came here while researching exactly that :)

[@Scrogan]

While they’re not going to be PCB motors, I’m planning a foray into motor designing in the coming months, for which I’ll be buying some cold-rolled silicon electrical steel among other things. I wonder if a layer of this on the opposite side of your motor would improve its coupling? Or perhaps a specially-shaped layer between the rotor and stator. Nice video, real good work with those swooping traces.

[@InfinionExperiments]

Nice, what type of motor are you going for? And yeah I bet if he used some shielding, it would help with flux shaping for his coreless motor. Good luck on sourcing the silicon steel, if you can't find a supplier with a low enough minimum order quantity you might be able to get started with some plate sheet foil or shim stock.

[@Scrogan]

Infinion Experiments: The type of motor is a trade secret aside from being a radial-flux BLDC. After scouring the net for a while I found a couple of links to individual sheets of this stuff on AliExpress, and hopefully I can get it laser-cut or waterjet-cut in order to shape the layers properly.

[@InfinionExperiments]

@@Scrogan Ah cool, radial-flux BLDC, that's actually what I meant by type, so thank you for sharing. I'm going the other way and designing a die to do metal stamping of laminations for an SRM type. Good luck!

[@ahmedabdelrahman829]

Very big like and i was chocked when the video ended without the motor running so Subscribe , and I'm waiting for the next video

[@ulamss5]

Near the end you had to join the 3 pairs of opposite coils - does that mean you need a minimum of 3 surfaces (2 layers of PCBs with 1 surface unused) so these do not collide?

[@naterthot]

This was a really clear and understandable tutorial. Thank you!

[@oraszuletik]

Waiting for the linear motor. I'm working with machines which are utilizing linear motors made with FR4 movable parts, but, as I see your efforts, they are available for DIYers too.

[@fgarza]

Great explanation, just one question... Could this be used as an efficient generator?, what would be the main things to look for to use as a generator, for example should you use Delta configuration or star? Should you use double PCB coil as stator or double magnets as stator? Sorry for the amount of questions but I'd like to build some tests.

[@moses5407]

Are you available for pcb stator design work for an axial flux motor??

[@robertoestrella3065]

Hello Carl good day... im really appreciate your design... may i know what software you use?

[@frankpace5510]

You said there are plenty of online scripts for these. Can you add any of these to your description or make a video on that?

[@billyjukes832]

Try a sandwich axial flux PCB motor and triangular magnets (same shape as your coils if you can get the). Higher flux density and 2 bearings to support the shaft. You might need thinner magnets though.

[@boximgable]

You have very cool idea!

[@padmalayarawal3091]

Awesome work as always. Keep it up 👍

[@BillDWP]

Can you print an axial flux motor?

[@NicozStrat]

Thank you so much Carl

[@ant6516]

If you dont mind, what is design software you use in this video? Is this a cad software (eg autocad) or "special" design software? Thanks

[@10RexTheWolf01]

OK what is this, computer science? I'm kinda curious about this and want to know how can I get started and classes I can get into to learn this.

[@Salaheddine_sai]

nice work but i wonder if you can make some videos about boards designing in altium and thank you

[@bilalalimami1317]

waiting the motor when it come, thank you

[@TheNormalUniverse]

Hey that was awesome! Thanks for sharing

[@MichielvanderMeulen]

What a stamina you have. I think with 3D modeling it could go much easier though.

[@nevermind6270]

Have you heard about OFFSET tool in Fusion360? Highly recommended, saves a lot of time

[@CarlBugeja]

It should! Thx for the tip! 🙂

[@TheStuartstardust]

Looking for this comment - would state same 👍

[@onebacon_]

Was thinking the same thing

[@olafberend8837]

Why don't you use a magnetic conduction plate on the other side of the rotor. This will rotate at the same rotor speed and therefor any re-magnetizing losses won't occur. But the magnetic flux is increased many times. Could be even increased by additional magnets on this magnetical return.

[@BriceFernandes]

Thank you for a great video! Very nice work on that layout.

[@lukaspfitscher8737]

Cool, can this be a good solution if using iron cores, and 8 layer pcb + magnets on both sides? 🤔 wires could go trough shaft

[@myrmidon0]

It's very cool. Good explanation 👍

[@ketanmiyatra8529]

Excellent Works for Great Designed idea!💠

[@Colt357TW]

question, if you use only two magnets, wouldnt it be faster?

[@JCT-]

Thanks for the video. May I ask why did you connect the 3 bottom red coils together?

[@hychap]

Brilliant.. well done

[@ShawnyDsMusic]

Incredible video man! Love your approach. Great work.

[@metalcorekind]

as i watched this i've got an idea to increase the tourque on your motor. did you tried to stack multiple pcbs on top of each other?

[@angappamegatech6530]

Great knowledge and good video

[@AKATenn]

have you considered gluing copper wire on top of the traces to add more windings?

[@younisthanoon8711]

What is the name and it's function of the software you have deal with it?

[@astesla369]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge bro

[@MrNilsFrederik]

Do you sell these motors somewhere?

[@ShopperPlug]

How strong is the magnetic field?

[@kargeor]

You should write a fusion script that automatically generates the path. Also fusion can now design PCBs so you can do the whole design there.

[@CarlBugeja]

It can be done also 🙂 I mentioned it in the video but it's very difficult to get it to make super compact coils if the size varies

[@rayceeya8659]

Sorry if this was explained in a previous video, but what are these used for? They seem highly inefficient and they must have a very specific use case.

[@CarlBugeja]

You are right they are inefficient.. But manufactering them should be easier and cheaper, so that keeps me motivated to test more and keep improving them. But So far I haven't been able to use them in any other application but there are many other things that still needs to be tested.. So maybe one day I could use them in for example tiny robots, which is my main use for them. There are other applications for them like small satellites, etc. I also saw someone making a pov display with them which was absolutely cool

[@rayceeya8659]

@@CarlBugeja Well , I can think of one, and only one so far. DLP projectors. DLPs require a spinning color disk. Only application I can think of though. Most of those pocket projectors just shoot the light source through an LDC. DLPs require a color wheel, or something like it, Perfect application for your motor. Low torque, step motor accuracy.

[@davidavery3182]

Nice Stuff, did you read any books that helped you understand the design of Gauss fields or general motor design?

[@TheLarsUrban]

Do you know any good altium tutorials? How did you learn it?

[@51vikram]

Hi Carl , How do we design a PCB linear motor .

[@miteshsolanki8566]

Good Work I want to know more on this project work.

[@Clark-Mills]

Random (probably ignorant ;) thoughts: More layers? Hole for iron slug "core"? Would any of these help or am I showing my ignorance. Obviously great work you are doing, amazing in fact. Thanks for sharing... magic.

[@CarlBugeja]

Iron core would help for sure but I am trying to use it as my last resort to to and keep its costs low.. Ps. I have already tried a 6layer motor 🙂

[@ezequielsanuy8895]

Para yener mas potencia podrias poner el disco de imanes entre dos placas de estator una de cada lado del rotor o disco.

[@ASDDlojio]

love your videos! so informative, thank you

[@mmsti7867]

Which software did u use for schematic and pcb?

[@EEBBSamarJain]

At 4:24 how did you do that 3D view? I'm actually learning altium so I don't know how to do it.

[@kodguerrero]

Great idea for a build kit! Are you putting a mini-cap on the arm to maintain power stability?

[@erikbertram6019]

Hey I just found your channel and already love it! I'm studying in an RF direction, but Ive always loved power electronics and electromagnetics! I saw that you tried to increase the torque of your PCB motors using a ferrite sheet, but that it produced to many eddy current which made it heat up. Have you considered cutting smaller concentric rings out off the ferrite sheet, a bit like in a laminated core to prevent eddy currents? I imagine it would make the process more complex, but maybe worth a try. Moreover the sheet is very thin, are you sure you're not having hysteresis issues instead of eddy currents? Anyway, best of luck with your awesome motor design!

[@Willy0034]

Do you know if with KiCad is possible to import a "layer design"?

[@Helectronics]

Really good video!

[@jordanco]

Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge!

[@noutram1000]

Any idea why 3 phase motor drivers don't generate pure sine waves? Is it a CPU/cost thing? (I would have thought even a stored value Sin-wave-table would have been better than a linear ramp but don't know for sure...)

[@freelancer917]

Very interesting! Do you also do EMF simulations, or is it not worth it?

[@ababreu]

Muito Bom! Parabéns pelo conteúdo!

[@jupa7166]

I was wondering how it would perform in a multi-stage american-style electricity generator - it's easier to produce multiple "coils" and connect them than all the hassle with epoxy that basically limits the number of stages to one. What do you think?

[@chiragsharma5624]

what software you use sir

[@CarlBugeja]

Altium 🙂 take a look at the description

[@shimondoodkin]

how strrngth is calculated? like area times ohm to tela to newton o mg how you connected the layers was not clear

[@rahulseth7485]

It's a great video once again. I didn't get the part in the commutation process where you describe the three waveforms A, B, C . C being the back EMF, and also how are we going to design the circuit to drive that PCB motor? Given the fact a ramp signal is to be generated?

[@CarlBugeja]

Take a look at this video 🙂 kzbin.info/www/bejne/apTHh6OljLl2lcU

[@abdulqadir2979]

I have some concerns about motor PCB.

[@cheri758]

that's awesome man! i like this project, hope so you will upgrade the deising and you use more bearings to make the rotor spin more stable, and more efficient

[@DeejayGrafixx]

Thank you carl,this is the componet i need to build a microscopinc bio 3d printer to arrange sequence cells like a pic and place machine but for dna..goodwork

[@jacksmith-se8lo]

H together, it is nice to learn how to make a spiral, but I'm getting interested in the oval coil shape who can help me to know what I should modify and how to get it

[@hardikshah4825]

Sir, from where did you learn all these ?? I am eagerly waiting for the reply Please do reply !!

[@Zuurik_x]

Have you tried the fusions electonics workspace?

[@a2902793]

awesome work, can you make a video about the linear pcbs as well? I know they are similar but it would be very kind of you to show in details what changes you've made, thanks!

[@stanbecquart3839]

How much do you charge for help helping someone

[@45llamas]

6:07 I think Star has more torque since the Kv value would be lower

[@TeraVoltLabs]

Spectacular!

[@TheBrancos]

Really enjoying your videos and learning quite a bit from them. I was wondering if you have any suggestions on how to get started? I want to eventually be able to make a pcb motor like you did, but I feel i am lacking on the basics. Any suggestions on to get started?

[@CarlBugeja]

I suggest to start by making a esc for a normal off the shelf brushless motor first.. That will help you understand how brushless motors works first

[@TheBrancos]

@@CarlBugeja i am definitely going to try that, lets see what I am able to make and learn. Thanks again!

[@maheshmustapure7668]

I am unable to understand how he connected the different layers with upper and lower layer windings if any one can explain the plzz , thank you

[@jonasaskenobis]

Great video, thank you for sharing

[@ayushkhandelwal15]

Maximum speed we can have in this pcb size also what about the troque

[@micky6045]

Yeah...good question....Carl you were silent on the speed of The PCB motor

[@designwithtoast7136]

How did you get around the DXF to copper layer import issue? Is this something that only Altium is capable of achieving, been trying to achieve this in eagle & KiCad to no avail.

[@ProtonOne11]

Circuitmaker, the free version from Altium, does import DXF into the PCB file without any issues. Just did a quick test with a spiral DXF, and it worked as expected. Sometimes needs a bit of trial and error, to get the right scale (metric/imperial...), but it seems to work perfectly fine for me.

[@Nono-hk3is]

Very cool, thank you!

[@hoofheartedicemelted296]

Great music, dazzling visuals, sexy italian accuent, 5 social media contact points. His camera ( don't know why he thinks anyone gives a **** about what camera he uses ) and secondary camera, his lighting setup, his magnifying lamp, his caliper and his multi-meter and even his friend's music. All these things are for his benefit. Not yours. His. And not forgetting his links to sponsors. Did he leave a link to gerber files? Does he give any files away for those who are supporting him and following him. No. Diddly squat. Does he leave a Patreon? Of course he does. How else are you going to pay him for nothing!!

[@hennarkilsen1389]

Great Video!

[@jure551]

Do you maybe know what kind of power can you expect from such a motor? I would imagine that it has to be a pretty low amount since it does not have any ferromagnetic material for the stator core like a normal motor does. It would be interesting to see you do a few tests wit it 😊

[@CarlBugeja]

I have made multiple tests on this 🙂 I am expecting this motor to have similar results, the improvement is going to be purely mechanical for this version kzbin.info/aero/PLzP6_DqZoxc3qNnCqWT7R58rQC3nV30PN

[@sidster64]

Very good

[@lucaslucs3403]

so.. no footage of it working?

[@Nc0d3r]

Hi, I was thinking if you can do a tutorial about how to make rigid-flex PCB from zero, well, was trying to understand other tutorials but my altium Is verte diferent, and well, if you can put the two alternatives in the tutorial, the stiffener or the pure rigid-flex, thanks for the attention

[@CarlBugeja]

Take a look at these 2 videos kzbin.info/www/bejne/hmaUpZhnZ7SorpY kzbin.info/www/bejne/l6DNqX6IeceKgLs

[@juliusbohm7224]

Can you please make a video how too make a PCB heated bed? Your videos are really nice! ;-) Thank you very much

[@kashyapkoshti]

Why don't you try miniature pcb design like your flexi pcb but something like mini phone or some home use electronics