How To Make a Electric Generator? This is For a School Project.

The broken Motor contains most of the parts you may need.

The Curved Mangents would be ideal, the copper for the windings is already there.

What is actually wrong with the motor? do you know?

If you have it apart check the windings with a multimeter to check if the insulation is OK and the windings are intact. If Yes. all you need is a handle and the wire up some terminals.

If No, most of the parts can be used for your project anyway, especially the magnets and the frame.

Regards,
Sapper

Get a radiator cooling fan motor out of an old car...your local scrap yard will give you one for free if you say it's for a school project, it will probably need gearing up to spin it fast but should easilly generate a few volts for demonstration/micro wind gen purposes.
Del

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/51544681/Hand_Operated_AC_DC_Generator.html

Hello brentwfsmith:

you may find a search for Trevor Bayliss the Inventor of the wind up Radio might be of use.

I seem to recall he started off the design after realising that a motor can also be a generator.

As has been said the motor you have, unless it is seriously burned, will have most of the parts you need. Including the curved magnets. And, of course find another motor the same make etc, and you will most likely make one good motor!

Good luck and tell us how you get on, OK?

Hello again brentwfsmith:

I enclose the address for a search page I was using. I searched for, "making a small generator from a motor".

http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLJ_enGB294GB294&q=making+a+small+generator+from+a+motor

Hope it helps.

I would like to thank you all for you help. I should have also said that the motor I do have is just a shell with the magnets in it and that is all.

Hello brentwfsmith:

as has been said you can always pop along to a car breakers and tell them it is for a school project. Get a working motor to boot!

Is it that you want to show that a generator can be maid from a motor, or do you want to use it for a practical purpose, like charging batteries say?

Magnets can often fit other motors of the same make/kind anyway.

Do you know where the motor shell you have came from? A car starter, vacuum cleaner, or is it smaller?

What I have found in teaching adults is that I must be as practical as possible. Other wise, they just don't get it or get turned off, or plain shut down. So I do not want just to turn on a little light that is smaller than a flashlight bulb. What I was hoping to do was make a generator big enough to turn on a full size house light bulb, or maybe even a wire it up to a plug in and turn something that they might use often. So yes I would like to use it on some practical purpose. I also do have a way to turn the magnets or the wire coils.

As for the motor shell I have it was a blower motor from a car. The magnets seem to me to be quite storng. How ever my son said that speaker magnets are stronger.

I am 12 but I wish you luck sorry I can't help

Thank you for your thoughts.