thermal expansion /contraction will hopefully be of minimal importance to this design, but that's what prototyping for, right?
This is rough sketch of my initial wheel/motor design.
Legend:
- A solid hemisphere of a diamagnetic material, approximately 1/4 from the equator there is a band of inset permanent magnets oriented so like poles are facing each other.
- As #1, but with a hole at it's pole to allow a mounting strut to pass through
- A spherical casing containing a relatively strong permanent magnet, and 16 individually switched electromagnets.
#1 and #2 are of equal diameter, #3 is scaled to be significantly larger than the hole at the pole of #2, but smaller than the internal diameter of #1 & #2. All coils are to be secured in a solid material(such as epoxy) to prevent unwanted movement. Once system is verified to work correctly the hemispheres will be permanently welded together preventing #3 from escaping.
The general idea is that the diamagnetic field created by the wheel casing in reaction to the large permanent magnet be sufficient to levitate 1/4-1/2 the total weight of the rover.
Expansion of various materials to be tested, and proper spacing tolerances apllied (such as a 1/32" gap around the inset magnets, total size of the spheres also taking these variances into account, internal filling materials being spongy enough to expand and contract in a predictable manner).
16 isn't a number I'm set on for the number of coils and inset magnets, it just happens to be a number easily divisible by binary computing systems and spaced around a circular pattern.
The as-yet mostly undetailed main-body design I've tentatively listed as cylindrical. The idea being that such a design allows us to wind an antenna and induction coil along it's length, have cameras mounted on either side, and to use th batteries themselves as a small insulating layer and heat-sink for the primary components.
Turning will be handled tank-style with each wheel or set of wheels rotating at a different speed, or even direction. hemispherical wheels are also not something I'm set on, my initial sketches having fairly standard pie-plate wheel designs.
more after work(which I'm already late for...)
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