Constructing the Inductrack II magnetic levitation system and/or a linear induction motor

[arduino-novice]

I am always dreaming to make a working model of the two-side Inductrack II magnetic levitation system:

http://cegt201.bradley.edu/projects/proj2004/maglevt1/inductrack2.html

where the reaction plate is either a <=1mm thick aluminium or used-copper sheet. 

However I need help from someone who is experienced in electric machines to help me in the mathematical model of the project, and determine whether it will work, and particularly what is the critical speed for levitation, air gap size etc........

From my understanding, although the real-life vehicle will be able to levitate at 7km/h with rare-earth magnets, our scale model would need a much much much higher speed to induce enough currents on the track to achieve levitation.

This is why I propose here to replace each Halbach magnet array with an electromagnet fed with AC 50Hz.   The only problem is that to provide enough current induced on the aluminium reaction plate (which is slotted to stop parasitic eddy currents) while keeping the losses in electromagnets in an acceptable range.



The second (sub) project is to make a linear induction motor.  Essentially, it consists of these three things:

- a reaction plate on the track
- vehicle-mounted low-voltage three-phase distributed winding
- a 3-phase VVVF inverter with vector phase detection, based on an open-source inverter project and optimized for the linear motor we make


Could anyone give me some advice?


Also at the workshop, some members mentions that we can also talk to powerhouse, at the ground floor of King Edward Court.  Will they be familiar with the design of electric machines and inverters?  If so, how should we approach them?


Thanks!

Adurino novice

 

[Arron Dick]

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone else has upgraded/installed this version and any troubles they have had with it. I've had a few so far and I am seriously considering sticking with Windows 7 as I'm finding I have very little time for programming these days(please forgive my absence at maker-space the last month, my boss decided to go on holiday and not organize enough cover for her shifts, so I've been 50 odd hours a week and absolutely knackered)

I guess what I'm looking for here is someone to talk me into not giving up!

 

Arron Dick
Email:s_d...@yahoo.com
MSN:s_d...@hotmail.com

[Blair McBride]

On 05/05/12 20:39, arduino-novice wrote:
> Also at the workshop, some members mentions that we can also talk to
> powerhouse, at the ground floor of King Edward Court. Will they be
> familiar with the design of electric machines and inverters? If so, how
> should we approach them?

Walk down there and say hello :) I'm told they're a friendly bunch.
Though I'm not sure when they're usually around, Paul might know.

- Blair

[Blair McBride]

On 05/05/12 22:01, Arron Dick wrote:
> I am
> seriously considering sticking with Windows 7 as I'm finding I have very
> little time for programming these days

Fun fact: You can program on Windows too! Really! And you can do it with
free tools.

> I guess what I'm looking for here is someone to talk me into not giving up!

Why do you want to force yourself into using an OS that you admit
doesn't fit you? Just because Linux is open source doesn't necessarily
make it a superior OS. You obviously seem more comfortable on Windows.

(And before anyone gives me any flack for that, I'm a full-time open
source developer and I choose to use Linux every day. I also choose to
use Windows and other proprietary software every day.)

- Blair

[Worik Stanton]

On 05/05/12 22:01, Arron Dick wrote:

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone else has upgraded/installed this version and any troubles they have had with it. I've had a few so far and I am seriously considering sticking with Windows 7 as I'm finding I have very little time for programming these days(please forgive my absence at maker-space the last month, my boss decided to go on holiday and not organize enough cover for her shifts, so I've been 50 odd hours a week and absolutely knackered)

I really like and agree with Blair's reply. 

I am using Mint 12 with MATE which is a version of the old Gnome desktop (with panels, applets and menus).

I do have Ubuntu 12.04 installed on some machines but I cannot find my way around them.  I am too busy to learn a new system so on my main machine I use the above Mint/MATE and it is almost as good (for me) as Ubuntu used to be.

I guess what I'm looking for here is someone to talk me into not giving up!

 

As Blair said, why not just use Windows?  Personally I am a bit of a zealot, and I end up punishing myself - but I would not recommend that path to others!

cheers
W

Arron Dick
Email:s_d...@yahoo.com
MSN:s_d...@hotmail.com

-- 
It does not matter                             Worik Stanton
How much I dig                                 (03) 4730470
and I dig and dig                              021-1680650
But this hole just keeps getting deeper

[Thomi Richards]

WHAT??

People are being *reasonable* on the Internet!?? This must be stopped!

:)

--
Thomi Richards

[Reece Arnott]

On 07/05/12 10:31, Thomi Richards wrote:
> WHAT??
>
> People are being *reasonable* on the Internet!?? This must be stopped!
>

OK, I'll bite. I'm sort of bribing/threatening my parents by doing the
work of shopping around for a good laptop and putting Ubuntu 12.04 on it
to transition them off an old desktop computer with XP on it. This also
means that they are actually going to have to sort through all the
accumulated crap on the desktop machine and see what they want to
migrate to the laptop.

I've been telling them for a couple of years that if it was up to me,
their next OS would be Linux based because I'd be the one who would have
to support it.

Not really much threatening as Mum doesn't care as long as I'm there for
the first couple of days to show her which buttons to push to get email
and web access etc. and Dad just didn't want to irreversibly commit
himself :-)

The turning point came with Ubuntu 12.04 being a long term service
release that had support expanded to 5 years + their change of broadband
provider to actually have a sane cap (their old cap was just 1GB).

And actually on topic: I haven't had any issues with 12.04 except for a
couple of times when I haven't been doing anything and up pops a message
that something broke, did I want to inform the Ubuntu team? This seems
to have disappeared in the last few days with the last set of updates.

--
-------------------------
Reece Arnott
University of Otago
Dunedin
New Zealand
-------------------------

[Arron Dick]

A straight transtition from XP to Unity would be fun...

 

Arron Dick
Email:s_d...@yahoo.com
MSN:s_d...@hotmail.com

---

From: Reece Arnott <reece....@gmail.com>
To: dunedin-m...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, 7 May 2012 6:05 PM
Subject: Re: [DSpace] Ubuntu 12.04

[Thomi Richards]

Hi,

On 7 May 2012 18:05, Reece Arnott <reece....@gmail.com> wrote:

This seems to have disappeared in the last few days with the last set of updates.

Yes, I believe that gets reset when the stable release comes out.

--
Thomi Richards

[Brian]

Yes, sadly Bill (Currie) is the only Powerhouse guy still in the game.
Although they have two beautiful prototypes working, they are having
difficulty finding funding to move into production. A common problem
for small Dunedin companies trying to make real-products. Bill's not in
his office a lot, but he's readily contactable at
(bill....@powerhousewind.co.nz).

Cheers,
Brian

[arduino-novice]

I see....... when you say "prototype", I guess you mean turbine, or linear induction motor / magnetic levitation models?

I think what I really need is to learn the theories of electromagnetism and electric machines, then with some help, do a simulation of the linear motor and levitation design on a computer and make sure the design works first........

For this part, I need help from someone with a strong electric machine background, but unfortunately, we don't have an electrical enginnering department here.......

But thanks for telling us about Bill, by the way...... should we invite Bill to join Makerspace?  This will be the best way for us to share our expertise......

Arduino Novice

On Tuesday, May 8, 2012 12:11:10 PM UTC+12, Brian Paavo wrote:

Yes, sadly Bill (Currie) is the only Powerhouse guy still in the game.  
Although they have two beautiful prototypes working, they are having
difficulty finding funding to move into production.  A common problem
for small Dunedin companies trying to make real-products.  Bill's not in
his office a lot, but he's readily contactable at

(bill.currie@powerhousewind.co.nz).