Sometime tinker,artist,jack-off-all-trades

[tsomer]

I'm a maker of things--mostly solid, substantial and inert things, resistant to entropy.
Studied art, medical illustration,industrial arts and design.
Formerly worked in carpentry and taught drawing, design, graphic communication and computer design.
Spent years making graphics for colleges,web sites and newspapers, informational in nature.
I don't much like working out ideas on the computer, though of course I do; I use Rhino-3d and am currently learning Blender for design work. I'll admit I owe the computer credit for most of what I do know; sites like this
make it invaluable.

[kbalch]

Hi tsomer,

Welcome!

"Resistant to entropy" - I love it! Sounds like the perfect personal philosophy.

You've got a great range of skills. What are you working on currently?

Ken

[Jon]

Hi tsomer - welcome to HomemadeTools

Sounds like you probably have an endless build list, like most around here. See any projects here that give you ideas?

[tsomer]

Ken,Jon,

Thanks for the replies.
At the moment I'm trying to finish some work-type work, but now that the kids have flown the nest I should be seeing some free time.

One idea I toying with is making a 3-phase motor driver, something a little cheaper than the drives for sale; believe it or not, I'm too cheap to buy another.

Here's the idea: take a small dc motor driven from a wall wart and an ebay speed controller. The motor spins a disk on which two or four rare earth magnets are mounted. These induce current in three stationary chokes which in turn feed the gates of three transistors pairs that serving current to the coils on the motor. With 220 service you would only need a rectifiers and caps for the power rails (I assume push-pull arrangement to reproduce the sin wave)

Conceptually it's simple. Practically it's a little more complex and 220 volts is intimidating. The main problem is finding paired mosfets that are cheap enough to work, and getting the line from my service to the shop and getting the time to do it.

Suggestions appreciated; I'll keep in touch and post if and when it happens.

In the meantime, thanks.

[DIYer]

Hi tsomer, you got a varied and useful skill set, some of which I want to learn too. Welcome to the forums!