One weekend I had a sudden fascination with electromagnetism and wanted to build either a railgun or a motor. A motor was more practical. I wanted to try for a reliable three-coil design as opposed to the usual two-coil science experiment type. It actually worked!

Motors can draw a lot of current. I melted the insulation off the first set of windings (the green ones), destroyed my old 10 amp power supply (upgraded to a 20 amp supply), nearly set my feed wire on fire, and destroyed several sets of commutators (which are tricky to build and very tricky to make robust against heat, since by design they're basically spark gaps).

The motor is now sitting on top of my fridge, in need of repair. I'll fix it up eventually.

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