Carl Bugeja’s Jigsaw Puzzle PCB Motor

Over the past couple of years, Carl Bugeja has been developing some extremely unique brushless DC motors and actuators made with coils…

Cameron Coward
5 years ago

Over the past couple of years, Carl Bugeja has been developing some extremely unique brushless DC motors and actuators made with coils built directly into PCBs. He has created a variety of designs based on that concept, including some actuators made from flexible PCBs. What they all have have in common is that they’re two-dimensional, because they’re designed for PCBs that are flat. In his newest YouTube video, Bugeja is taking his motor design into three dimensions with the Jigsaw Puzzle PCB Motor.

All electric motors use coils to create electromagnetic fields that pull on permanent magnets in sequence in order to spin the shaft. Traditional electric motors use brushes to make an electrical connection with the next coil in the sequence, while brushless motors use some sort of microcontroller to activate the coils in the proper order at the right time. Bugeja’s motor designs take advantage of that fact to ditch traditional wire coils for coils that are part of a PCB. In two dimensions, that means the coils are on a plane perpendicular to the shaft’s axis. That works, but it isn’t optimal.

In this new design, the coils are arranged radially around the shaft. The coils are all on a plane that is parallel to the shaft’s axis. To accomplish that, Bugeja designed the motor to be broken up into eight PCBs that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle to form a three-dimensional motor. The top and bottom PCBs are hexagons with bearings in the center for the motor shaft. The six side PCBs have the coils and fit into slots, and are then soldered in place. Permanent magnets are attached to a 3D-printed mount on the shaft running through the center. By sending current to the coils in sequence, the shaft spins. Bugeja is quick to point out that this isn’t the most practical way to build a motor, but it does work.

Cameron Coward
Writer for Hackster News. Proud husband and dog dad. Maker and serial hobbyist.
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