Ta-Dah!

It works!

I almost gave up on this one but after spending a few hours talking Stephen Jeavons, at the Runnymede Meccano Guild meeting yesterday, I managed to get the thing going! The secret is getting the adjustment of the coils above the rotor set so the cores are set as near as possible to the thickness of a perforated strip, and getting the rotor to spin at the correct speed.

On Stephen's advice I fitted a 19t pinion to the top of the rotor shaft and that made it much easier to start. 750 RPM, or in other words that is 12½ revolutions per second, is the speed the rotor has to be spun at to get it to synchronise with the AC supply frequency (50 Hz here in the UK). 

The rebuilt E15

I also changed the solenoid hanging brackets (to ensure they were all matched), the insulated strip was changed for a stiffer one and I swapped the original red pulley for a lighter (weight) blue one.   I followed the original instructions as below. The only eventual addition was the 19t pinion to make starting it easier. As with the E12 motor, I had previously built, It would benefit from a few modifications. The coils still don't hang very nicely and the frame could do with beefing up, but it does what it is supposed to do and that makes me happy - for now!

I don't like the way the coils do not hang very nicely

The Elektrikit was intended to be used with a 1960s set No.3 or above. The instructions only use parts available in the No.3 set. Ignoring those limitations would open up all sort's of possibilities for improvement but that was not the point of this exercise. I set out to see if I could get the motor to work within the confines of the parts as listed and, excluding the 19 pinion, I did - Great fun!

The original instructions from the Elektrikit manual

Two down, I wonder which one to tackle next - I should really get on with the Merry Mixer...

...or I could have a go at one of the models from the Electronic Control set. That might make a change...

Electronic control set - Hmmm...

Ralph.