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Not sure why that posted twice... And that makes sense. We were thinking of the but trying to avoid it

What are you all doing for propellors and motors? There isn't a good hobby store withing an hour away, and we're really struggling to find those.

Thanks!!

Phys1cs wrote:What are you all doing for propellors and motors? There isn't a good hobby store withing an hour away, and we're really struggling to find those.

Thanks!!

Try a toy store or Target or Walmart or similar. There are a lot of toys you can get propellers / motors out of. You can also order online at a variety of hobby shops.

chalker wrote:

Try a toy store or Target or Walmart or similar. There are a lot of toys you can get propellers / motors out of. You can also order online at a variety of hobby shops.

Thanks!!

For a better selection of motors/props/batteries etc I would recommend Ebay and mail order hobby stores like Tower and others. Once you find a specific product you like you can select the description/model number and use a search engine to see what sites have it available and who has the best prices including shipping rates. You need to be cautious of sites that are not well known or established of course. The people I buy from on Ebay have thousands of transactions and 99-100% ratings and I have had great experience with them including the occasional donation of parts although we never solicit that. One last bit, if you are still concerned about online commerce some folks will use pre-paid cards or isolated accounts for their online purchases. Good luck.

I have been pouring over the rules recently and it doesn't expressly say anything involving electromagnets, just rare-earth magnets; but after questioning a Maglev alumni, she told me that electromagnets are illegal. Am I derping horribly and missing a large part on the rule sheet or are they legal? One of the designs I'm thinking of uses them in large amounts and I just don't want to start building it without a clarification.

justsomedudenamedted wrote:I have been pouring over the rules recently and it doesn't expressly say anything involving electromagnets, just rare-earth magnets; but after questioning a Maglev alumni, she told me that electromagnets are illegal. Am I derping horribly and missing a large part on the rule sheet or are they legal? One of the designs I'm thinking of uses them in large amounts and I just don't want to start building it without a clarification.

They should be legal. Though I could be missing something too. I do know that they were in fact legal last year, not so sure about this year. But from looking and reading over the rules, I do not see anything that prohibits electromagnets. Only things about integrated circuits.

justsomedudenamedted wrote:I have been pouring over the rules recently and it doesn't expressly say anything involving electromagnets, just rare-earth magnets; but after questioning a Maglev alumni, she told me that electromagnets are illegal. Am I derping horribly and missing a large part on the rule sheet or are they legal? One of the designs I'm thinking of uses them in large amounts and I just don't want to start building it without a clarification.

I thought about using electromagnets for a while, but you would need a huge and strong battery. Really, it would be amazing if you could change the strength of magnets on one side of the track completely just by a flick of a switch to lower the voltage, but you would need 2 car batteries to run a one meter track. Sighhh :/

Just out of curiosity, has anyone here actually had successful results with the kelvin strips?

We got them, just to sorta see what they'd be like, and just from some preliminary running magnets-against-magnets, I'm not entirely confident that, once we actually build the cart, the strips will be able to support it if it's not pretty light.

Obviously a challenge this year is going to be making heavy carts while sticking to ceramic magnets.

Thoughts?

darkwinters wrote:Just out of curiosity, has anyone here actually had successful results with the kelvin strips?

We got them, just to sorta see what they'd be like, and just from some preliminary running magnets-against-magnets, I'm not entirely confident that, once we actually build the cart, the strips will be able to support it if it's not pretty light.

Thoughts?

I used kelvin strips last year to support 2.5kg. Though I didn't use kelvin strips for the vehicle, I choose to use ceramic magnets (square with round holes) for the vehicle.