Design 3.1

To address of engaging and disengaging gears we came up with the idea of a miniaturized electromagnetic clutch system. Our design involved one set of freely rotating gears with a set of permanent neodymium magnets arranged in a circular pattern around the shaft to which it is attached.

On the opposing side of each freely rotating gear, the fixed hub gears would have small soft iron core rods wrapped in thin, 30 gauge magnet wire thereby creating small electromagnets.

The idea was simple, drive current through the electromagnet when you want to engage your gears, turn off current when you want to disengage them. 

Unfortunately, this introduced a whole new set of problems:

• When a shaft is rotating, all the wires you attach to it rotate as well thereby impeding movement of the system.

• The magnets must maintain a fixed position within the free gear.

• A small enough air gap is required between the electromagnets and the permanent magnets so that the two can interact with each other.