While first pondering making stepper motors from readily available stuff, this rotor design struck me as fairly easy to assemble, just insert cut pieces of wire, or maybe magnets into the holes with glue. Unfortunately this shape probably is beyond a typical Darwin. The small holes would need to match the wire size exactly, even if it was scaled up larger, so if you can't make the holes wire sby SnailRacer - Let's design something! (I've got an idea ...)
That would be elegantly simple, but the leverage of having the magnets move a rotor increases the torque. The bigger the wheel the more leverage. How much weight the toothed stator design can lift would depend on the overall strength of the magnets, but the accuracy somewhat depends on keeping the magnet width small. Those are conflicting design requirements. But the main problem is slippage, iby SnailRacer - Let's design something! (I've got an idea ...)
Toner powder isn't too bad, wouldn't want to breath the dust often though. The benzine in the liquid part shouldn't be messed with, I opened a bottle of that for about 10 seconds and it was enough to stink up a 500 ft^3 room for half an hour with the windows open and gave me an instant headache.by SnailRacer - Mechanics
Ex One can print in various metals, they take orders in STL, but it's pricey. You may have seen Bathsheba Grossman's art.by SnailRacer - Casting and Moldmaking Working Group
Enlarged everything up to mm scale, added some registration tabs to aid alignment, and a mounting bracket, widened the holes for winding the magnets a bit...by SnailRacer - Let's design something! (I've got an idea ...)
I was thinking to wind the steel wire in a figure eight on those, that should keep them pinched together more than the graphic shows, and leave some room for the copper. There needs to be room to attach the end caps to this as well, the caps will have the bearings to keep the rotor centered. It will be a bit of hand threading the wires, that seems a bit of a given, especially with the rotor. mmby SnailRacer - Let's design something! (I've got an idea ...)
I'd like to make my own stepper motors... This design would let the rotor be wound with 17 gauge steel fencing wire so that it fits into slots around the rotor, and the same for the core of the magnets, which would then be wound with copper. The bearings would rest between a clip that would need to be attached to the rotor, and the cap, which would be attached to the outside magnet support. I dby SnailRacer - Let's design something! (I've got an idea ...)