“Gear Up” or “Volt Up”

While testing the motor on a bench, I soon realized that the motor outputs an average of about 9 volts. 3 volts shy of the recommended charge voltage. To my mind, there were two solutions I could employ. One mechanical and the other electronic. The two options were bound to work, but one was easy, and the other wasn’t.

Gear Up
The first option, the mechanical one was to employ gears to speed the motor. Reading up the topic showed that gears were not recommended for small turbines. It was crude at best, and when it worked, it was noisy and heavy. These were problems I was willing to live with as long as it worked. In its simplest form, it required two gears. I found a motor cycle clutch gear for a measly N800 ($5). And put them to work.

I assembled the two gears on a sheet of white paper. I pressed this against a platform to create an impression on the paper. I then proceeded to design my assembly around this trace.

A trip to the “Turner” (metal works ) resulted in the complete assembly below. All that is left now is to grease it up and bolt it on the motor.

But that was not to be, as I realized that the gear was much too stiff, and required a significant amount of force to set it rolling. I doubt that the cool breeze of Garki could force that hard. I should have employed ball bearings to ensure that everything was at the right angles, perhaps, I might have been able to pull of the mechanical option.