What is an electric motor?
An electric motor converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. The working principal of the motor is the same as that of generator except that instead of generating electricity through a rotating coil, electricity is actually supplied to motor which in turns provide mechanical energy.
Electric motors come in various types, shapes and sizes. Motor are very common and have wide range of applications such as in industry, in house and in automobiles etc.
Working principal of Motors
Just like electric generator, motors also work on the principal of Faraday’s law of induction in reverse direction.
In motor, the current is supplied to a rotating coil commonly called as rotor. Since the rotor is placed inside a stator which is either permanent magnets or electromagnets (coils of wire).
When the electricity is supplied to rotating coil (rotor), the current flows through a rotating coil and it creates a magnetic field.
The magnetic field of rotating coil (rotor) interacts with the magnetic field of stator and resultantly, the rotating coil starts to rotate. This is how the motor crates a mechanical motion.
Motors can be broadly classified into two main types depending upon what type of current is provide to them and these types are as follows:
- DC Motors – motors which are operated on Direct Current or DC.
- AC Motors – motors which are operated on Alternating Current or AC.
For more details on regarding what DC and AC currents are, you may refer to this article Understanding the basics of Electrical Circuit
Below picture shows a working model of DC motor and it shows some of the important components of DC motor.
One of the distinguishing feature of DC motor is that is has commutator installed at the end windings of the rotor. The purpose of commutator is to change the direction of current. Remember, DC or Direct Current is the one in which the current flows in single direction. So commutator is used to change the direction of current so as to generate a steady torque at rotor and that keeps the rotor rotating.
The below pictures shows that an external power source ( in this case a battery) is connected to electric supply terminals of the motor and hence it cause the motor to run.
If you are interested to buy working model of DC motor as shown in the picture below, click here: https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_ooFCRZ1
For more details on the DC Motor, you can watch the below video here: