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Alright it's ready! The "Gauss Speedway".
I prototyped this months ago, and now finally did the re-spin into a better package without the mess of wires.
- Controlled by an STM32F051 on the back running #RustLang.
- Designed in #kicad, with my CurvyCad python library
- The cars are 3D printed, with 2mm diam. axial magnets glued in
- Gratuitously featuring my first ever #blender animation
Blender has a steep and long learning curve (at least for me!), but wow is it powerful. I know I barely scratched the surface of how to use it, and I want to do more now.
Writeup with some more info for the curious: https://jeffmcbride.net/gauss-speedway/
@mcbridejc that turned out great
@mcbridejc now that is snazzy!
What kind of power levels are needed to drive them?
A perhaps surprising amount of power!
I'm running at 2.5W at low speed, and up to 5W at high speed. Its a terribly innefficient motor because at any given time 2-4 short copper sections are doing work and the rest are just resistive heaters!
@mcbridejc thanks for this! I didn’t reaise that you could pump 5 watts through a pcb
@mcbridejc This is awesome! Roughly what's the smallest radius you can have? At some point I'm guessing the spacing of the traces at the outer edge of the track become too great for the diameter of the magnets.
@chksome yeah I think that's the limiting factor.
The smallest radius i have is 35mm, but I haven't tried to push it. I think that as long as the wire is under the magnet, youre good. Once outside, force will fall off quickly. The magnets centers are 5mm space across, and they are 8mm apart longitudinally, in case you really want to figure out 
@mcbridejc how do the guard rail traces work to keep it on track? What a cool design!
The guard rails are connected in series, such that current in one rail runs CW and the other CCW. If you run the current in the right direction, these create a force pushing the magnet back towards the center, and since the rail is just outside the magnets, the centering force increases when the car deviates onto the rail.
If you run the guard current in the wrong direction (or, flip the magnets around) the force pushes outward and it becomes unstable :).
@mcbridejc what an awesome idea
