3D Printed Electrostatic Motor Without Metal

[youtu.be]


There are many of these motors on YouTube and all the ones I have seen use either aluminium or copper foil for the either the rotor or stator electrodes.
So I wondered if it would work using conductive PLA 3D filament or conductive paint to carry and store the charge.
So I built a conductive PLA version and a conductive paint version both of which worked and the conductive paint version can be seen in this video.
The conductive paint is by Bare Conductivity and was applied to the Rotor, Stators and the buss bars on the back and front of the motor.
The 12volt to 6kv PSU type JP-D1221 can be found on ebay for a few pounds.
The motor spins very well and drives the propellers to some effect.
However the motor does not always start on it own due to the axel being slightly bent causing the PLA bearing to bind.
I shall publish this design and STL files to instructables.com early in the New Year (2017). .

Oh BTW do come on down to Potteries Hackspace in Hanley North Staffordshire UK. [potterieshackspace.org]

This is cool.

Can you provide any more information on the conductive PLA version?
How well does it work compared to the conductive paint version?
What kind of bearing does this use? (I assume the bearings are commercial and/or they contain metal.)

It would be kind of fun to make a motor that is 100% printed 100% plastic, just to show that it can be done.

Quote
MattMoses
This is cool.

Can you provide any more information on the conductive PLA version?
How well does it work compared to the conductive paint version?
What kind of bearing does this use? (I assume the bearings are commercial and/or they contain metal.)

It would be kind of fun to make a motor that is 100% printed 100% plastic, just to show that it can be done.

The one in the video is 100% printed 100% plastic + Conductive Paint which is made of Carbon.
Tried various types of 3D printed bearing; Nylon, PLA but one that seems to work best is [shop.3dfilaprint.com]

The PLA, plus conductive PLA is this; [www.instructables.com]
Where I printed four stators from conductive PLA and then printed eight rectangular blocks of conductive PLA and glued them to the rotor.
Basically I replaced the copper with conductive PLA and it works.

Good idea... I follow with pleasure