How does an electric motor work?
A motor has rotors which are windings of wire. The rotors are all connected to a common shaft. The current is applied to the rotors to turn them and so turn the shaft. A magnetic field is created that grabs one rotor and moves it, then the magnetic field shuts off and another field grabs it and continues to move it. Actually, from the motors that I have disassembled and repaired there are two permanent magnets on the side of the motor. Electricity is run into the windings which creates a magnetic field that is repelled by the permanent magnet inside. Then the other winding comes into line and the same thing happens. As each rotor (winding of wire) is charged and repelled by the permanent magnet, inside the motor, the shaft turns. Do it fast enough and the motor runs pretty smoothly. The rotors connect to the outside world through armatures, which are like metal hands that hold the shaft where the windings of wire connect to the rotors.
Simple magnetic fields push against one another and turn the motor shaft. To create the opposing magnetic fields a current is passed through a wire. This generates a magnetic field around the wire. By bundling the wire around steel laminations the field strength increases. By arranging the bundles adjacent to magnets the fields generated by the coils interacts with that of the magnets. If the poles of the two fields are the same they will repel each other and tend to move apart. By holding either the magnet or coil still and mounting the other on a shaft which can rotate the magnetic repulsion is captured as rotation. The force with which it turns is called torque. The amount of torque is always proportional to the current or amps run through the wiring. That means in a given motor 1 amp of current always generates X units of torque and 50 amps always generate 50X units of torque. This characteristic is constant for a motor regardless of the voltage level and is known as the torque con
