I like anything such as this... Am wondering something and it links to another project of yours. My Bench post about the 'Blocking Ringer' is along the lines of your solar panel scavenging idea and was in thought while trying to build a very simple scavenger circuit. Best solar harvesting from LED's seems to be just above the flicker frequency for the eye, around 30Hz. Faster and the current goes up with little extra gained. I'm wondering if your motor can use such tricks by using an extra coil around the Newman coil and running a light based scavenger. I may have it wrong but your motor seems to be running at approx 360 RPM and if a cap dump circuit filled every 10 revolutions to fire an LED bank, it would approximate the 30Hz. It would also electrically disconnect the motor from the return side by using light and there would be next to no increased pull down on the motor by being an air winding.
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ʎɐqǝ from pɹɐoqʎǝʞ a ʎnq ɹǝʌǝu
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