Holy heck! I can’t believe i didn’t think of that. I was about to e-waste a busted fan in my basement. Thanks so much for the idea. My kiddo wants to see if she can launch them vertically. Will report on results…
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Now I’m curious about how well rechargeable’s perform compared to regular batteries. I know for some applications I’ve found rechargeable batteries perform poorly, typically ones that require a lot of power rather than small amounts over a long time.
I suspect that actually vertical wouldn’t work - the front and back magnets both need to be in contact with the wire, and if you load vertically you’d either constantly be wobbling and losing contact OR the tube would need to be so tight that friction loss would kill your momentum. But I’d love to know how close to vertical you could get… Very tempted to go bend some wire now.
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Well that is a darn shame. For a few years there, I was buying 4-packs of VARTA at the 99-cent store, and they were consistently quite good value for money - which I haven’t found to be the case with Rayovac. I did wonder why VARTA had disappeared from my store; I assumed it was the usual vagaries of the dollar-store economy, but it makes sense that it was a murder/acquisition…
One problem you might encounter is that wire in electric motors and transformers is typically coated with insulating enamel and for this experiment only bare wire will work. Removing insulation may be difficult.
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