As a prospective electrical engineer, i sure hope there's a safeguard against that, since i believe it would be quite simple and cheap to include. If you spin it fast enough you might overload and fry it though, even if it is there.

[–] Buddahriffic 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Would it be possible to put the energy generated back into the motor to make it easier to spin it faster? Maybe use some capacitors to have it switch between generator and motor mode on a repeating cycle?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It's definitely possible, but I'm having a hard time trying to justify it. The amount of power a motor like this would draw i very low, so a few percentage points here or there doesn't matter. The complexity of the circuit can quickly become fairly complex with something like this and i doubt the extra manufacturing costs would be worth it. Especially not for the seller, since they could easily (and probably do) just write in the warranty or whatever to not spin it excessively.

[–] Buddahriffic 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah I was just curious because it's a difficult thing to wrap my mind around on the physics side of things. Like it is capable of generating energy and that energy could be used to spin the motor, but the two parts are opposites. It's like using the energy from a flywheel to spin that same flywheel.

[–] cam_i_am 2 points 2 weeks ago

In general it is often true that a motor and a generator are two sides of the same coin.

If you put a current through a wire you can make a magnet move which can be used to spin a motor. And symmetrically, if you spin a wire and make its magnet move near a wire you can induce a current in the wire.

Depends on the exact wiring and stuff but yeah sometimes you can damage a motorised device by manually spinning the thing without turning it on.

[–] WereCat 3 points 2 weeks ago

Yes