Hi John,

Aha the beauty of a video, it is worth a million words...Most
excellent. I commend you on your excellent demonstration model!
Hubba Hubba.

Several things are visible.

I assume you are using a PNP/diode drive/recovery circuit similar to
what is shown in your electronic package on Peters motor but driven
by a Hall effect device. Excellent.

I also assume the bias magnet is a round ceramic with one face N or
South, don't know the bias but it obviously is there to help the rods
switch back after the induced field from the coil reverses and tries
to muck things up. This also ties in with the field reversing in the
drive core and possibly an attempt to get at least a weak push off
this reversal without appreciable generator action.

A whole lot going on, spacing of bias magnet, spacing/shape of field
coil core. Switching speed in rods is also a problem. Industrial
switched reluctance motors must beat the heck out of the SS
components to reset the fields in the rotor! Due to the length of the
recovery pulse and the diameter of the rotor and drive stator core in
your motor and with the flipping fields, it tries to slow motor down.
You're shaping the face of the drive pole and the fixed bias magnet
modifies/overcomes this to a point.

VERY nice square wave to coil No evidence of generator action, Nice
HV (Good transistor there!) EMF pulse when you disconnect battery. I
suspect you would get the same basic waveform if you drove it with a
signal generator at same duty cycle and frequency rate without the
rotor.

There are several things that could be addressed here.

Obviously the generator action from the turning wheel which also
gives back more energy to the charging battery while the drive
circuit is off in a monopole or bi-polar motor is missing here as
there are basically no magnets. A secondary lightly loaded generator
attached to wheel to provide/use some of the energy generated in the
wheel should be helpful, which I'm sure you have considered.

It is possible that if you increased the input (separate power
supplies for Hall and coil) voltage using a capacative discharge
circuit. You might find that the recovery pulse would widen out and
possibly become larger than the drive pulse at least up to saturation
of coil. A funny beast these reluctance motors. As a thought, I
wonder if you could use a coil on the ROTORS that via a commutator
could use the back EMF to FLIP the rotor to provide push to the rotor
after TDC…. Funky idea. It would be ½ switch reluctance and a ½
monopole! In pieces here, nothing OU but as a system, I don't know.
Recovered back EMF pulse to battery and possibly in series with
suggested rotor coils and also recovered energy from generator
attached to wheel? Who knows? I'm just letting my mind wander and
wonder!

Third, totally enclose drive coil in magnetic containment case like
DC solenoid construction, this would possibly shape/intensify the
field and increase motor output of wheel.

I wonder if a commercial switched reluctance motor with your recovery
circuit with battery and a generator attached what it would
do...............?

Again, John, that is a heck of a nice motor!

Respectfully,

Ben