Lab

DC Motor Speed, Current and Stall Lab

A 12 V battery runs a DC motor through a switch and a 15 A fuse: about 3000 rpm and 1 A with no load. Lower the voltage, add load, reverse the battery or…

Preview of DC Motor Speed, Current and Stall Lab
Open in the lab Embed Run the circuit right here. To edit it in the full lab, sign in; free accounts have a time limit there.

Use this circuit in class: DC motor experiment: speed, current and back-EMF

Teaching with circuits?

Create a classroom, give your students a circuit to build, and review what they submit. Try it free with one classroom and up to 5 students.

Try the free classroom demo

How it works

A DC motor is a winding and a magnet: the current turns the rotor, and the turning rotor makes a back-EMF that pushes against the battery. That is why a free-running motor draws only about 1 A here, while a stalled one draws V ÷ R, up to 20 A at 12 V.

Change the battery voltage, the motor’s Load (%) and Locked rotor settings, or flip the battery, and read the speed, the current and the back-EMF on the motor’s labels. The 15 A fuse protects the motor if it stalls at full voltage.

What's inside

  • 1× Battery
  • 1× Switch
  • 1× Fuse
  • 1× DC Motor
  • Measured with Voltmeter/Ammeter

Tags

About

By Samir Sabri
Saved November 09, 2026
14 views
Page: dcaclab.com/circuits/87937-dc-motor-speed-current-and-stall-lab

Embed this circuit

<iframe src="https://dcaclab.com/experiments/87937-dc-motor-speed-current-and-stall-lab/iframe" width="560" height="410" frameborder="0"></iframe>

Cite: Sabri, S. (2026). DC Motor Speed, Current and Stall Lab. DCACLab. https://dcaclab.com/circuits/87937-dc-motor-speed-current-and-stall-lab

Related circuits