Electromagnetic brakes

I was looking at a set of Hard drive magnents my dad has, if you have ever looked at them, you will note they look like disc brake pads and are very strong. My dad said they used electromagnets as brakes on machines for stops for a soap factory he worked for. Would it be possible to harness the electromagnetics for vehicle brakes, use a regular rotor but a special non moving caliper, that has electromagnetic transfer type pads ( or transfers magnatism onto the rotor ) keep the rotor to brake pad clearence to only a couple thousandths, then use a variable resistor to control voltage to the magnents and control the braking power. this sound feasable.

seems like they would almost never need service, no heat to cause warped rotors.

It's possible, but when you pass an iron disc through a magnetic field, voltage is created. How do you think a generator works. Why not harness that energy while you slow your car, you know, you could drive an electric generator off of the output shaft of your transmission. When you're ready to slow down, use the generator to charge a bank of batteries. The load created by the charging will slow the car some. That energy can be reused to accelerate the car, Toyta Hybrid style. The rest of the load could be generated by creating a short circuit across the generator and controlling its resistance.

Electric trailer brakes?

They're available in both drum and disc models.

Even so, I don't think they'd regulate down for smooth driving like the hydraulic brakes do.

Why re-engineer the wheel?
Plus spend a lot of extra money?

Adapt some good auto brakes to your project and spend the money on more important things.

Keep in mind servicability in the field.
Not every town has a trailer supply house nor do most of them carry the parts you may need.

Matt, what C9X said. They are great for trailer brakes. If they worked good on a car I would imagine the manufacturers would have switched to them years before. Stick with the stuff that works. Steering and brakes are NOT items you want to be cutting corners on.......

no, not using any friction material, using electromagnetics as brakes, just simply a magnetic feild used on a brake rotor to put resistance on the rotor, thus making the braking power the soap factory my dad worked at used this type of brake on some pricey machinery, they also used trailer brakes on some other home - made machines . I don't want to use this idea for any of my cars, really just a thought of what could be used.