ok so i took apart one of my old toys and i extracted a motor thats connected to batteries and a switch, i flip the switch and the motor’s little thing spins…my question is, how safe would it be to try to take off the wires and connect them to something else?
Assuming the motor is battery powered, and you’re planning on connecting it to other batteries, the worst you can do is destroy the motor, possibly with some toxic smoke from the burning insulation.
If you’re idea was to see what happens if you connect it via the mains, then don’t. Nothing impressive happens, you either blow a fuse or you die. Approximately.
A DC motor can also act a little generator. If you disconnect the batteries and touch the two motor wires together, you’ll notice increased drag when you spin the motor. You can even hook up a flashlight bulb between the wires. When you spin the motor, you may be able to light the bulb.
A fun and unsafe thing you can do is plug little dc motors into ac wall sockets. The motor will spin really, really fast for a second and then either burn up with a nice spark or just burn out silently with the smell of burnt electronics. occasionally the wires will get so hot they melt as well.
not the safest hobby, but we used to do this all the time when we were younger. somehow we managed to live through our playing-with-electricity stage.