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just placed an order for 331 treads of the same type that SXRGuy pictured above (total length of 331 of these things is a little over 2 meters according to SXRguy's measurements), 50 toothed gear wheels, and several axles. Total came out to $44, not too bad! So hopefully this weekend that stuff will arrive...just gotta get a motor or two now. If anyone has a small DC 10rpm, 12V max (or up to 20/30rpm at the fastest) they're willing to sell, let me know...
here is the lego motor that works off of 9VDC. I get spare one of those, and even a lego lead that's snipped for a custom connection
Thanks! Any idea how fast it turns? I don't want anything faster than 20 or 30rpm, and even that's a little fast. I was thinking of just getting 2 or three of those cheapie little DC motors, I found a site somewhere (bookmarked on the sandcrawler but not my computer here at work) that sells a 10rpm version.
I'll see if I can hook one up tonight and figure it out for you. I know you can run them at almost any voltage. I'll hook one to a 5v PSU supply and see how fast it turns
ok did some research.
according to this chart, you want the lego micro motor, shown in red. @9VDC with no load it turns @ 35rpm with 6ma current. so I'm sure @5VDC it'll be slower. I've got one of these in my space shuttle set, I'll hook it to 5V and see how it goes. :up:
that site has a lot of good info on the lego motors. that particular one for instance (about 1/2 way down the page):
@9V, 1.28N.cm torque, 16rpm, .04A
@12V, 1.28N.cm torque, 28rpm, .04A
not sure how much load you're going to have on these tracks. if they'll be free-spinning it won't be a lot
yeah they'll pretty much be free spinning. If I set them up so that the bottom part of the belt isn't visible, I'm thinking about gluing piles of "junk" to them so it looks like they're actually conveying stuff. but those will not weight much, they'll just be small model pieces and such. Thanks for your help on the research! +rep :)
ok I did some playin around. I hooked the motor to 5v, then 12v for speed comparisons. then I played with 12v and 5v with different resistors. the slowest I could get it was 5v with a 220ohm resistor. I stepped up to the 270ohm but it wouldnt even turn. I didnt have anything between 220 and 270. I'm uploading the vids as I type, will post once they're all set :up: the motor also is not polarity sensitive. if you hook it up backwards it will just spin the other way
5v-12v-5v
5v w/220ohm resistor
Those tracks running slow in the 2nd vid look excellent...
Good work :up:
thanks! if it needs to be slower artoo you can always gear it down. a 3:1 ratio should work. I'll give that a shot tonight and see how it slows it :up: