[TheForge] [OT] Re: Variable-speed motor & controller

[Mike Spencer]

me> ...friend has offered to give me the un-saleable detritus from an
me> exercise equipment repair biz....Maybe I can have a variable speed
me> motor...

and David Childress replied:

> Any motor with brushes can be used with a speed control...

What I got was a 2HP capacitor-start motor.  They contrived variable
speed by using a variable-pitch pulley on the 2HP motor and adding a
reversible 1/10 HP gear motor with an acme-threaded rod on the output.
The little motor shoves the big motor back and forth on rails, thereby
forcing an adjustment on the spring-loaded, variable pitch sheave.
Jeez, that treadmill must have been a $5000 investment.  Going for a
long walk, optionally up a hill, is free.

Besides which, I got a half dozen or more of those same gear motors
with screw output, rated for 700# to 1000# load on the screw.  Lessee,
what can I do with them?  Put one on each leg of my welding table,
attach wheels to the ends.  Then I can flip a switch and the welding
table will jack itself onto wheels, set itself down again after moving
it. 

While I'm here with OT: the heap of junk also included what appears to
be an electric brake -- 10" cast-iron wheel on bearings faced with a copper
disk (sort of like a clutch-plate lining) and two electric coils.  I
don't think it would go on a power hammer but I might be able to put
it on the 24" bandsaw somehow.

Distractions, distractions. :-)

- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^