Newbe at 71

[Big Mike71]

Hi everyone. I am new here but hope to fit in. I am a retired cabinet maker with years of woodworking behind me. I believe if you can make it you should do it. Money is to buy materials not expensive tools. Money is a expendable resource and I like to make mine last by doing it myself when possible and not waste money "over killing" a project. The worst crime to me is wasting valuable resources and materials when it is not needed for the project.
Thanks to everyone for letting me sign up.
BigMike71

[Jon]

Hi Big Mike71 - welcome to HomemadeTools.net

You'll fit in nicely here with that attitude

What are you building next? Can we help out with any ideas?

[Big Mike71]

Thanks Jon, As a great grandfather and a air rifle enthusiast I am working on some moving targets for indoor and out door recreation. I have built a couple already but my main problem is finding motors slow enough ( 1 to 3 rpm) and with enough power.
I would like to use an old washer motor but need to reduce the rpm for my purpose. I have routers and band saw to make pulleys or gears so I am looking for some ready made templates for gears to make a small overall package. Keeping cost to a minimum is a must. My first two projects used a Christmas tree rotator and I also used a rotisserie motor. these worked fine for vertical but now I am wanting to make pop up targets and need to go horizontal with drive.

[Britannicus]

Thanks Jon, As a great grandfather and a air rifle enthusiast I am working on some moving targets for indoor and out door recreation. I have built a couple already but my main problem is finding motors slow enough ( 1 to 3 rpm) and with enough power.

Hi Big Mike - I play continually with robots of varying sizes and shapes - what constitutes "enough power!" - I'd recommend for relatively low torque that steppers are easily available, cheap and extremely versatile as control is supplied by a driver and a controller - I'd heartily recommend Arduino and a single chip driver - both available for around $5 I'd guess on ebay.

Higher torque solutions - I've used a range of standard motors but these can be radically stepped down using cheap gear boxes - ebay can do them again for around $5 - you might want to include an H-Bridge for easy forward / reverse.

For a power supply - check out cheap Li-Po batteries - best power to weight ratio you can get

[Lee Bell]

Big Mike71, I would try surpluscenter.com for the motors (they have a bunch of different types ac and dc) and for the gears you might want to look at woodgears.ca There is a gear template generator on that that might help you out.

[jjr2001]

Hi Big Mike,
Try allelectronics.com

Motors | All Electronics Corp.

They have quite a few motors, AC, DC, Stepper, Gear Reductions, etc.

Gears also: http://www.allelectronics.com/category/253/gears/1.html
Cheers, JR

[Big Mike71]

Thanks a bunch, I will be checking those sites out for sure. I also plan on checking out electric 12 volt window motors from car doors. They would have enough power and the rpm may be close to what I am looking for.

[jjr2001]

Sounds good Mike, I have used these:
12VDC RIGHT-ANGLE GEAR HEAD MOTOR WITH WORM DRIVE | All Electronics Corp.

They are very adaptable. The shaft can be cut off and a flat can be ground for a coupler. In addition the bracket on the shaft end is easy to mount.

Let us see your targets when you build them.

Cheers, JR

[aalv2003]

Try a microwave oven turn plate motor.

[jjr2001]

Try a microwave oven turn plate motor.

Hello aalv2003,

Great idea and a good speed for slower rotation.
Do you have a source for them (other than an old microwave oven) ?

Cheers, JR