Thread: Treadmill motor help/uses

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While looking over used computers at the local transfer station, I found a discarded treadmill motor. Figured it wouln't run, but grabbed it anyway, and lo and behold, it worked when I hooked it up to a power supply.
Now I need some help in figuring out a better way to run it, and I'm not very knowledgable about working with electronics, so I need everything spelled out for me. It's a 2.0HP 3200rpm motor, with a red and black wire, as well as 2 blue wires. I hooked the power supply to the red and black wires and it ran, but relatively slow - but fast enough to run my Axworthy ghost I think! There are also 2 blue wires, but I'm not sure what they are for. So, I'm guessing I need some sort of power control board (too bad the rest of the treadmill wasn't with it) - or is there some other way to control this thing? Any help would be appreciated . . .! and any other project ideas with it as well . .!

Your post was automatically put in moderation (dunno why...maybe a keyword or something). Anyways, I took it out of moderation. I hope anyone who converted a treadmill motor will be able to help you.

- moderator

Was does it say on the motor about voltage and amperage?

Hi AZ - thanks for replying, sorry I didn't get back to you sooner - was up in Maine skiing this week. The motor says it's 16 amps and 150 Volts. Thanks for any advice you can give me!

My guess is that the power supply you used was not a 150V 16A supply which is why it ran rather slow....right? This motor definately has enough power to run an axworthy system, althought I think you are correct that you will need some kind of controller for it. However, I would proceed with caution as dealing with that level of current and voltage can be extremely dangerous. It is easily enough to kill someone.

I have two ideas for the blue wires. The first is, they could be for running the motor at different speeds. The second is, they send out information like RPM back to the treadmill readout.

Thanks for the replies AZ and Mike - I'll definitely proceed with caution with this
monster of a motor, and most likely try to improve on the ceiling fan or sewing machine motor for the Axworthy; plus it's so darn heavy, I don't know how I would mount it securely in a tree. But I'll keep looking around for ways to use it, as it just seems too nice to return to the dump!