[Neuf350Z]

So I was wondering if anyone's used a disco ball motor instead of a wiper motor for the Cauldron Creep? Just curious because I haven't purchased either motor yet. My fear is that the disco ball motor might be too weak to handle the weight of the stick that would be attached.

Thoughts?

 

[Abunai]

I'd need to know the specs of the disco ball motor, but there's not much that a wiper motor won't run, prop-wise.
Along with the motor, buy a PCM 12v motor controller (ebay, frightprops, etc.) to control the speed of the motor.
If you get tired of the Cauldron Creep, you can re-purpose the wiper motor and speed controller for any number of other props.

 

[Neuf350Z]

A heavy duty mirror ball motor is about 3 rpm. I thought I had one in my stash but can't find it so that's what made me think of it. It's cheaper than a wiper motor and runs pretty slow so I wasn't sure if anyone had used one of those instead.

I agree with you on the wiper motor in that it's more versatile. I'll probably go with the wiper motor but want to explore all my options.

 

[J-Man]

3 RPM's would be too slow for a CC, around 6 RPM's is what you want. Like Abunai said, a wiper motor with a PWM speed control is perfect. The best place to get the speed control is this US supplier on ebay. $6 and you'll get it fast. Same exact control that the others sell for $22.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/10A-Pulse-Width-Modulation-PWM-DC-Motor-Speed-Control-Switch-12V-40V-13KHz-US-/181385317850?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a3b684dda

 

[Neuf350Z]

Thanks, J-Man!

 

[Screaming Demons]

All the disco ball motors I have ever seen were pretty weak. I used a vent motor in my CC and it is just strong enough. A wiper motor would have been better but this was cheaper.

 

[Neuf350Z]

That's what I thought might be the case. I remember using one years ago to hover a head over a body, but it was functioning in the way a disco ball would. In other applications it might not be enough. I'll stick with the wiper motor.

Thanks for everyone's input!

 

[Pumpkin5]

Keep in mind if you know what you're doing you can go to a "You Pull It" salvage yard and get all the wiper motors you need for relatively cheap. I think they have a flat fee of around $40 for anything you can carry out in an arm load, or at least the salvage yards around here do. If you know how to get them off the car, you could walk out with six or seven or more for cheap. (just a thought) I have quite a collection myself.

 

[Abunai]

Keep in mind if you know what you're doing you can go to a "You Pull It" salvage yard and get all the wiper motors you need for relatively cheap. I think they have a flat fee of around $40 for anything you can carry out in an arm load, or at least the salvage yards around here do. If you know how to get them off the car, you could walk out with six or seven or more for cheap. (just a thought) I have quite a collection myself.

Wow! I wish our salvage yard were like that.
I got really good at yanking the wiper motors out of Saturn vehicles (used to be one of the more popular prop motors).
The University of YouTube has some helpful videos for that.
But, at our salvage yard, I had to talk them down to $20 per motor.
If I can get them regularly priced at places like Fright Props or Monster Guts at $25, or on sale occasionally at $20, I just get them brand new from those places.

 

[Pumpkin5]

Wow! I wish our salvage yard were like that.
I got really good at yanking the wiper motors out of Saturn vehicles (used to be one of the more popular prop motors).
The University of YouTube has some helpful videos for that.
But, at our salvage yard, I had to talk them down to $20 per motor.
If I can get them regularly priced at places like Fright Props or Monster Guts at $25, or on sale occasionally at $20, I just get them brand new from those places.

Maybe it's the area I live in. There's a salvage yard called, "Bevel's U-Pull-It" and you pay a $40 fee and you go on the "you pull it yard" and they have older model vehicles and you can have anything you can carry out in your arms. The newer year model cars are on a private yard that you can't access. I am lucky though, we have a body shop and a wrecker and when we pull in a total loss or a vehicle that gets abandoned, I get one of the body guys to pull the wiper motor off of the car and sometimes I get the vent motors too, it just depends. Some motors are way too hard to access and you'd have more time in just tearing the car down to get to the motors. German cars are crazy hard to access nearly anything.

 

[Daddy-O]

I use one of those vent motors in mine. It's the perfect speed. I thought that the wiper motor was just too fast my liking, even at the lower speed.

 

[J-Man]

I use one of those vent motors in mine. It's the perfect speed. I thought that the wiper motor was just too fast my liking, even at the lower speed.

That's where the PWM Control comes in, you can get the speed down to a crawl if you want with no torque loss. I agree with Abunai on the wiper motors from FP or MG, $25 is a darn good deal for a brand new shiny motor.

 

[Neuf350Z]

Question about wiring up the motor to a speed controller because, as I've said before, I know nothing about this stuff. Hooking my wiper motor up to the controller I get but what about the power supply? What do I need to hook that up to the controller? Just cut the male end off the power supply and wire it up?

 

[Diabolik]

Question about wiring up the motor to a speed controller because, as I've said before, I know nothing about this stuff. Hooking my wiper motor up to the controller I get but what about the power supply? What do I need to hook that up to the controller? Just cut the male end off the power supply and wire it up?

I am working on a new prop now using a FP motor and a PWM. I just ran the wires from the motor right into the PWM. For the power supply I used a plug with flying leads attached to the other side of the PWM. I like to make things plug together but that is mainly because we try to make our kits as friendly as possible. There is no harm in cutting off the plug and wiring directly as long as you make sure your polarity is correct.

 

[Neuf350Z]

I am working on a new prop now using a FP motor and a PWM. I just ran the wires from the motor right into the PWM. For the power supply I used a plug with flying leads attached to the other side of the PWM. I like to make things plug together but that is mainly because we try to make our kits as friendly as possible. There is no harm in cutting off the plug and wiring directly as long as you make sure your polarity is correct.

If I have this power supply:



What do I need to do in order to attach it to the speed controller?

 

[captpete]

Do you have a multi-meter? Once you cut the plug off you can test each lead with a meter and see which one is + and which is -.
The tip of the plug is usually + It should show this on power supply wiring diagram.( Look closely on the black transformer for this info.)
Once you have the bare wires identified, hook them up to the + and - input on the PWM.
Pete

 

[Diabolik]

As Pete said, if you have a multimeter, you can just figure out which wire is which. If you don't want to cut off the plug you can use something like this.

 

[Neuf350Z]

Thanks to you both. I don't have a multimeter so I'll go with the adapter you've shown above. As soon as I saw it it immediately made sense even though I've looked at this a thousand times tonight. But I think that's the problem - I've spent too much time on it today and fried my brain. Thanks again!

 

[J-Man]

Do yourself a huge favor and pick up a cheap multimeter, it's a very useful tool for any electronics work. You can get one for under $5 at Harbor Freight or most home improvement stores. Even if you choose to use an adapter as pictured above, it's still a good idea to check which lead is which before making the connections. Power supply polarity into the PWM Control must be correct. Connection from the PWM Control to the wiper motor isn't critical, if the polarity is reversed it will just run the motor in the opposite direction. This is actually a benefit because you can choose which direction you want the stirring stick to rotate.

 

[Neuf350Z]

Good point, J-Man. I should probably get one and add it t my growing collection of tools. If I work on projects past a cauldron creep then it would be good to have on-hand. Thanks!