Windscreen wiper motors

[RogueTwoRobots]

Re: Windscreen wiper motors

Hi Mart,

It is certainly an option to use just the motor part of the windscreen wiper motor; I know of only one person who has tried it but didn't use it for anything more than one competition I don't think?? (help me out here Gary )

I chose to try this method too and got as far as removing the gearbox, with the plan being to use a small gear sprocket on the motor and a larger one on the wheel. I was aiming for around a 3:1 reduction but I never did use the motor for two main reasons;

1. It seemed underpowered so I wanted to get a more powerful motor
2. With the gearbox cut off there was no easy way of mounting it

I read that you are unsure about the strength and power of drill motors being suited to a featherweight. From my experience, a standard pair of drill motors have never really struggled to move a featherweight around the arena, they can usually cope. Obviously if you want more power in your drive, you could have four or more drill motors.
The other option if you're still not keen on drills is to go for the popular 'gold' motors (very similar in size to wiper motors but more powerful) or Speed 900 electric boat motors perhaps. Both would require your own gearing system but you seem to be happy to go down that route as you have planned to do so with your windscreen wiper motors.

Best of luck

[rallikas]

Re: Windscreen wiper motors

Thanks, but the motor has 2 speeds. Is the slower one more powerful too? (mounting doesn´t look difficult for me, i think )

[john_frizell]

Re: Windscreen wiper motors

No reason not to gear up. Might be easier.

[rallikas]

Re: Windscreen wiper motors

Design mustn´t be very simple, because im only new to combat robots. I have been messing around with mechanics quite a bit.

[rallikas]

Re: Windscreen wiper motors

But what do you people think about gearing up the windshield wiper motors? How big would the gearing have to be for a 100mm wheel for a normal speed??? 1:3, 1:4, 1:5, 1:6 ?

[rallikas]

Re: Windscreen wiper motors

Maybe i wrote the gearing wrong. Should be written like that, i think.. 6:1 5:1 4:1 3:1 -for lower speed on motor and higher on wheels.

[muchalucha]

Re: Windscreen wiper motors

i can see your logic in using just the motor part of a windscreen wiper motor , but really , your not going to get much better than the gearing it comes with , as said before, its going to very hard to mount , and other better , and possibly cheaper motors are available.

Ive never personally used them , but they look like they should be perfect for what you need

http://www.technobots.co.uk/acatalog/On ... rs_76.html

1st and 2nd one

[rallikas]

Re: Windscreen wiper motors

Sorry, i didnt write enough. I meant gearing up COMPLETE wiper motors with reduction.

[muchalucha]

Re: Windscreen wiper motors

why would you wan to do that lol , the power / speed ratio is almost perfect for a FW as is , they are a bit slow in my experience , but with wheels bigger than 150 mm , they are really quite fast , the gearing would be very minimal to speed them up enough , so IMHO , i think you should just use them as is . That was ment in the nicest way possible and im sorry if it dosent seem like that .

[rallikas]

Re: Windscreen wiper motors

Ive tested these motors for a direct drive bot, but they were verrrrry slow for me.(0,5 ms or something like that ) And i need speed, beacause im going to make a lifter.

My bot´s chassy is made for 100mm wheels.

[muchalucha]

Re: Windscreen wiper motors

if the spaces for the motors are too small for drill motors , then all i can suggest is overvolting them . sorry i cant be of more help.

[rallikas]

Re: Windscreen wiper motors

Ok, i´ll just build the bot and post some pics of the gearing.

[RogueTwoRobots]

Re: Windscreen wiper motors

If you are using 100mm wheels, I would recommend using a 2:1 ratio (or 1:2 ratio, whichever way round it goes ). So having, for example, a 40 tooth pulley or sprocket on your wiper motor output shaft and a 20 tooth pulley or sprocket on your wheel will give the equivalent of having a 200mm wheel attaching straight on to the wiper motor. If you're running on 24V this will be fast enough to have a competitive robot but one that is also controllable.

My old robot that used windscreen wiper motors had 178mm wheels (lawnmower replacement wheels from a DIY shop) and seemed only moderate in speed, but once I replaced the second-hand batteries with new ones, it was surprisingly nippy. So having a 1:2 ratio on 100mm wheels should provide a very decent speed.

[typhoon_driver]

Re: Windscreen wiper motors

Don't bother trying to build a new gearbox for a wiper motor. It was originally designed and built with the gearbox attached in mind for its application.

You will encounter several problems. The motor shaft will have a worm machined into it. You can either file this down to a small shaft or try and attach something to it as it is. Both methods will break in the arena and won't be reliable.

When you remove the gearbox, you remove the motor mounts. Trying to build a mount to hold them is a pain.

Wiper motors are underpowered more so than drill motors for featherweights. If you want to use a motor that size then use gold motors with a custom gearbox arrangement. More power and similar pricing.

My overall advice is to throw wiper motors on ebay and use the cash on robots.

[muchalucha]

Re: Windscreen wiper motors

i dont think he wnats to remove the wiper motor gearbox , just add a small chain reducton after that to make it a bit faster