Cross Post: sci.electronics.repair, comp.robotics.misc

*****

Hello Groups,

I have recently acquired two heavy duty motors for robotics use. Below
is a link to the picture of one of them.

http://www.mpja.com/prodinfo.asp?number=14386+MD

I have both a left hand and a right hand motor. They are about a foot
long, half a foot wide, and weigh in at about 40 lbs each (No wonder it
cost $40 for shipping...UPS ground even.). The motor also has
serviceable brushes too. There are four wires for these motors, colors
red, black, white, and yellow. I'm going to assume that red and black
are power, but what are the white and yellow for? A built in
tachometer? The gearing is bolted on, but there doesn't appear to be
any way to dismantle the motor so I can see how it is wired internally.
Any thoughts or suggestions?


--
Daniel Rudy

Email address has been base64 encoded to reduce spam
Decode email address using b64decode or uudecode -m

In article ,
Daniel Rudy wrote:

Cross Post: sci.electronics.repair, comp.robotics.misc

*****

Hello Groups,

I have recently acquired two heavy duty motors for robotics use. Below
is a link to the picture of one of them.

http://www.mpja.com/prodinfo.asp?number=14386+MD

I have both a left hand and a right hand motor. They are about a foot
long, half a foot wide, and weigh in at about 40 lbs each (No wonder it
cost $40 for shipping...UPS ground even.). The motor also has
serviceable brushes too. There are four wires for these motors, colors
red, black, white, and yellow. I'm going to assume that red and black
are power, but what are the white and yellow for? A built in
tachometer? The gearing is bolted on, but there doesn't appear to be
any way to dismantle the motor so I can see how it is wired internally.
Any thoughts or suggestions?

Two of the wires for the armature, two for the field.

At about the time of 10/16/2008 5:51 AM, Smitty Two stated the following:
In article ,
Daniel Rudy wrote:

Cross Post: sci.electronics.repair, comp.robotics.misc

*****

Hello Groups,

I have recently acquired two heavy duty motors for robotics use. Below
is a link to the picture of one of them.

http://www.mpja.com/prodinfo.asp?number=14386+MD

I have both a left hand and a right hand motor. They are about a foot
long, half a foot wide, and weigh in at about 40 lbs each (No wonder it
cost $40 for shipping...UPS ground even.). The motor also has
serviceable brushes too. There are four wires for these motors, colors
red, black, white, and yellow. I'm going to assume that red and black
are power, but what are the white and yellow for? A built in
tachometer? The gearing is bolted on, but there doesn't appear to be
any way to dismantle the motor so I can see how it is wired internally.
Any thoughts or suggestions?

Two of the wires for the armature, two for the field.

A DC motor that has a field winding? I need to find a way inside these
motors...


--
Daniel Rudy

Email address has been base64 encoded to reduce spam
Decode email address using b64decode or uudecode -m

In article ,
Daniel Rudy wrote:
Two of the wires for the armature, two for the field.

A DC motor that has a field winding? I need to find a way inside these
motors...

Older car starter motors had field windings - called series wound. Maximum
torque at stall. Will also run on AC.

--
*I started out with nothing... and I still have most of it.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

At about the time of 10/16/2008 4:04 PM, Dave Plowman (News) stated the
following:
In article ,
Daniel Rudy wrote:
Two of the wires for the armature, two for the field.

A DC motor that has a field winding? I need to find a way inside these
motors...

Older car starter motors had field windings - called series wound. Maximum
torque at stall. Will also run on AC.



Interesting.

I have some additional information. The black and white wires are
connected to brushes. The DC resistance between the two is about 2.7
ohms. The red and yellow wires have a DC resistance of 7.3 ohms. So I
guess they can be wires either series or parallel. What I don't
understand is if the red and yellow wires are for the field, then why
bring them out? Why not just connect them internally?

--
Daniel Rudy

Email address has been base64 encoded to reduce spam
Decode email address using b64decode or uudecode -m

In article ,
Daniel Rudy wrote:
I have some additional information. The black and white wires are
connected to brushes. The DC resistance between the two is about 2.7
ohms. The red and yellow wires have a DC resistance of 7.3 ohms. So I
guess they can be wires either series or parallel. What I don't
understand is if the red and yellow wires are for the field, then why
bring them out? Why not just connect them internally?

Think the way they are connected - series or parallel - makes a difference
to the motor characteristics. Also separate access to the field can make
speed control easier.

--
*Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

At about the time of 10/16/2008 4:41 PM, Dave Plowman (News) stated the
following:
In article ,
Daniel Rudy wrote:
I have some additional information. The black and white wires are
connected to brushes. The DC resistance between the two is about 2.7
ohms. The red and yellow wires have a DC resistance of 7.3 ohms. So I
guess they can be wires either series or parallel. What I don't
understand is if the red and yellow wires are for the field, then why
bring them out? Why not just connect them internally?

Think the way they are connected - series or parallel - makes a difference
to the motor characteristics. Also separate access to the field can make
speed control easier.


Sorry, but I'm not up on that theory. How can the field make speed
control easier? For DC motors, I usually use a PWM scheme for speed
control.


--
Daniel Rudy

Email address has been base64 encoded to reduce spam
Decode email address using b64decode or uudecode -m

Daniel Rudy wrote:
At about the time of 10/16/2008 4:41 PM, Dave Plowman (News) stated the
following:

In article ,
Daniel Rudy wrote:

I have some additional information. The black and white wires are
connected to brushes. The DC resistance between the two is about 2.7
ohms. The red and yellow wires have a DC resistance of 7.3 ohms. So I
guess they can be wires either series or parallel. What I don't
understand is if the red and yellow wires are for the field, then why
bring them out? Why not just connect them internally?

Think the way they are connected - series or parallel - makes a difference
to the motor characteristics. Also separate access to the field can make
speed control easier.



Sorry, but I'm not up on that theory. How can the field make speed
control easier? For DC motors, I usually use a PWM scheme for speed
control.


You cant reverse it if the field connections are internal. Reversing
the polarity on both windings will maintain the same rotation direction.
You need to reverse one winding relative to the other to reverse the
direction.

REDUCING THE FIELD CURRENT *INCREASES* THE NO LOAD SPEED.
(dont take it too far, you wont be happy)

Field loss is a critical failure and if unloaded its likely to
over-speed till it grenades, otherwise the armature current will
increase till it melts. Its therfore advisable to have a contactor with
a low impedance coil in series with the field winding to cut power to
the armature if the field circuit fails. At the minimum for bench
testing, switch the armature to reverse, not the field.

At about the time of 10/16/2008 6:26 PM, IanM stated the following:
Daniel Rudy wrote:
At about the time of 10/16/2008 4:41 PM, Dave Plowman (News) stated the
following:

In article ,
Daniel Rudy wrote:

I have some additional information. The black and white wires are
connected to brushes. The DC resistance between the two is about 2.7
ohms. The red and yellow wires have a DC resistance of 7.3 ohms. So I
guess they can be wires either series or parallel. What I don't
understand is if the red and yellow wires are for the field, then why
bring them out? Why not just connect them internally?
Think the way they are connected - series or parallel - makes a difference
to the motor characteristics. Also separate access to the field can make
speed control easier.


Sorry, but I'm not up on that theory. How can the field make speed
control easier? For DC motors, I usually use a PWM scheme for speed
control.


You cant reverse it if the field connections are internal. Reversing
the polarity on both windings will maintain the same rotation direction.
You need to reverse one winding relative to the other to reverse the
direction.

REDUCING THE FIELD CURRENT *INCREASES* THE NO LOAD SPEED.
(dont take it too far, you wont be happy)

Field loss is a critical failure and if unloaded its likely to
over-speed till it grenades, otherwise the armature current will
increase till it melts. Its therfore advisable to have a contactor with
a low impedance coil in series with the field winding to cut power to
the armature if the field circuit fails. At the minimum for bench
testing, switch the armature to reverse, not the field.

Well, I just finished doing a bench test on this motor. The results
that I have are listed below. The power source that I used was 4
standard C alkaline cells wired in series for 6v. I removed the gear
reduction and tested just the motor.


field armature
red yellow white black result
-------------------------------------------------------
+ - open open no rotation
open open + - no rotation
+ white yellow - CCW rotation, high torque
- white yellow - CCW rotation, high torque
+ black - yellow CW rotation, high torque
- black - yellow CW rotation, high torque
+ - + - no rotation

Rotation was observed facing the motor. That last one I'm not sure
about...maybe I don't have enough power. But this gives me a few ideas
on power control. I'm thinking of placing a DPDT relay in series
between the armature and field windings for direction reversal, then use
a the standard PWM control from a microprocessor to control speed.
Plus, this will also protect the motor too in case any winding fails it
will open circuit.

There are absolutely no numbers or any other markings on this motor
besides a warning about it being hot. But from what I have been able to
scrounge up on the web. It seems that this motor was manufactured by
Magnetek and is rated at 24v. Stall current is 20. The lead wires are
only 16 AWG, so at stall, even the high temp wires would melt...the
wires are rated at 200c.


--
Daniel Rudy

Email address has been base64 encoded to reduce spam
Decode email address using b64decode or uudecode -m

On Fri, 17 Oct 2008 04:52:13 -0700, Daniel Rudy wrote:

Rotation was observed facing the motor. That last one I'm not sure

To observe while facing _away_ from the motor would involve a mirror,
I suppose. :-)

At about the time of 10/17/2008 7:15 AM, Allodoxaphobia stated the
following:
On Fri, 17 Oct 2008 04:52:13 -0700, Daniel Rudy wrote:

Rotation was observed facing the motor. That last one I'm not sure

To observe while facing _away_ from the motor would involve a mirror,
I suppose. :-)

hehehe

Or I could look from the side, but then it would be either left hand or
right hand, which neither knows what the other is doing.


--
Daniel Rudy

Email address has been base64 encoded to reduce spam
Decode email address using b64decode or uudecode -m

On 17 Oct 2008 14:15:10 GMT, Allodoxaphobia
wrote:

On Fri, 17 Oct 2008 04:52:13 -0700, Daniel Rudy wrote:

Rotation was observed facing the motor. That last one I'm not sure

To observe while facing _away_ from the motor would involve a mirror,
I suppose. :-)

No, my mother could have done that easily. A few of my teachers as
well. All female, so perhaps we men are left out in the cold? g

There are absolutely no numbers or any other markings on this motor
besides a warning about it being hot. But from what I have been able to
scrounge up on the web. It seems that this motor was manufactured by
Magnetek and is rated at 24v. Stall current is 20. The lead wires are
only 16 AWG, so at stall, even the high temp wires would melt...the
wires are rated at 200c.


I have a pair of these motors that I bought for a medium sized bot. They
proved not up to the job and were replaced with wheel chair motors. I
think that they were made for elevator or subway door operation, several
ads I saw a while ago indicated this. 5 years ago, they were bringing
$70 each, now I think they are about $20 each.

I am in the process of building an antenna rotator with the pair right
now. I am planning on running the field windings on a constant 12V and
PWM'ing the armature for control. I don't need a lot of torque, so I
will try 12V for the initial input power.

Good Luck,
Bob

Daniel Rudy wrote:
Rotation was observed facing the motor. That last one I'm not sure
about...maybe I don't have enough power. But this gives me a few ideas
on power control. I'm thinking of placing a DPDT relay in series
between the armature and field windings for direction reversal, then use
a the standard PWM control from a microprocessor to control speed.
Plus, this will also protect the motor too in case any winding fails it
will open circuit.

I did some studying on controlling wound field DC motors with the
armature and the field windings in parallel and then driving the two
from a PWM source results in sort of an odd torque/speed curve that is
lacking in low speed torque. Running the field windings on a constant
voltage and controlling the armature voltage gives a flatter
torque/speed curve. Also, the adds that I remember seeing suggest that
the motor can be run on 36-48VDC.

I needed a place to attach encoders for closing the control loop and
found that the output shafts are fairly soft steel and drill and tap
very nicely. The unused side of the output shaft is exposed and flat,
making it an easy place to attach the encoders.

Good Luck,
BobH