thses figures can be improved by putting a 50W 12 ohm resistor in
series with the input to the regulator, then mos of the heat will go
into the resistor and the regulator will only get about 8W of heat.

your first idea with the series resistors on the motor was better.

psaically P=VxA is your enemy when you want to run a low voltage
device from a higher voltage supply.


After reading your post, I studied the sketch I'm making up of my board
layout and it looked like I had a configuration similar. Then a google
search turned up the concept of a voltage divider circuit. Which I guess I
have.

Measuring the actual voltage at the input side of the 7805, I was surprised.
A really low value, somewhere around 2 volts, and the output was crazy. So
I started trial and error resistor values untill I had an actual 22 volt
input and a 5 volt output. (replaced a 500 ohm '2 watt' resistor with a 100
ohm '2 watt' )

Did not see any ill effects by operating 2 motors simultaneously for a short
period.

My 3rd motor still doesn't run, so I guess I blew the transistors also. Is
there a good way to check them with a multimeter without removing them from
the circuit?

Again, thanks for all your help,
Thermo