Junk yard shopping today, I looked it a small electric motor with
probably a VFD attached. It looked small, like a clothes dryer motor
with about a 1" serpentine pulley on the shaft. A label stated washing
machine motor, 3phase, 6.something LRA, made in china.
I don't have the expertise, but it would be cool to decipher the
inputs and use it for a fractional hp VFD motor or neater yet with
encoder feedback to the hacked vfd as a hobbyist cnc closed loop ac
servo .
On a different servo motor topic, I often see electric power
steering columns in the scrap box. They have worm gear drive PM DC
motors and controller on the column, and maybe a strain Gage feed
back sensor. I think hacked these would make good hobby cnc servo
drives. I put a steering column in a vice and a vice grip on the
steering wheel spline and I couldn't turn turn it. The worm gear ratio
must have such that It would lock. Must have been an exciting failure
in the vehicle.
A regular motor buying tip. If the connecting wires ends are
carefully undone, the motor is bad and being replaced.
If the wires, conduit were snipped, sawed off, the motor was removed
from equipment that was scrapped, taken out of service.