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Whitetrashrocker

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My uncle has an idea I need your help with.

Sid or functional artist I'm looking at you.

So the idea is...
He scrapped an electric mobility chair. Wants to repurpose the drive motors to turn the drive wheel of a tubing bender

We are kinda clueless on what and how these work electricly.
Here is a pic of what the motor looks like and we have all the controls but really only need it to go one way or another.

Is it possible to make or buy a converter to run it on ac instead of batteries? I'm gonna say not really cause you lose the amperage.

Also attached is the decal from the battery charger.
 

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itsid

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that always depends on the manufacturer I'm afraid.
BUT

red and black very much suggests plus and minus for the motor.

since this is a two seperate motor drive for one wheelchair,
the other one will be rotation feedback I assume.
If you can read the label we might be able to find the wiring.
check the pride's website they have service manuals iirc.

Can you rotate the wheel? (looks like wormdrive, but if it is you likely can't)

You COULD find a transformer that gets you close to what the motor wants,
but IMHO it needs to be a torroidial transformer,
and in that size it'll be ~200 bucks or so alone.
then a rectifier and you'd be set.

You can tst with a LED transformer (a 20Amp 24V for example costs like 16-20 bucks)
IDK what amps you will need to power it.
but it'll fail eventually anyways.

'sid
 

Functional Artist

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Sounds do able (an electric motor turning the drive wheel of a bender) & kuhl, a power bender :thumbsup:

I would keep it simple (at first) to get it operating

...then play with power supplies

Rig it all up on the bender

...use regular car battery's for testing

You will probably only be using it intermittently

...so, let's see how long they will last :2guns:
 

Whitetrashrocker

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Ok so red and black should be motor control, and reversing polarity will make it rotate the other way?

The black rod is a gear decoupler. So you could free wheel.

Can you run on say a 12v battery? Just have half the power (torque), correct?

There is a sticker on the motor but I didn't find any info.

I looked at converters but not looking to spend several hundred dollars and the supplies we're only like 10 amp. Sounded kinda low.
 

Functional Artist

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For what your doing, I don't think you'll need an actual controller

Just a push button switch

...it should give you pretty good control (kinda like power windows in a car)


I think most power chairs are 24V (2- 12V car batteries)

...do you remember how many batteries the chair had originally?

...see if it says anywhere, on the motor or battery area

...if you can't

I don't think it will hurt anything, try 1 battery & see what happens

...red wire from motor to 30 amp fuse (* always use a fuse :thumbsup:) then to battery positive (+)

...black wire from motor to a switch then to battery negative (-)


If it don't go or goes really slow, hook 2 batteries in series (+ to -)

...then hook the red motor wire/fuse to the battery's positive (+)

...hook the black motor wire to a switch (momentary push button would be better than a on/off toggle switch) then to the other battery's negative (-)
 

Whitetrashrocker

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No batteries came with chair. They croaked and the chair was scrapped.

Its not gonna hurt the motor if we can only supply 12v, will it?

I kinda liked the speed control idea. If your trying to bend some heavy tube it will need to go slower than if you were rolling a small trim piece or something.

---------- Post added at 08:07 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:05 AM ----------

The only sticker on the motor was a barcode and some numbers. Putting them in the gewgle bar brought up nothing.

---------- Post added at 08:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:07 AM ----------

Found where to buy motors but no info on the amp draw.

What is the usual amperage for these?
 

itsid

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motors like these are usually not that powerfull (I'd say in the 250-350 Watt range is most common, 120 not unseen though)

So yeah, anywhere between maybe 5 and 15 Amps for a 24V motor

So if you want to go for a speed controller, you can have that for relatively cheap,
since this is not a vehicle project, even cheaper LOL
Just find a DC speed controller on ebay .. if it's a pcb and a turn knob... that's what you're aiming for.
get as HIGH of an Amperage as possible (20 or 30 Amps should keep the controller cool and solve all powering needs easily, since the motor cannot draw more amps than it needs ;))

that kind of power again can be drawn from a LED strip transformer...
BUT it'll not bee too happy about it when powering a motor, so yeah 20 bucks every other year or so for a new one,
or a torroidial transformer (plus rectifier) I'm afraid :(

No, undervoltage is fine with most motors,
you might hit a voltage where the motor will NOT turn at all, 12V should at least make it hum though ;)

thanks to the wormgear it should have the torque you need for some serious work,
BUT keep in mind that the gears inside it's gearbox are likely nothing but sintered metal powder;
so it itself might not withstand too much abuse.
It's nearly impossible to tell without opening up the gearbox or having the specsheet.
(which hopefully contains it's max torque ratings)

You will have to either test OR experiment I'm afraid.

Amp draw is easily measured by it's internal resistance
(you will need to make yourself a voltage divider I'm afraid to get the low resistance readings you need)
That way e can make assumptions about it's mechanical power
(and thus torque based on the wheels diameter)
that value the motor should be able to handle w/o any adverse effects for quite some time.

Or you put it in place and bend heavier and heaver material (slowly stepping up) until it's
getting hot or starts to stall, then back up a fair amount and never bend material stronger than that ;)

'sid
 

Whitetrashrocker

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That's helpful Sid thanks.
At least we know what kind of range to shoot for.
It's gonna be a while for this project to take shape but we know it's more probable than not.
Uncle just got a building up and there's so much to do to get it finished and set up proper so there are bigger rats to kill. The bender will be a later project. I'll post up the finished product when it gets done.
Again this place is great.
Thanks guys.
 

bob58o

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I asked my buddies for help making sure this gets wire up correctly....

They replied...

Dear friend
Pls don't worry ,Pls contact the motor blue contact controller green,motor Green contact controller blue wires,yellow color wire is still contact to yellow wires,
And the motor Holzer wires ,pls swap blue and yellow wire ,that will be ok.Hope you can help us try it again

Have a nice day
 
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