motor drive design

Todays project, is to design the mounting for a motor drive for my fishing lure body duplicator machine. Currently, the machine is hand cranked, which works well, but gets a bit tedious after the second body, as it takes six minutes to turn the larger bodies.

The motor is a windscreen wiper motor. I had no wiring diagram and four connecting wires and I had to figure out what each wire did. I tried using engineering logic and a resistance meter, but was getting nowhere fast. The only alternative was to dismantle the unit and follow the wires.

A Google search educated me as to what to expect when I got inside. Three carbon brushes meant that re-assembly was going to be very messy. What Google did not tell me, was about the ball bearing that dropped out and bounced around forever on the tile floor of my workshop. Fortunately, I managed to keep my eye on it. An hour was spent trying to figure out where the ball came from, but after re-assembling 3 or 4 times, I finally cracked it.

I tested the motor on my motorbike battery. A bit slow, but all was well. I can compensate for the speed by choosing different bicycle sprockets to suit.

I know, boring to most of you, but this is my day LOL.

Dave