I wanted to use wiper motors for a future robot and was looking at making my own wheels out of some plastic with bike tread on. What I'm curious about is has anyone had a go at this and found an easy way of attaching the centers to the hub of the wiper gearbox?
This is as in if you drill an 8mm hole in the center of a plastic wheel it will thread quite nicely onto a drill output etc.
When I tried to fit a wheel to a wiper motor it was a nightmare! The best way I found was to make an axel from a piece of steel rod with an M6 thread in one end which I then had to lock tight onto the wiper axel then I had to put a bolt through the axel and the wheel.
I had to extend the shaft of the wiper motor so it was more complicated than need be. I think you could possibly just melt an m6 nut into your plastic wheel then screw it onto the motor shaft and then loctite it on or possibly put a bolt through the nut and wipe shaft.
I imagine none of that makes any sense but at least I tried!!
Last edited by psychostorm; 12th April 2013 at 19:28.
Thats awesome thanx! So as long as you can get your wheel to grip the axle you're away lol. I have loads of wiper motors is all lol.
Speaking objectively, I'd say leave wiper motors well alone, they're useless! Very slow, and attaching a wheel is a real hassle. But if you really must use them the only reliable way I found was to weld a plate to the output shaft and bolt the wheels onto that. If you want cheap and easy motors, drill motors are definitely the way... But I'm sure you knew that already.
I'm gonna stick with drill motors. The wiper motors are just hard work, whilst I had a few I thought I'd see if it looked doo-able but it's just a pain. Thanks for the advice!
Does anyone know if the motors themselves are any good? Large can size, anyone got specs?
I think the motors are pretty bad for their weight and size, my tracked robot used them and I'd say it had a bit more pushing power than a normal bot but not a lot
I have about 5 kicking about, must be useful for something!!!
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