Windscreen wiper motors

[rallikas]

Ive tried attaching them directly to the wheel, but it was too slow for me.
Motors w.o. the worm gear stuff would be a completely bad idea?

[john_frizell]

If you just attach a wheel directly to the motor it will spin very fast but won't have much torque and so will stall when you put a load on it [like trying to drive a robot]. If you double the voltage to your windscreen motors they will run twice as fast and develop 4 times as much power. That will heat them up but they should last for the five minutes of a robot fight and give you a slow machine but one with lots of pushing power. Another approach is to make a gear or gear/chain reduction for your motors so that they can run at full speed but the output from your reduction unit is much lower speed and has much more torque. That might be harder though. As others have said, drill motors solve these problems because they have gear reduction units built in.
Do you have anyone else to fight in your part of the world?

[muchalucha]

if your using windscreen wiper motors , rexes robot guide is a great starting point ,

heres the link http://rrc.dannysrobots.co.uk/

[rallikas]

Oh, ofcourse i would make reduction if i would use motors without worm gears! I just want to know if anyone had done same thing. I dont know if these motors are efficent for their size and weight. But i dont know how big? reduction i should make.

Somewhy the drill motors seem weak and small for me, for a fw (2 motors).

Another chance is to gear up the original worm geared motors, maybe 4:1 would be fast enough for a 100mm wheel?

I know all about the rex´s competition!

There are some events held in Finland.

[muchalucha]

oh sorry

[RogueTwoRobots]

Hi Mart,

It is certainly an option to use just the motor part of the windscreen wiper motor; I know of only one person who has tried it but didn't use it for anything more than one competition I don't think?? (help me out here Gary )

I chose to try this method too and got as far as removing the gearbox, with the plan being to use a small gear sprocket on the motor and a larger one on the wheel. I was aiming for around a 3:1 reduction but I never did use the motor for two main reasons;

1. It seemed underpowered so I wanted to get a more powerful motor
2. With the gearbox cut off there was no easy way of mounting it

I read that you are unsure about the strength and power of drill motors being suited to a featherweight. From my experience, a standard pair of drill motors have never really struggled to move a featherweight around the arena, they can usually cope. Obviously if you want more power in your drive, you could have four or more drill motors.
The other option if you're still not keen on drills is to go for the popular 'gold' motors (very similar in size to wiper motors but more powerful) or Speed 900 electric boat motors perhaps. Both would require your own gearing system but you seem to be happy to go down that route as you have planned to do so with your windscreen wiper motors.

Best of luck

[rallikas]

Thanks, but the motor has 2 speeds. Is the slower one more powerful too? (mounting doesn´t look difficult for me, i think )

[john_frizell]

No reason not to gear up. Might be easier.

[rallikas]

Design mustn´t be very simple, because im only new to combat robots. I have been messing around with mechanics quite a bit.

[rallikas]

But what do you people think about gearing up the windshield wiper motors? How big would the gearing have to be for a 100mm wheel for a normal speed??? 1:3, 1:4, 1:5, 1:6 ?