Subject:
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Re: Needed overview of motors
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.loc.us.ca.sf
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Date:
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Thu, 12 Aug 1999 02:00:30 GMT
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Viewed:
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632 times
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In lugnet.loc.us.ca.sf, ba-lego@cinnamon.com (Janet Graff) writes:
Hi Janet. Sorry to have missed you at the meeting!
I can help somewhat. Others might have to fill in.
> Can someone give me a primer on which motors are good for what and how they
> work. I am thinking of building some motorized models like a ferris wheel
> or just motorizing some pieces on a train and want to know what would be
> appropriate. I need to know the following four things;
>
> a. How strong is the motor about what weight of pieces can it move (relative
> strength is fine)
Dunno.
> b. How does it get it's power (battery, plug in, etc)
On a train you can use either. Just remember that any connected motors will
slow down as track power is attenuated. For those things on your train, that
need constant juice, batteries are in order.
> c. How does it connect (via 9V motor wire or technic gearing or whatever)
For 5119, I dunno. I would guess with 9V wire.
> d. Any interesting features
You can use the 9V wire that Lego sells to bring 9V to any part of your train,
by stacking the ends of the 9V on top of each other to bring power to other
motors, lights, etc. The problem is having the wire stretch between cars, as
uncoupling can be a problem if a wire is strung between them.
> I have some confusion about battery boxes and motors. Do all the motors
> require the battery box? How many 9V motor wires can you stack up on the
> connector on a given battery box?
The motors don't need batteries per se, they just need enough voltage and
current either from a battery box or track power. And stack as many 9V wire
pieces as you want. I know I'm not instructing the ignorant, but remember that
the more you load on the batteries, the shorter their lifespan.
> I have some hope that 5119 is stand alone
> possibly with a watch battery otherwise the train will have to carry around
> a battery box (I guess that's what the cattle cars are for).
5119 micro motor will probably drain a watch battery fairly fast, as they're
really not meant for motors.
> I assume
> lighting on the train is done through the Train motor but how much can you
> effectively run off of that without slowing the train down. For instance I
> doubt I could run lights on every car and a ferris wheel on one car and a
> merry go round on the other without bringing the thing to a halt. Can you
> simply hook more Speed Regulators up to the track to compensate for this?
Anything you add electrically takes away from the train motor, even lights.
But most folks don't run their trains at full speed, so you've got extra juice
to play with. Without putting a motor on every car that needed power, you
could string the 9V wires through each car from the engine's motor. Note that
uncoupling is more of a hassle though because of the wire. Also how you wire
is important, as wiring in series progressively depletes voltage the further
down the electrical line you go.
Parallel wiring is probably in order here. That means that every car should
have a master wire coming from the engine that each car simply taps off of.
A bird's eye view of parallel wiring might look like this:
engine club car sleeper foofoo car automobile carrier
motor lights lights lights motor/lights
| | | | |
+----------+-------------+----------+-------------+
Serial wiring looks like this (which you probably don't want):
engine club car sleeper foofoo car automobile carrier
motor lights lights lights motor/lights
| | | | | | | |
+--------+ +---------+ +------+ +------------+
Note that with serial wiring, each set of lights of each car is connected to
the end of the previous set, whereas with the parallel, each set of car lights
has access to the full voltage of the track, regardless of whether the lights
in the previous car are working.
If you want, you could hide a battery box either in the engine or some other
car (like another "motorless" engine following the first one, or a coal car)
and use the parallel wiring method from the box for constant power for all
cars.
Or, for a cheesier solution for a ferris wheel or merry-go-round, get one of
those new Track Snow Removers and modify it to power the wheel that way so you
won't need electricity.
>
> The motors that I see listed in the S@H catalog are
>
> 5114 Extra 9V Motor
> a.
> b. Requires external power source like Battery Box or 4548 Train
> Speed Regulator
> c. 9V motor wire connectors on top and bottom
> d.
> 5119 Micro Motor
> a.
> b.
> c.
> d.
> 5225 Mini Motor
> a.
> b. Requires external power source like Battery Box or 4548
> c. 9V motor wire connector on top
> d.
Mini Motor is more powerful than Micro Motor. Not sure how much more though,
but 5225 is has a bit of weight to it meaning heavier magnets inside and more
torque.
I'd use the Micro for little things that rotate, like radar dishes, and other
ornamental things. Use the Mini for technic cars. I couldn't say which motor
to use until I knew more about your ferris wheel and carousel.
-Tom McD.
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Needed overview of motors
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| Can someone give me a primer on which motors are good for what and how they work. I am thinking of building some motorized models like a ferris wheel or just motorizing some pieces on a train and want to know what would be appropriate. I need to (...) (25 years ago, 12-Aug-99, to lugnet.loc.us.ca.sf)
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