windshield wiper motors for robot drive motors ?

I saw an ad on eBay for a couple of windshield wiper motors - suggesting they would be good for robotic drive motors. Has anyone used these type motors ? Pros ? Cons ? Thanks !

Reply to
Pogo
Loading thread data ...

I bought a few at the local junkyard (car salvage) a few years ago for $10-$15 each. Prices may vary. Ebay might not be the best place to buy these; I imagine their weight makes shipping expensive.

Pros: High torque, durable design. Mine had a few terminals; you could use them to select different speeds. Run on standard 12v. Cheap.

Cons: Somewhat awkward lever arms. Moderately high current requirements. Rather slow since they're geared so heavily. Hard to get "standard" parts. No encoders. Used.

- Daniel

Reply to
D Herring

Most windshield wiper motors are pure crap for robotics. They're made to turn in one direction, and many exhibit a 20-25% speed loss in the other direction. They're loud and inefficient; neither problem is too critical for an automotive application, but important for mobile robotics.

But they're cheap.

-- Gordon

Reply to
Gordon McComb

Thanks Gordon, just the kind of info I needed. I figured they would be slow, but had no idea about the reverse speed issue. Glad I haven't bought any yet!

P.S. Do you get any spam using your "NOSPAM" address? ( I'd like to switch to that form but I got hit so bad on some newsgroups a year ago that I am now gunshy. )

"Gord> >

Reply to
Pogo

My first robot used 12v windscreen motors and indeed the motors did run faster one way than the other. However I have another robot base which uses 24v windscreen motors and they appear to work fine in both directions. I don't know about their efficiency but they are powerful enough to move furniture, crash through walls and burn out the tyres if the robot base hits a wall without any stop button.

As for noise I liked them because compared with a high geared motor they make hardly any noise at all. The electronic control was too expensive however as they did use a lot of watts and the base had to be out of welded steel to hold the weight of the motors and batteries.

When I tried some light weight motors from a kids battery driven car the noise of the gears was horrendous. I was going to use a toy tank base as a cheap robot platform until I heard the noise and realised I and the wife would be driven mad with that thing moving around the house.

-- John

Reply to
JGCASEY

If in doubt, give spamgourmet.com a try. They've been reliable for the couple years I've used them. Only adds a delay of a couple minutes per email.

- Daniel

Reply to
D Herring

I used an unspammed address for so long it doesn't really matter, but I figured it can't hurt in trying to avoid even more. For a while I was getting upwards of 600 spams a day, from harvests of my e-mail on Web sites and on newsgroup postings. I still get >200/day.

-- Gordon

Reply to
Gordon McComb

An alternative is car headlight motors, I used a couple I pulled from a Toyota Celica, worked great. They even have a knob on the shaft for raising the headlights manually if the motor failed. I attached a shaft encoder to this and got great feedback.

Don't what their duty cycle is like though, they might overheat if used really heavily.

Reply to
will.lynelle

Sell: China Shenzhen ZHAOWEI Machinery & Electronics Co. Ltd engages in designing , manufacturing and marketing all kinds of electric motors. They are mainly suitable for the following applications: smart home application used in sm art kitchen and laundry, medical instrument for personal care, smart E-tran smission applied in automobile, industry automation applied in telecommunic ation and a great variety of plastic/metal planetary gearbox in different s izes. In order to develop the oversea market, we are current seeking new partne rs around the world to create a bright future together. ZhaoWei is a right choice and excellent partnership with sincere services.

Company: Shenzhen ZHAOWEI Machinery & Electronics Co., Ltd URL:

formatting link
Contact: Anny Liu Tel?+86-755-27322652 Fax?+86-755-27323949 E-mail: snipped-for-privacy@zwgearbox.com Add: Blk. 18, Longwangmiao Industry Park, Fuyong Tn., Bao?an Dist., Shenzhen 518103, Guangdong, China

Reply to
zwgearbox

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.