[ksafin]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

I'll give a half answer, as I wager you can figure it out from there (and you gain more insight that way!).

Torque = Force x Distance

This is the perpendicular distance from force to the point of rotation.

The next step of course is to determine whether or not it's appropriate to use the motor's stall Torque for such calculations. And if not, what Torque would you use?

I'm actually in IB Higher Level Physics and have been in AP Physics B and all, so I'm familiar with torques, but this in particular has been a confusing question for me.

So assuming the motor has torque of 283 oz-in, and a shaft diameter of .25 in (thus radius of .125), if you were to simply wrap a string around the shaft and attach a mass to the end of it, would the rotation of the motor shaft produce a linear force of (283 / .125)? It just sounds unreasonable because the result is 141 lbs of force.