Attaching the Fisher Price

[sburro]

Allright all you vets. Two years ago, there was a game that envolved picking op kickballs. Some teams used the fisher Price motors to run their collector. I was wondering how some of these teams modified the gear box to make thier belts or rollers go faster. A second part to my question is how did you connect a shaft to the motor? Our team has not used these motors before and any help would be appreciated. (and yes I tried to search CD but came out short. I do think it is out there though)

[Andy A.]

I would suggest that you utilize the provided gearboxes. They are, on a whole, pretty decent.

If the final output is not close to your desired ratio, you can open the transmission (remove the motor and carefully pry all the plastic tabs out. It can be a chore but is possible) and replace the shaft through the second stage which is a significantly faster ratio. Inside the case, you will likely see a whole bunch of white plastic gears of increasing size and covered in grease. Spin one to see how things work; It's a pretty clean layout. The shafts running through the gears are steel hex shafts of sizes I do not know. I do recall that getting the correct hex stock was easy enough, so it is a stock (metric I think) size. By replacing the hex shaft with a longer one and modifying the black casing to allow it to extend out, you then have a new output shaft at a much higher ratio and a transmission that is pretty reliable. This does require a lathe to turn the new shaft down in certain places, so make sure that someone on your team knows how to turn hex stock- it's a little scary if you don't know what your doing.

That second stage is a pretty good ball park speed for running rollers. From there you can adjust your gearing with different size timing belt pulleys or chain sprockets etc.

Of course, you do not need to use the black transmission. Because the transmission is not considered integral to the motor, it is permissible to not only modify it, but to remove it entirely. Doing so will leave you with just the motor, so make sure you are up to manufacturing a transmission if you decide the stock one will not work for you.

Connecting a shaft to the stock gearbox most effectively and easily requires a special adapter that is used in the units original employment. These used to come in the kit, but you must now purchase them. I do not know how, but I think that Dr. Joe has good info on that, among others.

Sorry that I don't have any specific measurments or a white paper for you. I think what I've related is a decent use of the transmissions, but other more learned then I may think it a terrible idea. I would suggest you listen to what they say if they call a foul on this idea.

-Andy A.

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by Andy A.

I would suggest that you utilize the provided gearboxes. They are, on a whole, pretty decent.
...

Yes and no. They are wonderful gearboxes... ...for driving a Barbie Car at 5mph.

In the many years since F-P donated them, we only used the transmision one year and that was with Bill Beatty's great advice to replace the last output gear with an aluminum subsitute gear (WM Berg sells one that is tolerably easy to modify to get into that gearbox, if memory servers).

But, I think it is much much better to use these motors in another gearbox. AndyMark.biz sells a nice little 4:1 gearbox. Banebots.com sell a whole series of gearboxes in a variety of ratios that can be easily fitted to a F-P motor in about 10minutes. You can also modify Dewalt XRP drills to use a F-P motor (look for a whitepaper called NBD by Joe P. -- very good work).

Callin' 'em as I sees 'em...

Joe J.

[sburro]

Thanks for all the suggestions and responses. I will have to look into that aluminum gear. sound interesting.

[techtiger1]

Originally Posted by sburro

Thanks for all the suggestions and responses. I will have to look into that aluminum gear. sound interesting.

I have the print of that gear Dr. Joe was refering to I attached it to this post, if your still interested that is.