CIM motor + Electrical outlet = ?

[Ryutso]

Originally Posted by squirrel

When you ask a question like this, it helps to provide a lot more info about what exactly you want to do, so others here can help you figure out some other possible ways to do it.....

Well what I planned to do was use 4 similar motors to drive a winch of sorts, that would lift my LCD TV up and down a stationary pole that I have in my room.

I asked around and found that the CIM's would lift the appropriate 25 pounds that my TV and 4 CIM's weigh. The only problem is, I don't want to have a car battery sitting at the foot of my bed.

Is there another electric motor that I can cluster together to lift the 20 pounds of my TV and 3 others of itself just running from 120V AC current?

EDIT: I also plan to control them with DPDT switches and would like to know if this (http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062516&numProdsPerPage=60&y=1 0&x=13&retainProdsInSession=1) is the right switch for the job.

EDIT2: I also plan to wrap the whole controller in a project box so I'll need some tips on soldering the wire to a power cord.

[PAR_WIG1350]

how are you attaching this TV to the pole and what kind of pole is it?

Also, is this worth the cost of 4 of any decent motors? why not use pulleys and a cleat from a flagpole?

EDIT:to solder a wire to a power cord it might be best to put some type of breaker/ fuse block in between

[Ryutso]

Originally Posted by PAR_WIG1350

how are you attaching this TV to the pole and what kind of pole is it?

Steel pole and I was thinking of designing something like the pole locking mechanisms from this years game, only instead of being one pneumatics, it's just permanent.

Originally Posted by PAR_WIG1350

Also, is this worth the cost of 4 of any decent motors? why not use pulleys and a cleat from a flagpole?

Cause it'd be cooler to use motors to move it up and down the pole.

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by Ryutso

Well what I planned to do was use 4 similar motors to drive a winch of sorts, that would lift my LCD TV up and down a stationary pole that I have in my room.

I asked around and found that the CIM's would lift the appropriate 25 pounds that my TV and 4 CIM's weigh. The only problem is, I don't want to have a car battery sitting at the foot of my bed.

CIM peak power = 321 W
321W * 4 = 1284 W
Assuming gearbox efficiency of something extremely conservative like .5
1284W*.5 = 642W

25 lbs * 10 ft (tallest most bedroom ceilings would be) = 339 joules
Power = Work /Time
Time = Work / Power
339 Joules / 642 W = .53 seconds

This means that at half of peak power 4 CIMS will lift a TV of 0 height from your floor to your ceiling in .53 seconds. I guess my point is, how did you decide you needed 4 CIMs for this job?

[Ryutso]

Originally Posted by Vikesrock

CIM peak power = 321 W
321W * 4 = 1284 W
Assuming gearbox efficiency of something extremely conservative like .5
1284W*.5 = 642W

25 lbs * 10 ft (tallest most bedroom ceilings would be) = 271.16 joules
Power = Work /Time
Time = Work / Power
271.16 Joules / 642 W = .42 seconds

This means that at half of peak power 4 CIMS will lift a TV of 0 height from your floor to your roof in .42 seconds. I guess my point is, how did you decide you needed 4 CIMs for this job?

Oh sorry. It's not 4 CIMs doing all the lifting. I'm going to arrange them diagonally like:

\ /
/ \

around a rubber ball so that I can move it up and down, but also swing it around the pole to differ in direction. So something like this:

Bold Red means it's powered:

\ /
/ \
Moves up

\ /
/ \
Moves down

\ /
/ \
Moves right

\ /
/ \
Moves left

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Vikesrock

25 lbs * 10 ft (tallest most bedroom ceilings would be) = 271.16 joules

250 ft-lb = 339 joules


~

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by Ether

250 ft-lb = 339 joules


~

Oops

I used 8 ft, then thought it would be better to use 10 and apparently didn't go back and fix the math.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Toby,
What you are asking leaves me wondering about safety. This is a point where we have to really point you to a mentor that can discuss this with you and watch over what you do. Household current is not something to fool around with as it can kill and set fires if mishandled.
As you can see from the above answers, four CIMs are an overkill for this project as you don't need to raise the TV that quickly. We typically are raising devices on a TV set at much less than one foot per sec and typically the height of the TV (30-40 inches) in about 15 seconds. Any faster and the support hardware and structure take too much of a beating when you stop. The garage door opener motor in the link that Sanddrag has given above looks like a pretty good start. Remember that the motor is designed to lift a balanced garage door so it is likely producing the required lift for you project. It might even have all the needed end limit switches that you should use in your project.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Toby,
What you are asking leaves me wondering about safety. This is a point where we have to really point you to a mentor that can discuss this with you and watch over what you do. Household current is not something to fool around with as it can kill and set fires if mishandled.
As you can see from the above answers, four CIMs are an overkill for this project as you don't need to raise the TV that quickly. We typically are raising devices on a TV set at much less than one foot per sec and typically the height of the TV (30-40 inches) in about 15 seconds. Any faster and the support hardware and structure take too much of a beating when you stop. The garage door opener motor in the link that Sanddrag has given above looks like a pretty good start. Remember that the motor is designed to lift a balanced garage door so it is likely producing the required lift for you project. It might even have all the needed end limit switches that you should use in your project.

Al has some great advice here.

I've spent a lot of time crawling surplus sites (usually for 540 sized motors), there are a lot of cheap, slow, torquey motors out there. What's nice about that is you really don't have to do much, or possibly no, gear reduction, and depending on what you buy, they could have a nice low efficiency worm gear to hold it in place.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

If the circuit breaks at 40 amps, you wouldn't need a AC-DC converter that could output 1600 watts.

We all know that a fuse reacts faster than a circuit breaker, right? (If not, consider yourself informed). Now look here (1.8 MB PDF file). According to the graph on Page 4, how long can a 40A fuse hold a 100 A current?

Originally Posted by Ryutso

I asked around and found that the CIM's would lift the appropriate 25 pounds that my TV and 4 CIM's weigh.

Give me any motor and I can get it to lift 25 pounds. What changes is speed.

OK, so I think everyone understands that a CIM is probably a poor choice for this application. 120 VAC will smoke it immediately, a 12V power supply big enough to manage it will be expensive, and 120 VAC geared motors are plentiful and cheap.

Al spoke about electrical safety: heed his words if you enjoy living. Even an accidental brush against 120 VAC can be fatal. That would ruin your day right quick. Setting the house on fire is just a side benefit.

Also consider mechanical safety: The whole system needs to support at least 3 or 4 times the heaviest weight it;ll ever see, and if it were mine I'd go for a factor of not less than 10. If it were to break, the damaged TV would be the least of the problem, since the pole embedded in my cousin's chest will really cheese off Aunt Sally...

[Greg Needel]

If I was looking to do this project on the cheap, I would look for things that already do the motion that you require.

For example a drill press table travels up a pole (using a rack and pinion), and also can swing around the pole.

So you could buy something like this http://www.harborfreight.com/16-spee...ess-43378.html

Stick a low rpm high torque motor on the lifting crank, and then drive a firction wheel on the horizontal surface of the column to rotate.


If you wanted to separate the 2 mechanisms i would move away from a pole and use drawer slides on a vertical frame, and then pivot the frame at the bottom like a turret using a lazy Susan bearing.

Without knowing the specs of your tv/system it is hard to recommend a motor. On the cheap side of things I will echo finding something at http://www.surpluscenter.com/electric.asp on the expensive side you can find something exactly speced for your project at http://www.grainger.com