[How do I?] Wiring Up A Treadmill Motor (i Know, I Know)

Thats lookin better than how I sent it to you Matt. Im looking foward to the completion!

Sent from somewhere in East Texas Jake Parker
 
thanks Jake! I'm trying to push this through as all hell is about to break loose when the semester starts next Tuesday and I know I won't have much time for anything not work related until Thanksgiving. Unfortunately the list of projects keeps growing!
 
too right! I just got given a bunch of alu and steel (CI?) disks from the Geo department that they charged with diamond dust for grinding and polishing rocks, so that's another project :) Just the use for the motor off my drill press when I put a treadmill motor on it..

IT RUNS! There's a bit of vibration and humming coming through the bench, so I need to work on the isolation a bit more so no vid, but here are some pics.

Slowest speed without backgear - using back gear gets me down into the 10-20 range, although the tach doesn't pick up very well below 30rpm.
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max speed in that gear, so there's considerable head room if I use one of the larger pulleys if I ever need it (or have the cojones)IMG_4053.jpg
motor set up - the motor pivots on that wooden block so I can fine tune the pulley height. Didn't actually mean for it to work that way, I just drilled the holes in the bench from the wrong side of the block :D
IMG_4054.jpg
Tach pickup. I should make something a bit more robust but this works just fine for now
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woohoo! Thanks to everyone for their help, it's been a fun project and I am totally pumped by being able to vary speed on the fly. Have to work up a simple chart of speed/diameter/material/cutter to laminate and stick to the splash guard.

One thing I have learned though is the merits of right angle spade connectors - it was a real effort to get the front on that box, especially with all the PITA 14 gauge wire in there.
 
well I'm really glad I bolted rather than crimped the motor connectors - I had a nagging suspicion that I'd wired the F/R switch wrong - as I was showing off the F/R to the wife and saw that it was running forward in reverse!

But I did mostly get rid of the hum and the vibration by soft mounting both the motor on the block and the block on the bench. Hopefully the belt will smooth out with use as I think the join is causing some lumpiness.
 
that's a great point John, you can even see it when the join goes over the pulley. I need a long belt for the drill press when I convert that to a treadmill motor and 5ft should just about do both machines. Given that I'll be spending $6 or so for that belt, the HF belt is only going to be $15 more with a coupon. Just have to wait til the wife drives out the the Tri Cities (or Dry $hitties as some people call them!).
 
From experience, I have found that it is advantageous to use a choke coil on the dc circuit between the MC controller and the Permanent Magnet DC treadmill motor. I found that my treadmill has one so I also installed one on my treadmill motor powered lathe.

The motor will have higher torque at low rpm, will run quieter, and will run with less vibration when the choke coil is used. I understand that the choke coil will also enable the MC controller to last longer.
 
thanks Forty Niner, I really appreciate that! The one I dismantled had a choke wired in (still have it) but I mistakenly thought it was to filter incoming AC or something similar, doh! After doing some reading it seems like a lot of people recommend using one, particularly to get rid of motor whine, which mine has in buckets. If it does nothing else but get rid of that it'll be worth adding :) From what I've read (don't have the schematic any more), it sits in series with the black DC wire to the motor - is that how you've wired yours?

Now I just need to find another one for my 2nd treadmill motor that's going on the drill press. Perhaps the local scrap yard will have one?
 
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