Help building a vibrating motor

#1

Let me preface this by saying that I have no idea what I’m doing.

So, I need to make a vibrating table, for which apparently I need a vibrating motor.

According to this page you can turn any regular motor into a vibrating one by placing some off-centered weight on the shaft of the motor.

I had a DC motor from an old hoover which I’m trying to repurpose for this project, however as you can see from the photo, the shaft doesn’t really look as long as it should be. I can’t seem to be able to remove the metal casing either. So, it will be challenging to attach anything to the shaft given I haven’t got much of a shaft to work with :sweat_smile:

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Does anyone know how I can go about turning it into a vibrating one? It’s also possible that I’ve got this all wrong and the thing I’m looking at isn’t even the shaft, in which case please let me know!
Thanks in advance :heart:

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#2

Definitely a shaft but the business end is generally opposite the contacts/wires :slight_smile:

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#3

The R545 and other R-series form factors are pretty standard. The CDS-R545 looks like the ventilator is built as part of it. You can R545s online without those ventilators for <£10 if taking that shroud off is hard work. I think we may even have some spare in the space in the electronics draws.

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#4

Most common way to attach something to the shaft of the motor is pressure fit - when you have a hole in the rotating part (here: fan) slightly smaller than the shaft and then it is pressed on with hydraulic press/hammer. Sometimes held by friction only, sometimes helped by threadlocker (glue).
So fan probably could be detached carefully, and eccentric can be attached the same way.
The tricky thing is when removing it, you should try not move motor shaft relative to motor case, which can damage the motor. For the same reason it is generally a good idea not to attach anything directly to the shaft, and use bearings, this will extend motor life.

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#5

Thanks very much, all!

I think I’ll get hold of a new one, as I can’t remove the casing. Happy to bring the one I have to the space, if it would be of any use?
What’s the policy for the spare parts in the electronics drawers? Can we just use these freely?

#6

You can rummage for the motors no problem, a few of them came from old power tools that we scrapped but kept the useful parts.

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#7

The easiest way to vibrate a rotating shaft is add eccentric (off axis ) mass. The dynamics of such systems are complex. If you prefer to not make this, you also saw cheap vibrating motors 12V on Amazon for few dollars.

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