DC motor off treadmill

[Bill Swanson]

So I have found myself a working tread mill motor 2.7 HP. Destined for my old lathe.

I am trying to decide if I need to leave the fly wheel on the motor ot to take it off.

Anyone done this and have some advice?

Thanks

[Jeff Nicol]

You won't need the flywheel as you will be using it up and down and in reverse on the lathe, the flywheel helps maintain the torque and speed on the treadmill. My Dad put on on his drill press and it has plenty of low speed torque and way to high end speed! Since the controller should be a PWM (Pulse width modulation) which pulses the full power and torque at the width or length the potentiometer is set at. The slower the speed the farther the with or time between pulses, as the pulses of power get closer together the speed is increased. You can always put the flywheel on if you think you need it, but I am pretty sure you won't need it.

I just got my 3rd treadmill, and I have plans for it when I get back from Idaho.

Good luck,

Jeff

[John McClanahan]

If the flywheel contains the cooling fan you may need to provide for cooling air somehow. I have a treadmill motor that has the cooling blades molded into the back side of the flywheel.

John

[Matt Ranum]

I left the flywheel on mine basically because I couldn't get it off. I mounted the motor to my bench and hooked up all the components so it would run. I ran it fairly slow and used a file to cut a "V" groove in it. Pretty soft metal and didn't take too long. I'm very pleased with the end result although on mine it took a lot of playing around with the settings to get it where I wanted it as far as min and max speed, governor(load) response, etc.

[curtis rosche]

you might want to leave it on. depending on the design you can use it to mount a pulley or what not. i have a motor that i was gonna use but decided not to. but if i took the flywheel off then the motor shaft was only 3/8 inch

[Jeff Nicol]

Since the flywheel is the pulley for the rib belt that was used to drive the treadmill, you could use it to drive a jackshaft with a regular "V" pulley on it if that will be easier for you to do with the lathe you have. If possible you could get a rib belt pulley for the lathe and then just make the mounting bracket to line up the pulleys with adjustability. If you have the whole treadmill then you may be able to use the other pulley on the axle for the treadmill.

Keep messing around with it and you will get to a solution, have fun.

Jeff

[Jerry Marcantel]

I started out with an Image 6.0 treadmill setup for my lathe. The cooling fan is the flywheel, so I decided to get a ribbed pulley made for my lathe spindle. Everything worked great until I took a trip and left the keyboard uncovered (I work outdoors under a patio roof)( my veiw is fantastic) and the late afternoon sun got to it. I since converted to 3 phase and vfd. I also aquired 2 more treadmills that work, and will use one for my other lathe, and the other for my drill press.
If possible, and you can afford it, find yourself a machine shop and get a spindle pulley made to match up to the drive pulley. Even better, if you know any machinists, ask them to make you one for a fee, or since you already know how to use a lathe, even though it's for wood, crossing over to metal isn't that hard. Finding someone who will let you use their lathe is harder than making the pulley. The deminsions are .160" deep, and .092" oc....... Jerry (in Tucson)

[Bill Swanson]

So I was successfull in mounting and making this a functional lathe powered by the treadmill motor. The control circuits, I left in the console and installed the lower boards in there also. I left the flywheel on and it works fine with it on.

So now I have to find a place to put the control panel. Thinking of mounting it on the left side towards the front oriented the same as it is in the pic but way higher.

I get 50 to 2800 RPM. in 100 steps.

Thanks for the info.

Bill

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[Jerry Marcantel]

So I was successfull in mounting and making this a functional lathe powered by the treadmill motor. The control circuits, I left in the console and installed the lower boards in there also. I left the flywheel on and it works fine with it on.

So now I have to find a place to put the control panel. Thinking of mounting it on the left side towards the front oriented the same as it is in the pic but way higher.

I get 50 to 2800 RPM. in 100 steps.

Thanks for the info.

Bill

200141
200140

Bill, you can watch the fat being burned off as you turn, and maybe even get you pulse rate also. That motor looks just like the one I had, but my max rpm was 3205... You need to know that there might be a timer on your system, and it might shut down every hour of use. Just restart it and contuinue if it does.
You're gonna like the variable speed without changing pullies. .... Jerry (in Tucson)

[Bill Swanson]

Thanks for the heads up on the timer. Guess that might be built into the electronics.