Plan to build a time tunnel machine

VW · May 31, 2008

So, I created a thread on this a while ago, but it seems to have dissapeared. I'm planning on making one of these and just wanted to throw my design past some of you to see if it's solid enough. I plan to simply buy the bits and bobs I'll need, like motor, batteries etc, but the set up is quite important concidering my limited resources. My idea was to simply take a plastic bottle cap, pierce a hole in the top, inseting that on top of the motor shaft and epoxying it into place. From there I feel I can easilly mount the mirror. Any thoughts on this?

Also, what power motor and what power/how many batteries are reccomended for this? There's probably been millions of threads on this, but the search engine isn;t brining much up at all. Any info is apreciated...

ajohnson · May 31, 2008

Many people have had success using computer fans with mirrors attached at an angle. 1 fan = tunnel, 2 or more fans = spirograph projector.

VW · May 31, 2008

I've been told a lot that PC fans are relatively slow, so I was thinking a motor would be the way to go. While a PC fan is still an option, if I was to go for mounting a mirror on a motor, would this work? One problem I thought would be the bottle cap being too big and wobbly, but if I cut it down so it was just a plastic circle, epoxy should hold in place good right? I think that would be nice for getting a good surface for angling and mounting the mirror, but am still a little sceptical on the stability of the idea.

Kenom · Jun 1, 2008

probably the easiest thing to do is to use a gear already mounted on a motor. They are incredibly easy to find inside cd-rom's dvd-roms, and such. there are lots of gears for our use inside these things. Plus they are already mounted on the motor. from there it's only a matter of mounting the mirror at a slight angle. the more of an angle you use, the larger the circle is going to be.

VW · Jun 1, 2008

Thanks, so what kind of speeds do they actually put out? Is it enough so it doesn't look sloppy like some PC fans? The gears actually sound really good, as it will deffinately make a good, stable surface for the epoxy to grip to.

Any reccomendations on a cheap drive to tear appart? As long as the motor is good then I'm happy. I was looking at these, as the bracket seems pretty cool, but yeah that's deffinately a good idea...

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=11966&criteria=motor&doy=1m6

Kenom · Jun 1, 2008

the motor on the dvd-rom is very fast. there's been reports of them going soo fast taht it blows up the cd. so yeah it's gonna work find. However there is no gear for that. it's just a mounting for the disk. YOu will however find the gears in there for opening the tray mounted onto a different motor. Just pull them each off and swap them. Driver is somethign I don't know about.

VW · Jun 1, 2008

Cool, so any CD drive will do then? What about batteries? Basically got my head around what I'm doing now minus one or two things, just got to wait a week or so and hopefully I'll have my self a time machine...

Kenom · Jun 2, 2008

battery options are wide open. Essentially your going to control this by using a potentiometer to resist the current going to the motor. Slows it down - speeds it up So you have to take into mind what the motor needs, (usually 3v or so) and how much it's going to drop it down with the potentiomter.

VW · Jun 2, 2008

Ah, you see I was thinking of simply wiring up a switch and using it like that, didn't think about actually controling the speed. So is this more complicated than it looks?

positron · Jun 2, 2008

the main drive motor in a cdrom drive is a brushless dc motor as far as I know. Driving them isn't as simple as just connecting a dc source. You will definately be able to drive the motor if you get a brushless dc motor controller. I don't know if you can make use of the existing driver built into the cdrom drive itself. Its probably easier to use a normal dc motor with brushes but it you really want to use the brushless motor you will probably find some good help in an RC Plane forum as I seem to recall there is a common upgrade made to battery powered RC planes that uses the drive motor from a cdrom.

Kenom · Jun 2, 2008

what??? I'm not talkin bout using the brushless motor in there. I'm talkin bout using the brushed one. the one that spins the cd or dvd. Alright now I gotta tear into my sony 20x to see what that drive is..

Well, I'll be.... Look at that brushless beasty... Ok rescind my comments. but there are brushless motors inside these things. to open the tray. would do the job I'd think.

I'll try it now.

cybob101 · Jun 2, 2008

i did a dvd player and works fine off batteries. i ended up getting all the batteries i got to power it. something like 40v. it sounded evil.

you guys confuse me

VW · Jun 2, 2008

Thanks for helping me out here, it's apreciated. My only memories of using a motor was in school when we used to make... Stuff. All we really needed to do was hook the batteries up to a switch, followed my a motor and then close up the circut. Would a driver really be needed? I guess motors have changed a lot the past 15 years...

roSSco · Jun 2, 2008

VW said:
Thanks for helping me out here, it's apreciated. My only memories of using a motor was in school when we used to make... Stuff. All we really needed to do was hook the batteries up to a switch, followed my a motor and then close up the circut. Would a driver really be needed? I guess motors have changed a lot the past 15 years...

The motors that need a "driver" are stepper motors. google it.

Plan to build a time tunnel machine

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