What to use for time tunnel?

So I'm wanting to construct something to create the time tunnel effect with laser and was wondering if anyone had any reccomendations on motors or fans which have little fabrication required to do the job. Battery or mains operated is preffered, but a PC fan can always be a last resort. Any input is apreciated...

What to use for time tunnel?.

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A time machine!! [smiley=laugh.gif]


Just about any DC motor will do the job, like those you'll find in old CD/DVD drives. If it has a little gear/wheel on it, keep it on, because it will make it easier to glue the mirror to that, rather to the shaft.

Then add a switch, mirror, etc - nothing to worry about, its a walk in the park.

Cool man. My only concern is wiring leads for the mains as I don't even wire things all together, what kind of power is required for something like that? Not much I suppose? I want to try and find something which is box like and flat shaped, so I don't have to build a housing. What's wiring a PC fan up like? I want something with a bit of kick to it so I'm not sure a little fan would be up to the job. Any other reccomendations? CD drive seems a really good idea though, I just can't invision it yet lol...

You can't just plug it in the socket - it will blow up!

You'll need a adaptor, like an old cellphone charger or whatever that's somewhere between 4.5-12V DC. Got anything like that around?

What's wiring a PC fan up like?

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Red = + (12v)
Black = - (ground)

A fan will work too, the mirror doesn't need to be larger than 8-10mm, so it's no problem to turn it. Cut off the blades and it will go faster.

FireMyLaser said:

You can't just plug it in the socket - it will blow up!

You'll need a adaptor, like an old cellphone charger or whatever that's somewhere between 4.5-12V DC. Got anything like that around?

What's wiring a PC fan up like?

Click to expand...

Red = + (12v)
Black = - (ground)

A fan will work too, the mirror doesn't need to be larger than 8-10mm, so it's no problem to turn it. Cut off the blades and it will go faster.

Click to expand...

Oh, okay well there we go, we can throw wiring it for the mains out of the window. So, How many batteries would we be looking to power it? AA, C, D? Seems the simplest way to go....

It depends on the motor you want to use. If you go with the fan you'll need 12v, but that's 8 batteries!
So you might wanna use a 9V battery, but it will be slower though. (Fans are pretty slow in general.)

Yeah, that's the impression I got from reading around. With the CD drive, could I simply leave the drive in the tray, turn it on and let it do it's thing? Because right now it does seem the simplest and most effective route. I just want to try and do as little as possible to get the job done, simple yet effective...

Take the vibro motor out of an old mobile phone, take off the ecentric weight and wire it through a switch to one AA or AAA battery....

Regards rog8811

or you can get a ~12v dc adapter that runs off mains voltage.

I used a 9v adapter from a cordless phone I had. worked fine.

Hey, why are you so worried? This is fun, and you should just experiment and have a good time!

Yes, you can just leave it on.

Also a Vibro motor from an old XBOX controller will work too

rog8811 said:

Take the vibro motor out of an old mobile phone, take off the ecentric weight and wire it through a switch to one AA or AAA battery....

Regards rog8811

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I tried this once and I pulled the whole axle out of the thing, completely destroying the motor. And the weight was still fixed to the axle like a house.

I think a CD or DVD drive might be the best option so far. I mean, could I just open the top up, wire up the motor to the battery and use it like that? One thought was that sleds are full of unnecisary reflective material, but it could easilly be sprayed. I just want a flat, solid, stable unit with no fuss and a drive sounds the right way, just need to know if it could be easilly wired like that or not...

the drive's spindle motor (the one that spins the disc) is probably a stepper motor of some sort... there's also a stepper motor that slides the tray via a worm gear... these are pretty hard to use, since they only turn a certain amount of degrees per pulse.. you'd need some other circuitry to make them spin freely. the best motor to use from a cdrom drive is the one that ejects and retracts the tray. it's right near the front of the drive, under the tray. it's just a regular motor, no circuitry required. find a source of electricity between 5 and 15 volts, and just plug it in.

as far as leaving it in the drive, yeah I suppose you could do that... or you could just glue the motor to a piece of wood... or like I did, just press it into some blutack or plasticine or whatever. the motors also have two screw holes in the top of them and if you had something you could drill two holes in, you could mount it like that. be creative, play a little. put yourself in front of a bunch of parts and just play around and experiment until you find a way that works for you.

also, do you have something laying around that looks like this picture?

these dc adapters are cheap and plentiful and will drive your motor just fine.

So if I'm just using a standard motor, how will I mount the mirror to the axel? This is one reason why I though the CD drive would have been a good idea as mounting the mirror would have been hella simple. I watched that video from DL, but his method was kind of devestating to his optical equipment, plus I can't afford power tools and all that crap. Any ideas are welcome...