DC Motor and Wheel Set

Description

The DC Motor and Wheel Set is the same motor and wheel sets that come with our basic smart car chassis.  We offer them separately for use in constructing your own mobile platform.

PACKAGE INCLUDES:

• 3-12V geared DC motor
• 66mm tall wheel
• Aluminum motor mount with M3 screws and nuts for mounting
• Red/black 24AWG hook wires, 15cm long
• Zip tie for strain relieving the wires

The motors are DC motors that will work between 3-12VDC.  Speed of rotation will depend on the drive voltage and whether a PWM motor controller is added for speed and direction control.

The tires can be mounted to either side of the motor for mounting flexibility.   They are a simple press fit.

The motor has 2 small screw holes with a spacing of 17.3mm that can be used for mounting.  We also include an aluminum mounting bracket with two M3 x 30mm screws and nuts for attaching to the motor and two M3 x 8mm screws for mounting the bracket to the chassis.

The package also includes a pair of 15cm (6″) long red and black 24 AWG wires for connecting power to the two solder tabs on the motor.

Reversing these wires reverses the direction of rotation, so is somewhat arbitrary as to which color wire is soldered to which tab as the notion of ‘forward’ will depend on how the motor is mounted and which side of the vehicle it is on.  A zip tie is included to secure the wires to the motor body after soldering them in place to help take the strain off the solder tab connections as these can break if they are repeatedly flexed.

Our Evaluation Results:

These DC motor and wheel sets are an inexpensive way to motorize a platform to experiment with robotic control.  Some of the gears are nylon, but they have held up well in our testing.

The motors do tend to run on the fast side when powered straight off of DC voltage, so unless you are building a speed racer, you should plan on either running the motors at a lower voltage if driving them directly or use a motor controller.  At 3VDC, the motors run at about 100RPM with a medium load.  We recommend using a motor controller that can be used to control the speed of the motor by using PWM and also allow for reversing direction of the motors.  Several options are shown below, but we have a number of other options available as well.

Notes: 

1. None

Technical Specifications