ME trying to find a proper electric motor... any help would be appreciated.

tectactoe

For a special project, a team and I are trying to create our own automatic golf ball tee setter. To make a long story short, I need a motor, but I've never purchased motors before, and my EE skills are pretty weak, so I need some help.... Here are some specs that I need to meet:

The motor should be pretty small.
The motor should be able to turn a shaft/plate assembly weighing about 18 lbs.
The motor should still be able to turn at the rated rpm when ~20 lbs of golf balls are on top of it.
The motor will be controlled by a microcontroller (possibly an Arduino board) - not too sure about how this works... looking into it.
The RPM of the motor needs to be low (8-12 RPM)

I'm not to sure of how it will be powered (does the power go to the controller, which THEN powers the motor?) And I'm not sure how much power the motor will need and how to supply it in the correct amount (12 V, 20V, 110 V?)

Also, what kind of motor is best for this application (small, decent torque, low rpm, low power input) - AC? DC? Servo?

Any help at all is appreciated. I don't even know the best place to purchase motors like this! (The ones on McMaster-Carr are far too large).

Thanks!

Carl Pugh

Barbecue grill motor would probably work.

Universal type motor geared for low speed would probably be preferred.

If want portable use 12 volt battery and DC motor with gear reducer.

If motor need to be reversed, use DC motor

www.mpja.com has some motors and gear reducers that should do what you want.

Uriah_Heep

Try a microwave oven motor. It is small, good torque and speeds are really low (there are model around 6 rpm and less). Also, it's cheap.

tectactoe

Thanks for the replies, guys! I will look into these! Quick question about the microwave motors, though...

For ones that are similar to the kind on this page (http://www.repairclinic.com/Microwave-Motor-Parts) there they have the L1 and L2 leads to power it, is there a way to power these motors via a microcontroller using wires instead?

Thanks again!