motor clarification

[crazytrain83]

First post..yay Newbies!

I've been rifling through the forum trying to get a definite answer on this, but I've either read conflicting info, or I don't fully understand how motors and LOR go together (more likely the latter since I'm electrically naive).

Here's my situation....

This will be our first LOR holiday season. In the past we have used cheap little motors we bought on ebay to power a series of pullies for our Halloween display.

I have read that LOR + Motors = BAD. But I have also read in other places that it's OK to use motors as long as you don't fade them.

I've read up some on X10 and thought maybe that would work.

I guess I'm just looking for the best/easiest/cheapest way to get my little pullies to fire on command.

The motors we had been using have these specs...

MODEL 100A
INPUT AC 110V .024A
OUTPUT DC 4.5V 120mA

Any and all suggestions/info would be greatly appeciated!

Thanks in advance!

[Dave Batzdorf]

I am not certain about the motors and LOR. I use x10 for all my motorized stuff - blowers and motorized deer. The main reason i do use x10s is i have them all over the house anyway. I use the Active Home softare to control them. Normally i set the blowers and deer motors to come on a few minutes before showtime so they are fully inflated and running. Then turn them off a few minutes after the show. Works pretty good this way. Good luck.



Dave

[toymakr000]

I have used motors with LOR (blower motors for inflatables).
However I don't use the channel directly, I use a relay. The relay takes the load off the channel. Just make sure when using a relay put a light bulb(c9) across the coil of the relay otherwise it will buzzzzzzzzzzz terribly. This setup is NOT dimmable!

[Steven]

crazytrain83 wrote:

The motors we had been using have these specs...

MODEL 100A
INPUT AC 110V .024A
OUTPUT DC 4.5V 120mA

From these specs, it sounds like this is a DC power supply that powers a DC motor. At that very small current, you could easily drive this directly from a LOR channel, as long as you never dim, twinkle, or shimmer it.

By the way, if you do accidentally dim the channel, it probably won't hurt it immediately, but extended dim will probably destroy the motor power supply. (It probably won't hurt the LOR unit.)

[crazytrain83]

Thanks for the quick responses!

So what I'm hearing is that I should be able to just hook it up to a LOR channel, and make sure it's always either at Zero or 100%.

Do I need to throw a relay switch and bulb in there?

[Bill Foley]

I drive this 8 foot diameter merry-go-round directly from a LOR channel. It is powered by a 1/4 hp motor. As a side note, a LOR stand-a-lone unit is mounted in the canopy which controls the horses and lighting. This 8 channel unit is switched off and on during a sequence by the computer guided LOR controller while the motor channel run continuously.

Attached files

[crazytrain83]

.... soooo my lil' motor should be ok, huh?

[Donald Puryear]

What control seq. do you use for Halloween? I Use parallel interfaces that allows me 4 inputs and 8 outputs. I was hoping the new LOR IO card would be available before Halloween .

[crazytrain83]

Sorry man.... I'm too Newbie for that question.

We'll be ordering our first controller on Saturday. So for we've just been playing with sequencing a few songs.