Hi folks, question about DC motor overheating.

This is a setup I'm testing for spinning part of an art installation. I want the motor to spin the helix shown on the right here, although probably not going to use the copper bar due to the weight. Obviously it's quite a mess at the moment, and the motor is getting hot.

I can mount it on plastic instead of wood and get rid of the tape, and maybe run a fan on it if necessary, but my question is, is this kind of setup a fire hazard even if I make those changes?

I haven't worked with motors before. This is a motor from an oscillating desk fan, it's using the original power supply it came with, but obviously not for its intended purpose. Are these motors supposed to get hot?

The listed specs are 220 - 240 v, 50 hz, 35 watts

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

Not the ideal motor for that application.
How fast, RPM, do you want to spin the object.?
The motor is most likely overheating as it does not have the self cooling of the fan.

 

Welcome to AAC.

There is a contradiction in your post. You say “DC motor” but report the supply voltage as “220-240V 50Hz” which is AC.

In any case you really should just get the right motor for the job. You can get motors and speed controllers very cheaply on AliExpress but first you have to specify some things:

How much weight will the motor have to move?
What speed (in RPM) do you want the weight to move?
Does it require the ability to be back driven, that is, to be rotated backwards by a forced on the output shaft?
Does it have to allow the motor so spin if the driven weight becomes jammed or stuck?
What will the duty cycle be? (minutes on vs. off, or continuous, etc.)

Once you have that sorted the rest is pretty easy. You can just choose a motor, a speed controller, and some drivetrain components (like a nice set of pulleys and a toothed belt for example).