Hi. I've never done anything with motors before so I'm a bit out of my element. Yes, I can do the research... but given the importance of this project (or rather, the lack of importance) I figured I might short-cut and ask for some quick help before investing time.
I bought a couple outdoor sunshades from Costco. They have a manual hand-crank mechanism for raising/lowering them. It sucks. Call me lazy, but we don't bother using the damn things because:
But I don't really know what's involved. I figure I want something in the vicinity of 60rpm. The shade is 8 feet x 8 feet but its not all that heavy (< 10 pounds including the rod). I did some quicky calculations and figure its about 32 ounce-inches of torque that I'd need since the crank mechanism has a 5:1 gear.
I don't know if that's a particularly "powerful" motor, what kind of controller is needed, etc. Ideally, I'd want a way for it to stop before it goes too far in either direction. And ideally, a momentary switch would be used to control, preferably with one-touch operation (ie. press "down" and walk away while it lowers it all the way down. Or press-hold for more control. Like most car power windows work).
Worth doing? What do you think?
I bought a couple outdoor sunshades from Costco. They have a manual hand-crank mechanism for raising/lowering them. It sucks. Call me lazy, but we don't bother using the damn things because:
- It takes over 90 cranks for full travel
- We can't leave the crank rod connected because the wind bangs it against the window so we have to find the crank everytime we need it (or leave it on the floor but that's ugly)
But I don't really know what's involved. I figure I want something in the vicinity of 60rpm. The shade is 8 feet x 8 feet but its not all that heavy (< 10 pounds including the rod). I did some quicky calculations and figure its about 32 ounce-inches of torque that I'd need since the crank mechanism has a 5:1 gear.
I don't know if that's a particularly "powerful" motor, what kind of controller is needed, etc. Ideally, I'd want a way for it to stop before it goes too far in either direction. And ideally, a momentary switch would be used to control, preferably with one-touch operation (ie. press "down" and walk away while it lowers it all the way down. Or press-hold for more control. Like most car power windows work).
Worth doing? What do you think?