It's been a while since I spent any serious time at LMR, or indeed building robots. A pressing need to totoally renovate a Victorian house has taken priority so that I can generate enough money top pay the mortgage interest when rates rise again !
However, a by-product of the rennovation is that I retired some of my old power tools. They worked, but having moved up from occasional DIY to extreme DIY I wanted tools with more grunt. So,sitting on my desk I have a hammer drill and a jig saw - both mains powered - and a cordless screwdriver. I have posted these on Gumtree but no takers, so I'm wondering if I could strip the motors out for future robot projects. I see two challenges here and am looking for ideas/assurance that it's worth the effort to keep these rather than bin them.
Challenge 1: a power source. The drill is a 240volt, 400watt device, and the saw 240volt, 350watt. How can I power these from batteries?
Challenge 2: speed. The drill operates at a fixed speed of 3,100 rpm. The saw has "electronic speed control" - whatever that is - but appears to be based on 3,200 rpm. Somehow I need to get this down to something that's more useable - I have this mental picture of a robot head whipping round at 3,000 rpm :). A gearbox or step-down of some sort will be needed. Does anyone have experience of finding and fitting gearboxes to old powertool motors?
The cordless screwdriver is a 3.6volt device delivering 180rpm under no load. This looks a lot more useful.
LMR seems to have had a makeover since I last visited - I think it was being hinted at in The Pulse. Haven't searched for new features, but have noticed a few changes to the logo. Looks good.
