130 motors

kmott

Hi All,

I'm wondering a couple things about these 130 motors that all of our fun trains run on. First, I notice that some have a red cap, some green (I've also seen blue, yellow and orange). Are these color coated to mean anything?
Also, does anyone know of a way to test the RPM of a motor? Or even the relative RPM? Basically, I have some trains that I would like to put a faster motor into but don't want to do the work just to replace with a similar RPM motor.

thanks!

update: just bought one of these. hope it tells me something

chrisjo

You're going to have an interesting time fixing this up. It comes with reflective tape that you cut into a half-inch square and apply to the shaft whose rotation you want to measure, plus the non-reflective area has to be greater than the reflective area.

So you need to make a lightweight cylinder that's big enough to satisfy these conditions and can be attached to the motor shaft. Maybe a piece of polystyrene foam that you can push over the pinion on the motor shaft? I recently bought some small polystyrene cones with the idea of making trees with them, one of them might work, but it would need to be perfectly centred

Super

In an earlier video of Ucwepn he tested the trains RPM's using a special Diecast Car. He would run the trains wheels against the wheels of the car and the car registered how fast the train wheels spun. I don't remember which video though. You could Private Message him to find out.

Nigels

Wouldn't the easiest way to improve the speed of these motors be simply to increase the voltage? Generally speaking these motors are good from 1.5v to at least 6v aren't they? It could even be possible to get one of these miniature voltage convertor boards and use that to up the voltage without changing the battery types...

kmott

Chris: Yeah, I. Saw that about the tape after i ordered (read the complete description.. no way). Oh well. Now I have. A new toy... im sure I can find Stuff to do with it.

Super...sounds like too much work...i was thinking about just putting a propeller on the shaft. who knows.

Nigels. Yes, you are correct. They’re typically rated up to 6V or more. I have bought some 3.7V Li-ion rechargeable batteries (i forget the # but are the exact same size as AA) and they work great... except they can be too much . Was hoping to find a sweet spot where I could get more RPM out of 1.5 V.
I may have to look into that voltage booster (or a resistor with the 3.5V battery )... but then it all gets to an ‘ahh, whatever’ moment.
There was actually a thread in here somewhere where I suggest using these Li ion batteries, you can even use them for C batteries with a little plastic housing

Super

kmott wrote
Super...sounds like too much work...i was thinking about just putting a propeller on the shaft. who knows.

LOL...I didn't know watching a video was too much work. Here is the Ucwepn video. I don't know how much that Hotwheel car is or how easy to attain it might be but its pretty neat. He is showing it as MPH but I heard him say something about modes so maybe it also shows RPM's.

[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt-iCpcXG58[/video]

kmott

ok, fair enough. I watched the video and found the "speed readerZ" online. could be interesting.

OK, I stumbled on this video on you tube
https://youtu.be/_Eq8kuxFtvM
I don't know what the heck the dude is doing in the second half, but it looks like he just put some of the reflective tape on the motor almost like a flag.

I am more optimistic now! Ill let you know how it goes.

If I can get this to work, I would prefer it over buying a Hot Wheels Speed Reader. I'd rather know the motor speed before putting it into the train.