Combination Tire and Cable Drive Motor

Combination Tire and Cable Drive Motor

For Music Man, I had to make a drive motor capable of driving three fully loaded revolves for under $100. The 3/4 horse motor and VFD were pulled from an old AC unit the school no longer needed. The tire and belts came from the bus barn and all the unistrut and threaded rod came from past shows. I only had to buy a few cables and pulleys. I geared it down to about 30 RPM on the tire and was able later to drive a twenty foot, two ton revolve for Christmas Carol. The control pickle was able to start, stop, set clockwise or counter-clockwise, and had an Estop. Later, I wired it with limit switches that would flip to automatically stop it at the appropriate time.

Turntable Motor

For Christmas Carol we needed to make a new motor for the 20' turntable. This was what I made for it.

Turntable Motor

The cage is welded out of 1”x1” 12 gauge square tube and reinforced with 1/8” steel plate. The motor is a three phase three horse with a thirty to one gear reducer. On the front end, there is a chain tensioner capable of removing 8” of slack from the system. The control unit is a Creative Conners system. This easily ran a 20’ revolve with 20 actors for Christmas Carol.

PLC Automated Car Project

PLC Automated Car Project

For my final automation project this semester, we had to use a PLC (Programmable logic controller) to accomplish a complicated task. With six technical directors in the class, we had to have one go button that would start a chain of events through all six PLCs twice. Below is my part of the project.

This project is designed to move a toy car around a track after a red,
yellow, green LED progression and a go buzzer sounds. When the
PLC receives the signal from the PLC before it in line, it will start the LED
progression then start the car running around the track. Once the car has
made one revolution around the track it will signal the first loop of the track
to stop and the next PLC in line to start. When the signal from the next PLC
is received the PLC will change the active track to a jumping track, start the
LED progression again, and then send the car down the new track. When
the car makes one revolution around the new track it will signal the PLC to
stop the new loop and the next PLC in line to start.