Very new to this. What I need to happen is to turn brushed motor @ 90 degrees in one direction at @10 rpm. Need to pause there and then reverse @ 90 degrees at @100 rpm. Will 18v15 Simple Motor Controller allow me to do this and if so, how? Thanks in advance.
You could probably use a Simple Motor Controller (SMC) to get motion like that by taking advantage of the SMC’s limit switch features, so long as you do not need to be very precise with the rotation rates you mentioned. (To precisely control the speed of a brushed DC motor connected to an SMC, you would need a sensor that continuously monitors just how fast the motor is rotating.) You can learn more about what it takes to set up limit switches, among other things, inside the SMC’s user’s guide, which you can find under the “Resources” tab of its product page. However, you would need something like a programmable microcontroller to control the SMC.
Alternatively, you might consider using stepper motors or servos, which are generally better for the motion you are looking for than controlling a brushed DC motor by itself. If you tell me more about your project, like when and how your system decides to turn its motor, and how important it is to get exactly the rotation rates you mentioned, I might be able to give you a better recommendation.
-Jon
Thanks so much for your reply. My project involves finding the frequency and flat line oscillation of a golf shaft that is clamped at the butt end. To do so, I must “tweak” end of shaft which has @200 gram weight attached to it. This causes shaft to bounce in front of photoelectric sensor and give me a reading. Don’t want to tweak manually because it is too inconsistent. That is where motor and lever arm come in. I need slow motion to load shaft, pause to let it stabilize, and then release quickly to create free shaft oscillation. Originally considered steppers then servos but neither seemed to give the combination of torque and speed I need. Lever arm must be @ 6 inches long so quite a bit of torque is needed to load the shaft. Any guidance you can offer is greatly appreciated. As I said, I’m very new to this.
If I understand you correctly, it sounds like you have a golf shaft and head clamped to a fixture at the grip-side of the shaft, and you plan to have a mechanism with a 6" arm perform movements like you described in your initial post in order to get the head and shaft oscillating. From your initial post it sounds like you plan for that arm to rotate in the same plane (e.g. to the left “slowly” to pre-load the shaft, and to the right “faster” to move out of the way faster than the first return swing of the shaft) when pre-loading the shaft and releasing it, but it might be easier to have the arm on two axes of rotation so that pre-loading the shaft is in one plane and the arm moves in another perpendicular plane to release the loading on the shaft. For example, if the shaft rotates side-to-side in a plane parallel to the ground in order to pre-load the shaft, you could rotate the arm upwards or downwards in a perpendicular plane to release the shaft.
If a setup involving two axes of rotation sounds like it might work for you, using one of our Maestro servo controllers to control a pair of servos (not necessarily the same ones) could be an appropriate setup. Regardless of how you plan to actuate the pre-loading and releasing, if you quantify how much torque you need to pre-load your shaft, I might be able to help you narrow down which mechanisms would be better suited for your project. In case you are not sure how to figure that out, you might find this blog post on Force and Torque helpful.
-Jon