Monday, December 28, 2015

Another Fine Project

Bites the dust.

Quite some time back D'wife bought a treadmill. Rather nice one too, 1.25 HP and speed up to 8 mph. Bottom line, it hardly ever got used so I gave it to her sister with the suggestion that it be used for walking her rambunctious Boxers.

I put it on her back porch pending a space being made available indoors but 10 years later it was still on the back porch.

Meantime a friend is looking to get into the electric bicycle biz and I got thinking maybe we could use the motor from the treadmill in a prototype so I dragged the treadmill over to John's shop where I could have a look at the innards.

The innards looked about like you would expect with 10 years accumulation of dirt and leaves but the thing almost ran when I plugged it in. Fixed 3 broken wires and cleaned out a pound or so of dirt and voila! working treadmill.

Checked the label on the motor: 1.25 HP, 90VDC! That voltage is a bit high for something expected to run on batteries and although not impossible, it looks like the treadmill will remain a treadmill for a while longer.

Going up to Boulder tomorrow to discuss the finer points of Design For Production as they relate to electric recumbents so maybe there is a project to get me through the winter..

No comments: