Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #05452



To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: Bob Shannon bshannon@tiac.net
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 18:31:43 -0400
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: Another contest entery!


George Rix wrote:

> > Very nice Bob. I'm wondering were you found those motors on LEM. They would
> > be perfect for a project I'm working on right now. I need 10-20 of them.
> > Thanks.
> As could I. I need eight, and will later need four more.
> Please, tell us from whence they came!
> Signing off,
> Rob Rix

Ahhh, my little motors are drawing some attention.

I have some good news, and some bad news.

Bad news first. I've just cut myself off from my supply of these motors.

These are head positioning motors removed from the slim-line (12 mm) CD-ROM
drives used in laptop computers. I used to have a nearly steady supply of bad or
junked drives from which I removed these, and the smaller Mabucci FF-K10WA
motors. (I've never identified the model of motor your asking about, its similar to
a FF-K20, but its not exactly that either.)

For the past 8+ years, I've been a Test Engineer for NEC Technologies, and then
Packard
Bell / NEC (after the merger). I just resigned to take another position at a
different company.

So no more motors for me. I'm no longer in the laptop computer industry.

Now the good news...

About a month (maybe 2) ago, a BEAM list member posted an ad for a motor that is
mechanically
identical to the ones I'm using. I do not know that these are/were the same
motors, but I suspect that they are. Clearly these motors are produced in vast
quantities very inexpensivly, so I would expect to see them avaialble as surplus.
Especially with the new DVD drives comming out now.

(and you should see all the neat parts I've ripped out of those! Can you say
Turbot Trannys?)

If anyone has a copy of that old posting to the list (it has a .JPG of the motor),
get some and try them out. Lets compare the specs and see if they are the same or
not.

> P.S. Great bot!

Thanks!

I really hope that this approach to scalability and BEAM design catches on. It
sure produces some very interesting and complex behaviors.

And I will try to draw up a schematic some day too.....


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