Monday, September 23, 2013

Hacked NPC Motor Too Much

I do somewhat dumb things from time to time, but I hadn't done anything incredibly dumb lately. Tonight I remedied that.

I decided to get back to work on making the foot shell/battery box/motor/motor mount combination fit together on the right foot for droid #2.

I found that the motor mount itself was bumping into the battery box, so I marked an area of the battery box to trim. (I also trimmed a slight amount of material from the motor mount.)



I used a hacksaw blade to remove a little material from the battery box, and filed down the rough edges.



Okay, this fits now, with only the motor mount installed. If that didn't fit, then there's little hope with the motor installed.



I then did a re-fit with the motor installed, and saw the same problem that I saw with the motor mount before I trimmed it. So I figured I better remove some more material from the motor. You can see where this is going.

How many hacks does it take to get to the center of an NPC motor?

One...



Ah-two-hoo...



Three...

CRUNCH!

Three.



Nice job.

I decided to tape up the hole and finish the hacking, even though I believe I may have ruined a $155 motor.



Well, at least the battery box now fits with the (possibly ruined) motor installed.



Let's assess the damage from the inside.



The hole is at the 2:00 position in the picture below. (The worm gear is at the 10:00 position). Lots of metal saw dust is in there. Not good at all.



Even more metal sawdust on the axle gear.



I cleaned up the saw dust on both parts of the motor. Then I figured since I was on a roll, what other horrible ideas could I come up with?

See if you can play along. It helps if you shave some IQ points off your normal intellect.





Yes, I attempted to fill the hole with JB Weld.



I don't expect this will actually work, but I figured what the heck, I have nothing to lose. In reality I plan to call NPC tomorrow and order another motor.

So if you were looking for a tutorial on how to ruin your NPC motor, you came to the right place. There are probably more efficient ways to destroy a motor (drill press, 9mm pistol), but I thought this was pretty creative.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am optimistic that the hole will have no effect at all. Just use the motor around your house for a while and I bet you will see it is "still" fine. Is that area load bearing ?

Russell

Victor Franco said...

Wow you're fast Russell! I just posted a few minutes ago! :)

It is not load bearing, it really only needs to form a seal, so there's a chance this could work. I plan to add some more JB Weld once this initial layer has cured, to make sure the wall is reasonably solid. Still, i have serious doubts.

Maddy94 said...

Well I'm still admiring it from afar and dreaming of the day I can afford two or buy two without getting yelled at. Such a sad fate. Get that brave little motor some life support.
You still have IQ points on me until you slice yourself with a utility knife twice within 60hrs.