A treadmill followed me home this weekend.  It was working ( except the board under the belt was broken).  So last night I took it apart to find a 17 amp 2 horse dc motor.  How has everyone dealt with these motors as far as contact wheels for a belt grinder?  The "wheel" that's on it needs to stay I would imagine.  It is about 7/8" wide.  Is that wide enough to drive the sanding belt without deforming or causing a lot of wear.  I checked out a couple of YouTube videos some are running on the wheel one guy welded a piece of pipe to the wheel and ran the belt off that.  That looks problematic at best to me.  I am just getting pieces together.  What has worked, or not worked on builds.  I went back in this section several years and found several people using treadmill motors but no one really said how they hooked them to the belt.  Any help will be appreciated!

 

Papy

in this case "I want to build it Does mean I'm to cheap to buy one"

How is the "wheel" on the motor attached? Does the motor have a keyed shaft? If so, you could remove the wheel and replace it with just about any pulley with the same bore. If the shaft is long enough, you might be able to put a drive wheel directly on it. But my guess is you'd have tracking and deforming problems if you tried to put the grinding belt directly on that flywheel.

The motor I salvaged off of a treadmill had a flywheel/multi-V pulley combination on the end. If I took that off, the shaft was 11/16" dia. with a smaller threaded end. Didn't know what to do with that. So I put the flywheel/pulley back on and found a 2" multi-v pulley with a 5/8" keyed bore. Bought a 18" piece of 5/8" keyed shaft and a couple of pillow blocks. Used the treadmill's belt to couple the motor pulley and 2" pulley on the 5/8" shaft together and put the grinder belt drive wheel on the other end of the 5/8" shaft. 

John

Thanks. You made that sound so easy.  My head was in the box.  I'll get to sourcing a pulley.  

Thanks again!

Papy

Those motors are not TEFC (totally enclosed fan cooled).  It will suck the metal grindings inside and short out the motor after a short time.  Since you have it, and are not going to use it as a treadmill I would use it until it quits, then get the proper motor and VFD.  If you are building your own grinder you will, at least, have a grinder while you save up and you will get some experience in using a grinder.

Let me know if I can help you.

Wayne

Thanks Wayne. 

I've been very slowly assembling a grinder using a treadmill motor.

One thing to look out for is the large flywheel/pulley from the treadmill usually has fins molded in the motor side of it to act as a cooling fan.
If you remove it, you will likely need to find an alternate way to cool your motor.
I am going to try making a ducted fan similar to this http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/threads/47611-Cooling-off-a-hot-treadmill-motor
I'm going to add a small air filter to reduce the junk sucked into the motor.

-Brian

Good stuff RogueGeek.  Thanks for posting that link.

Brian

Great link. Giving me a better idea then previous plans on the motor and the electrical components that will need to be protected from metal chips

Thanks

Papy

Wayne, thanks for the head's up. I have been pondering how to protect the motor from metal grindings and other foreign material.

Thanks RogueGeek for the link to an adaptable solution. Now I'm pondering how to filter the air the fan is blowing through the motor. If the OP in the discussion at your link reversed the air flow and it's pulling in from the pulley end, how to add a filter at that location?

And thanks to both of you for adding the important info my post was missing.

I read somewhere that the wheel that is on there originally acts as a momentum buffer to counter sudden changes in belt speed when in the treadmill; would that be an asset or a hindrance when using it for a belt grinder do you think? I would imagine it could only help.

Also for those of you who have taken it off, what did you use to convert the threaded shaft to a keyed shaft?