Tiny 6mm gear motors appearing in Aliexpress

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MarkR
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Tiny 6mm gear motors appearing in Aliexpress

Post by MarkR »

Hi,

Has anyone tried these motors?

https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?ca ... +motor+6mm

They are getting quite cheap and super, super tiny, maybe good for fleaweights or antweight?

Would the (plastic) gearbox destroy itself instantly if we put 8v through it?
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Shakey
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Re: Tiny 6mm gear motors appearing in Aliexpress

Post by Shakey »

Not to reveal too much but I've been exploring usefullness of motors this size for a little while now, and while I've not poked these specific 6mm motor and gearboxes I have used other 6mm motor in testing.

But my findings are essentially that they aren't strong enough for ants by themselves. The issue is kinda 2 fold, 1 they just aren't very robust and 2 thermal issues. They are so small that they simply cannot deal with current draw well at all, they're really meant for pretty no load conditions most the time. 2S LiPo's seem to kill them very thoroughly, even under no load. With 2S I think there is an issue of the voltage being too high for the brushes regardless of current running one no load that high can often see them just die anyway.

Now that's not to say totally useless, they make excellent nano drive or non pushy flea drive when coupled with 1S batteries. But if you need power out the drive in flea or ants these won't be robust enough for it.
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Re: Tiny 6mm gear motors appearing in Aliexpress

Post by Ant Ipodean »

We have had one Ant run here with them, with 14mm wheels. A 4WD vertical spinner.
It drove very well.
He was running on 2S with the faster ratio planetary.
The problem was wheels breaking off from impacts, though maybe the motors/brushes would have failed if the wheels had lasted longer.

I have bought some of these, but not got around to building for them yet.
I have a design idea to address the wheel/axle problem and intend to run 2S regulated down to 5 or 6 volts.

Mike.
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