I'm often asked, "Where is a good place to buy a motor?"
Well, in Canada, probably Princess Auto,
in the States, probably Harbor Freight.
But, I've never been desperate enough to actually have to
buy a new motor, so I thought I'd shows you the motors
that fit on my machines, and where I got them from.
This is my homemade bandsaw two,
and on it is a 1/2 horsepower furnace motor,
it's not the most powerful, but I don't do any
re-sawing on this saw, so it works just fine.
This one, I think it came from a yard sale.
On my strip sander, is another furnace motor,
this is a 1/3 horsepower motor, and I'm not sure if I
got that one from a yard sale or if I picked it up off the curb.
Old belt-driven furnace motors are great to re-use,
but belt-driven furnaces haven't been installed since the 1980's,
and those furnaces have all been thrown out already,
so the only belt-driven furnace motors that you can get,
is if somebody saved the motor, and then eventually decides
to get rid of it. Here's my big old lathe
and on here I've got a1/2 horsepower motor,
this one I picked off the garbage.
It's 1750 RPM, and it's reversible, which is very useful
for a lathe
Here's my small dust collector, and on here is a 2/3 horsepower
3500 RPM motor, and I bought a really crappy
table saw that had an induction motor on it just for that motor.
Cost me $25 dollars, but it was worth it,
because to buy a motor like that new would have cost a lot more.
Here's my bandsaw, my first homemade bandsaw,
and on here is a 1 1/2 horsepower motor,
it runs at 220 volts, came with a switch,
it's completely sealed, and has no cooling fan on it whatsoever,
but it's never gotten terribly hot on me.
Only problem with this motor is, it weighs about 85 pounds,
so not exactly portable.
Here's the motor for my lathe. This is a 1/3 horsepower
pump motor, starting torque on it is very low,
not a problem for a lathe.
This is the motor on my buffing wheel, it's a 1/4 horsepower.
That's a bit weak, I do stall it from time to time when
I buff things really hard.
Oh yeah, and this one came from a yard sale,
this one came out of a dumpster,
and this one came with my beastly lathe
that I bought at a yard sale. Paid $70 dollars for the motor,
and lathe. I am, perhaps, a bit of collector
of motors, here's a box fan motor, a ceiling fan motor,
a bread maker motor, and this is a furnace exhaust blower motor.
None of these are really powerful enough for a machine,
but I've got more motors down here
1/2 horsepower from a yard sale, probably two horsepower,
somebody sold that to me for $15 dollars.
This one came off a compressor somebody threw out,
3/4 horsepower, this is an old table saw motor,
I bought at a yard sale, this is a washing machine motor,
this is a furnace motor that's never been used,
$5 dollars at a yard sale,
and that one down there, I'm not sure where that one came from,
probably a yard sale, and this motor a friend gave to me,
it's two horsepower, very powerful, I used that for
my saw mill. People ask me from time to time,
they say, "I have a two horsepower shop vac motor,
what can I re-use that for?" see this one is two horsepower
supposedly. The answer is
nothing, shop vac motors are only good for shop vacs,
and that's it. Perhaps more re-usable
would be a bench grinder motor, people have asked me about that
from time to time, I'm not sure if they're powerful enough,
this one's only a one amp motor, so it wouldn't have enough power
for a homemade machine, but you'd have more luck with
that, than a shop vac, I've never tried a bench grinder
motor myself though. And, there's a few more
motors in my other shops, so let's check that out.
And, now I'm at my other shop, and I found a few more motors
here to show you. This is a really old
1/4 horsepower motor, it came with a homemade metal lathe
that this was also part of. The motor on this
homemade blower, is from an old clothes dryer and it works
surprisingly well, surprisingly powerful,
it might even be good enough to power a small band saw.
And, then next to this is my cheap dust collector,
which I only paid $150 dollars for, and it has a supposedly
one horsepower motor, it's a sealed motor,
which is really good, so if you need a motor,
buying a dust collector, just for the motor may be
a good deal. Here on my 14 inch homemade
bandsaw, I have a one horsepower motor, and this is a pool pump
motor that the neighbor threw out, the thermal fuse on it
had blown, so I shorted that, and I'm using it here.
Because I don't use it unattended, I'm not too
worried about it locking the thermal fuse.
And, on my 14 inch bandsaw, that one, of course,
came with a motor, it's got a sealed 3/4 horsepower motor,
and I've actually ran out of power on this saw sometimes when
I was re-sawing some stuff that was about eight inches thick.
I was doing that by taking this blade guide off,
and having an internal blade guide up here to give me more
re-saw capacity. And, here's a 2/3 horsepower
motor from the Sears Craftsman bandsaw that I failed to fix.
I kept the motor, this may power a bandsaw at some point,
in the future, and here's a box fan motor,
for small motors, they're kind of powerful,
but not really enough to power a real machine.
And, down here is an old garage door opener,
and it has a supposedly 1/2 horsepower induction motor on it
I really doubt that this motor is meant for continuous duty
I'd probably have to run it at a reduced voltage if I wanted
to run it continuous, at which point, at best,
that would have 1/4 horsepower. And, another motor,
which I don't know why I'm saving, this is from
a radial arm saw. It's a 10 amp motor,
these brush motors are not really good for anything
other than what they're made for, so other than trying
to turn this into a table saw, that motor has no use at all.
And, I've already made two homemade table saws,
so I should just throw this one out.
And, up here is a furnace blower motor,
this one is a brushless DC motor
which is kinda cool, because they could run at any speed,
if only I knew what the control signals going to it where.
As it is, I don't think I'll be able to use it,
but if you get a furnace motor that is not brushless DC,
those could be quite useful for a tool as well,
they're typically 1/3 to 1/2 horsepower.
And, yet another motor. This is a sump pump
it's a 1/3 horsepower motor, these are 1750 RPM,
quite usable for a homemade machine.
So, as you can see, there's motors just about everywhere.
So, if you're even vaguely thinking of building
a homemade machine, and you come across a motor,
just save it, because even a 1/4 horsepower motor,
will do in a pinch, until you find something bigger.
And, since I've filmed this, I've used up
yet another motor, video coming soon.