# Possible vent motor replacement



## hedg12 (Jul 6, 2008)

A friend of mine has a few candy vending machines - the kind with the wire corkscrews that push the candy bars & bags of chips out. The other day he called me with a problem with one of them (the curse of the handy man...) Anyway, it turned out that a jammed snickers bar burned up one of the motors. So in my quest to find a replacement, I stumbled on to these.

























They turn about twice as fast as the vent motor, and are quite a bit stronger. They're also quite a bit louder.










There is a shaft about 3/8 inch square & maybe 1/2 inch long, with a hole all the way through that's about 3/16 diameter, as well as a hole across the shaft.

They come with a switch on the back that has both normally open and normally closed contacts. There is a mechanism in the gearbox that momentarily closes the switch once a revolution. This mechanism prevents the motor from turning clockwise, but if you hold the pin in the "up" position (like it is in the picture above) the motor turns either direction just fine. The gearbox is held together by the plastic tubes that pass through the body of the gearbox. I haven't tried to force one open to see if the switch mechanism could be permanently defeated. I'm pretty sure you could come up with a way to hold the pin up without opening the gearbox if you need it to turn clockwise. The switch could also come in handy...
I haven't had the chance to check the duty cycle, but they seem to be pretty robust.

Not too bad a deal at $4.95, & shipping was reasonable.


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## RoxyBlue (Oct 6, 2008)

Looks like an interesting possibility, although 11 RPM might be a bit fast for something like a head popper. Is that little shaft on the back the part that actually turns?

I'm also wondering how this could be wired - I'm assuming a wallwart would be needed, yes?


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## Spooky1 (Aug 25, 2008)

Looks like it has possibilities. It's about twice as fast as the vent motor, but I could see it possibly working for an FCG. Nice price too.


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## jaege (Aug 23, 2009)

It has possibilities.


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## hedg12 (Jul 6, 2008)

It's rated at 11 rpm at 12v, & turns about half that at 5v. The little shaft is part of the mech that activates the switch - it's "up" (towards the edge of the gear box) most of the time & moves to the bottom of the slot (towards the motor) at one point in the cycle. I'll try to get a video comparing speeds and showing the switch mech tomorrow.

I have plans to use one with the switch to limit movement to one full rotation using something similar to Otaku's timer circuit he built for his groundbreaker coffin.


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## hedg12 (Jul 6, 2008)

Finally got some vids of this little motor.


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## kacole2 (Jul 8, 2012)

really cool find! I was going to build the breathing grave for this upcoming halloween and finding those vent motors is proving to be a difficult taks. 

Can you tell me if there are holes going through it so it could be mounted to a 2x4?

Also, the site says it's a 12VDC motor. Could hooking up a 6V Wall wart potentially damage it? Any certain amperage that it requires? 

Any ideas on how to enclose the motor so it can withstand being in the rain during October?

How did you get it to do a full rotation? I see you moved the "pin" to the up position, does that get it to do continuous rotation?

What are the connection pins on the black piece for? I'm guessing that's for the single throw limit switch, but just curious what the possibilities of using those would be.

sorry for all the questions, i'm a newbie to motors and i've spent enough money on pneumatics so this is a much cheaper option.


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## hedg12 (Jul 6, 2008)

There are 6 holes around the edge that all go through - you should be able to use any/all of them to mount it.

6 volts should work fine & won't hurt the motor. Not sure about current draw, but the motor I replaced in the vending machine was rated at 50 mA at no load. I doubt these are much different.

Enclosing the motor would depend greatly on how you plan to use it, but as long as it's not submerged in water & has something to protect it from rain I'm sure you'd be OK.

The motors will turn full revolutions counter-clockwise as delivered. If you need/want them to turn clockwise, you'll have to devise some way of holding the pin in the "up" position - it's spring loaded. You may be able to crack open the motor & remove or modify parts of it to make it turn clockwise, but I haven't tried. Opening the gearbox would involve cutting the thing open & then figuring out how to put it back together again. They're not made to be disassembled.

The black piece with the connectors is the switch that comes with the motor. It's not necessary for the operation of the motor - you can remove the 2 screws & take it off & the motor will work just fine. If you do want to use it the 3 connections are common, normally open, and normally closed. For most of the revolution there is a connection between the common and normally closed connectors, but at one point in the revolution of the motor the mechanism momentarily trips the switch and for the time it's tripped there is a connection between the common and normally open connectors.

The same supplier also has this motor that will turn both directions, but the output shaft doesn't provide an easy way to connect a lever.

Oh yeah, and welcome to the forum!


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## Otaku (Dec 3, 2004)

Hmmm. When the motor runs clockwise, it hits the pin and shuts off, do I have that correct? If you really need clockwise rotation, you could parallel the power across the Com and NO terminals on the switch to maintain the path when the switch is tripped. There may be a slight "jog" as the switch does its thing, but it should work.


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## hedg12 (Jul 6, 2008)

Otaku said:


> Hmmm. When the motor runs clockwise, it hits the pin and shuts off, do I have that correct? If you really need clockwise rotation, you could parallel the power across the Com and NO terminals on the switch to maintain the path when the switch is tripped. There may be a slight "jog" as the switch does its thing, but it should work.


The mechanism that trips the switch physically binds the rotation of the motor when turning clockwise - it's a mechanical thing, not electrical. It won't turn clockwise even if you completely remove the switch & wire directly to the motor. I may go ahead and crack one open to see how difficult it would be to get around the mechanism.


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## Otaku (Dec 3, 2004)

I think I see. In your second video (with the pin visible) I assume, then, that the motor is running counter-clockwise and that the motor is tripping the switch once per rotation. If you wanted to have the motor do a single rotation, you can use the switch to control the motor power (Com and NC) and manually send a short voltage pulse to the same terminals to jog the motor shaft past the pin. Then the switch controls the power until the shaft rotates around and shuts it off again.
If you want to have remote actuation you could use a one-shot 555 timer that replaces the momentary pulse switch. Use a PIR to trigger the 555/relay combination. This is very similar to the controller I designed for the wiper motor coffin opener.


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## hedg12 (Jul 6, 2008)

That's my plan for one of these this year. I plan to use one in a candy machine that the tots activate themselves with a button, wired through the switch just the way you said. Your coffin opener was my inspiration for this.


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## BadMonkey (Sep 7, 2011)

Just placed an order for two of them. Really curious. Thanks for the heads up!


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## jaege (Aug 23, 2009)

How would it handle weather. Most of my props go outside and sometimes are subject to rain.


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## hedg12 (Jul 6, 2008)

The motor is unprotected, so you'd want to cover it somehow. The gearbox is all plastic, so I doubt you'd need to worry about it.


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## joeyno (Aug 15, 2012)

I bought 3 of the vending machine motors and three 5v 1amp power supplys. When I bought my pigtails to connect to the power supply and motor, the guy told me to make sure I hooked the positive to positive or I would burn up everything. He showed me on the power supply that the center of the plug was positive so the quick connect pigtail he sold me would make the red wire positive. There is no marking on the motor for pos/neg (I didn't have the motor with me to show him). I always thought it didn't matter how you hooked up to the motor but before I do and possibly burn up a motor, does it matter or can I hook the wires to either post on the motor?

Thanks as always for your help.


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## Otaku (Dec 3, 2004)

For DC motors, polarity typically doesn't matter - the motor will just rotate in the opposite direction. For these guys there's a mechanical requirement - the motors must be rotated counter-clockwise for the switch to work. Check hedg12's earlier post about the pin and switch combination.


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## HomeyDaClown (Oct 3, 2009)

I'd test the motor polarity 1st with a couple of AA batteries (3 volts) to make sure it's spinning ok. I would also verify the power supply polarity with a meter if you've got access to one. 

I doubt hooking it up briefly (by just touching the leads) would do any damage if it's reversed. It will probably just sit and growl at you.

Leave the leads on backwards for too long and you'll let out the magic blue smoke that all motors and electronics need to survive!


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## hedg12 (Jul 6, 2008)

Homey's right - you won't hurt anything if you hook it up backwards momentarily. If you hook it up so it turns clockwise it will turn until the mechanism that triggers the switch stops it, then it will sit there and get hot. You shouldn't hurt anything if you disconnect it as soon as you notice it's stopped.

I have been told that you can open the gearbox on these motors and remove the parts that trip the switch so it will turn clockwise, but I haven't done it myself.


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## heresjohnny (Feb 15, 2006)

Not to hijack the thread, but it didn't make sense to start another vent motor replacement thread.

I am building some new ghosts and ordered 3 of these to try them out.

https://www.surpluscenter.com/item.asp?catname=&qty=1&item=5-1702

There are 110 AC, I attached the 2 leads to a 110 plug I had lying around this evening, and I was very impressed. Very quite, and enough tourque that it would easily turn the shaft when I tried to stop it by hand, with no change in pitch or speed in the motor. They are rated continuous use, have mounting holes, and the shaft is flattened with a slot for snap ring.

On par cost wise with the deer motors, but I find them to be much stronger. Will know after Halloween how well they hold up


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## jaege (Aug 23, 2009)

heresjohnny said:


> Not to hijack the thread, but it didn't make sense to start another vent motor replacement thread.
> 
> I am building some new ghosts and ordered 3 of these to try them out.
> 
> ...


I bought a couple of these and used one on my grave peeper. Has plenty of juice to move my ghoul up and down. So I can endorse the strength of the motor at least. I used a small "U" bolt to attach the motor shaft to my linkage. Worked great.


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## mrdonl (Sep 5, 2012)

The black motor on the left is one of my favs.


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## joeyno (Aug 15, 2012)

*Vending motor*

Here's what I've found so far regarding the vending machine motor. Hooked up to a 5v 1amp adapter, my motor made 3rpms. With a 9v 500ma adapter it turned about 13 1/2 rpms. With a 7.5v 500ma adapter, it turned about 6 1/2 rpms. The square shaft has about a 3/16 hole through it as mentioned in a previous post. I used a 3/16 threaded rod for my breathing grave prop. I discovered that putting a nut on the back side of the motor and one in front of the shaft does nothing. The threaded rod will not turn with the motor so I drilled a hole through the rod and put a cotter pin through which did the trick. However, I guess I went too big on the hole as I bumped the rod and it broke at the cotter pin. I guess I'll try a smaller hole. Other than that, any suggestions?


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