A New Drum Motor for Event Horizon

Rather than re-build the drum in the same configuration that failed initially, I decided to modify the motor mounting to make it more robust. This was achieved by replacing the giant stock mounting plate with a mounting piece that is actually the right size.

Now that I have a large lathe, my design of simple round pieces has changed from Computer Aided Design to Lathe Aided Design.

The final motor mounting piece.

This piece is tapped and has the mounting pattern of the motor. I drilled the mounting holes using the old mounting plate as a guide, which seems to have been effective. 

This slips inside a sleeve, which has a slot for the wires and is the right diameter for the bearing and frame holes. A single screw tightens it onto the frame, which should be sufficient to take the relatively minimal torque that this will see. Best of all, however, the sleeve is large enough diameter to cover the heads of the screws attached to the motor, which should prevent them from falling out.

The motor mounted to the frame side.

Everything fit together nicely, and I was able to spin the drum up successfully. The 3/4" bearing seems to have picked up some dirt (because it is open), which has added friction. I will probably replace it with a shielded bearing eventually.

Event Horizon, mostly reassembled.

As you can probably see, I have not yet re-machined the drum to take care of the screw that was ripped out. This picture also shows the new fastening system for the drum motor (the screw sticking out of the frame). If this design does not self-destruct, I probably will not bother making the hub motor that I was considering previously.