SP17 with a Stepper Motor
Am still printing the clock but once going will also want to "electrify" the winding.
Am thinking about using a stepper motor using an arduino circuit. (Generally already have the basics with one of Steve's earlier clocks).
Am thinking about running it at say 2 rpm starting every x minutes.
What do you guys think:
1. Will a stepper motor have enough torque to start turning the conveying screw if the screw is full of metal balls
2. How feasible would it be to have the thing run on say 4 x 18650 Lion batteries??
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Stepper motors would be a very reliable drive motor. They can be run at any desired speed. The simplest circuit would be a 555 timer generating step pulses every few ms. Slow steady pulses turning the lifting auger every 2-3 minutes is all it needs. An Arduino is overkill.
A nema17 stepper motor should have enough torque to lift a full screw. Power required is proportional to the number of balls. Half full can have the stepper driver set to a lower current setting.
I ran a table full of 7 clocks using a 10,000mAh battery pack for three 8-hour days without needing to recharge. It should run a single clock continuous for more than a week. I suspect a few 18650 batteries would be longer, possibly around a month before needing to recharge.