R/C Airplane Motors From Computer Trash

Here’s something that the R/C airplane crowd might think of as old news.  These directions show us how to rework floppy drive and CD Rom motors to be high power airplane motors.  There are several listed, with details on each, but those unfamiliar might want to start with the most basic CD Rom version. It covers winding your own copper and installing the magnets in the “bell”, putting it all together and mounting it. This is a great writeup for those who haven’t seen this done before. If you want something even simpler though, you might enjoy the homopolar motor post. If you’re more advanced, they have tips for you too on machining and balancing the motors as well as winding density.

18 thoughts on “R/C Airplane Motors From Computer Trash

  1. I’m kinda surprised at the power rating on a couple of those. 400W from a CD rom drive? I know it’s modified. Where are the calculations? Something seems off. 1300W from the croc motor…thats about 2 horsepower…
    Pretty cool!

  2. @DigitalMind:
    it’s unbelievable… so where’d you read that? what’s your source? i want to learn as much as you know, too!

    ps: please notice a tiny little amount of sarcasm in my message.

  3. So what that motor now $7 (I dont know where you found it, it 4 times cheaper last time I checked) add 40$ for motor driver. I did it for free sample PIC, transistors and CD drive motor. So it not dead in any way

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