Has anyone ever designed a motorized BTZS tube spinner that is reversible as I am contemplating building one? Even if you have partially designed one, or given it some thought I would love to hear about any interesting ideas.
Being able to add or remove some tubes quickly and easily will be important. It would be great if it could be durable, light and portable, and run on 12 volts.
My intial idea is to make a bottom rack of rollers that the tubes will be guided into using V shaped guides that rise above the water line in a tray. Designing the racks so the tubes can just be dropped into slots and easily forced into position by the top rack is important. The bottom rack of rollers will have a little spring tension to hold the tubes straight against the drive wheels and reduce any wobble. The top rack will be a motorized rack of rollers that turns the tubes which can be lifted off or pivoted aside on a hinge to make it possible to quickly add or remove tubes. It will be designed to that it would not matter how many tubes were in the racks and I may make it to hold 8 tubes for 4x5 film.
Someone posted a switching curcuit to reverse a rollor base motor and can someone please post the link to that as I can't find it.
It shouldn't take much force to rotate the tubes so this doesn't have to be a heavy duty design IMO. There are lots of cheap off the shelf shafts, gears, pulleys, bearings, motors etc easily available. Some of the small ribbed drive belts and gears are very strong and light. Any parts that can't be purchased will be cast in epoxy fiberglass with foam or woven fiberglass matt.
Any thoughts?
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