Hi. I'm making a custom PC case, and need a motor just to slowly turn some black cardboard around and around. I think something like 60 rpm would be perfect. Since I'm making the PC to be nearly silent however, the motor also needs to be just about silent. I think the motor will also need to be smaller than about 5cm (2 inches).
I was wondering if anyone has any hints of what type of motor to search online for that might fit my needs?
a stepper motor would certainly mean some electronics around it to get it turn the way you want.
There are small DC-motors with reduction gear for robot applications. They are fully encapsuled including the gear box and available for any transmission ratio.
I purchased two of them for a solar tracker driving a worm gear and they are really small. Motor diameter is 8mm and gear box 10mm, overall length is 15mm.
After googling those I found this, which seems like what I'd want. It's about 38rpm but that'd still be totally fine. It runs on 5v, which is perfect to take power from a USB port but it says "With a 5V power source it draws 600mA when stalled and 52ma when unloaded."
I see USB has a maximum output of 500mA, but I'm not quite sure what the text means about it drawing 600mA when it stalls. Being too much, I imagine that would damage the computer?
Why use the USB for power. This is for inside the case, so use the 5 volts from the pigtail connector. Have spent much time inside a computer case, since I stopped building my own, (Pentium was still relatively new, Windows 95), so been a few years, and a lot of changes, but the power supplies still seem about the same, should have 5v and 12v, and plenty of current to work with.
Thank you, haha, that's a perfect solution. It shows how little I know about the power supply and such going on inside a computer. It's my first mod (although it'll be my 3rd computer build) and has been one big learning experience.