Mabuchi motors in their natural habitat

[markbt73 5316]

We tend to forget that our familiar little silver friends started out as industrial motors. But for every one bolted into a Hotshot or a Frog, there are probably a thousand buried deep inside various machines. The other day, I was servicing our big wide-format printer at work, and saw a familair sight:

That's a 540 or 550 size motor, to raise and lower the ink tray.

And the pump motors are 380 size:

Circuit board is just for capacitors, as far as I can tell.

Anyway, thought you guys might find this interesting.

[Grastens 2795]

I smile whenever I see one - like "Hey, I know you from somewhere! How're you doing?"

[MadInventor 3884]

I thought their natural habitat was the bottom of the spares box

 

[Grastens 2795]

Now I realize I have swapped out a fair number of silver-can motors, but not enough to add: "I'm glad you landed on your, um, feet somewhere!"

And hopefully not crazy enough to feel guilt about putting them out of work in the first place 

[Mad Ax 9313]

An interesting, if quite bloated, history of Mabuchi Motor can be found on Wikipedia.  Being Wikipedia, much of it is probably misleading, incomplete or just plain wrong, but it's still worth a glance if you're horribly bored.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabuchi_Motor

I find it quite interesting that the motor which brings me joy and powers my favourite toys also brings my wife joy and powers her favourite toys as well.

[GooneyBird 938]

I saw one in a wireless vacuum cleaner (As the suction power was rather lackluster, I was very tempted to replace it with a spare Sport Tuned ) and our rental motorhome in the US had a silvercan powering a 12V overhead fan. Believe me, those things do pack a punch when presented with 12V instead of the normal 7.2ishV. 

[Shodog 1835]

Was pleased to find 550 sized motors in my son's power wheel ride on toy.  Didn't change them out but I did double up on the batteries from 12v to 24v which made the thing fly for about two minutes.  Motors ran fine afterwards on either voltage. A testament to their durability. 

[lupogtiboy 454]

A lot of the cars I see here at work use them, be it for raising or lowering a screen on the dash, powering a pump inside a gearbox, mirror motors and the like.

[Kingfisher 1171]

On 4/25/2017 at 1:56 PM, GooneyBird said:

I saw one in a wireless vacuum cleaner (As the suction power was rather lackluster, I was very tempted to replace it with a spare Sport Tuned ) and our rental motorhome in the US had a silvercan powering a 12V overhead fan. Believe me, those things do pack a punch when presented with 12V instead of the normal 7.2ishV. 

Now I am tempted to open up my Dewalt vacuum and see what's inside. More curiously, how it would perform with my 15T Firebolt.

[topforcein 1764]

When the "imrc"....inlet manifold return control box decided to fail again on my 1.1car last year the garage took it apart to try and repair it it was either a mabuchi or a Johnson motor in it witch surprised me also.