Recycling a kitchen garbage disposer motor

Has anyone figured out a shop use for a kitchen garbage disposer motor. I just replaced mine inwhich the aluminum housing had corroded around the outlet pipe and leaked, but the motor runs excellently. I hate to throw something out that might be useful in another application.

For using old motors, I think the biggest obstacle is the mounting of them.

That's why it's nice to find at a garage sale or flea market, a used fractional HP motor which has a plate with slotted motor mounts, allowing it to be bolted down onto a flat surface.

My uncle took the motor out of a washing machine and used that for his drill press. I think he had to improvise with some large hose clamps to hold it in place, but it worked well.

Maybe you will find a small old benchtop table saw, drill press, or you can use it for your homemade power hacksaw (a la Dave Gingery)?

Just a thought here but you could always take the wire out of the windings cut it into 18 inch pieces and bend those into L shapes and sell them as divining rods I hear they are real popular here

I am still looking for one Findzit diving rod. If anyone were to find me a Findzit diving rod you will recieve one complimentary end mil. Catch me in a weak moment I may even through in a Lathe insert.

Jon....have you any need for some older fractional hp 110/220v. single-phase motors?..I've got a shelf of them here, which have accumulated over the years....up to 1-1/2hp or so....some rather aesthetically nice ones, suitable for restoration work on old small machine tools....trades??

cheers

Carla

I wouldn't use that garbage grinder motor for anything but a fan or something crude. It has a special shaft and a nozzle mount making it unsuited for a general purpose motor. You can't mount a pully one or or anything having a standard bore.

My neighbor can't pass up old washing mashine and dryer motors, garbage disposer motors, fan motors out of old in the wall heaters, bathroom vent motors. He has a pile of them.

Yeah, I know, I should talk with all my junk but the neighbor's motor collection is just that. Nothing useful ever gets built from them even though I've welded on a dozen brackets of one kind or another. .

There was an artical in Fine Woodworking abour 15-20 years ago about building a wet grinder for sharpening chisles and such out of a garbage disposal. They are well suited for this type of application due to the sealed bearings at the top. I always thought the speed might be a little fast, though.

Hot Wrench beat me to it - the FWW article gave me the idea to make a glass grinder out of one. They are typically used for stained glass work. I took the top and the grinding plate off, machined a spindle to hold the diamond bit and added a plastic cutting board for a top. It works much better than the $100 1/10HP plastic ones they sell.

Wes

Something to consider on any appliance motor or motor built for a specialized application is the duty cycle. These appliance motors are usually NOT designed or rated for "continuous duty". Motors for machine tools or even lighter-duty home workshop tools are most usually rated for "continuous duty" and have a reasonable service factor to allow a little overload on startup.

Motors built for specialized applications like garage door operators, garbage disposals, and similar may be designed to tolerate loaded starting, but will often have a very limited duty cycle. Typically, this may be as little as 5 or 10 minutes at rated load. After reaching this time period, the windings often get hot enough to cause the thermal overload protection on these motors to trip open. If a motor of this type is not loaded to full load but run at partial load, it is still going to trip out on thermal overload, just a little later in happening.

The issues of adapting these types of specialized motors for other uses include mounting them as well as adapting the shaft to couple up to whatever is being driven. Many of these specialized motors simply do not have much of a shaft sticking out, let alone the fact the motor bearings are likely not built to tolerate a side load as a belt drive would put on it. Then there is the issue of whether the specialized motor is an "open frame" motor. A lot of appliance motors are built as open frame motors to get good cooling of the windings. Not a good bet if the motor is to be re-used on something like a woodworking machine or grinder.

The traditional "washing machine motors" of years ago were often simply base-mounted motors and were often totally enclosed, fan cooled (TEFC). Look at the motors in dishwashers, garage door operators, clothes driers and washing machines nowadays. These motors are specially built motors. Usually, they are open frame motors and do not have base-mountings. Often, the mounting is nothing more than through bolts which run thru the stator and end-housings and then thru sheet metal flanges on the frame of the appliance.

IMHO, reclaiming appliance motors may be more trouble than it is worth.

Joe Michaels

I made a buffer out of mine. I did this like 20 + years ago so I don't remember all of the details. I remember I started with a old driveshave (I don't throw anthing away) after cutting a hole to accept the shaft w/ sproket (chain drive)I welded a couple of angle iron pieces to the driveshaft to bolt the motor to. Attaching an old wheel & tire to the bottom of the DS for a base completed my buffer.


[ 07-14-2005, 09:39 AM: Message edited by: greyhawk200 ]

It would make a nice tungsten grinder with a diamond wheel. You could attach it to a folding arm under the welding table. Out of the way when you don't need it and right there when you do!

Carla,

Yes, I do have use for old motors such as you have. Most recently, I restored an old standup drill press for a local artists group in which my daughter and I have been involved: www.flaminglotus.com . I ended up putting a 1/4 HP motor on it, because that was all I could find.

The original motor was 1/2 HP, and was of the "induction repulsion" type. That original motor now works only when you physically pull the belt to get it moving.

I am not sure what I would be able to offer you for trade. I will email you offline. By the way, the pair of DoAll "drill speeders" you sold me a while ago work great. Thanks for those, and thanks for your more recent offer.

-Jon

Joe M. brings up a bunch of good issues. The garbage disposal shaft on my unit was only 3/4" long and had an odd thread. Also it stated clearly the unit could only be run in a vertical position.

The duty cycle hasn't been an issue so far, but something else to consider is some of the newer models have auto-reverse features which could be a problem.

The big plus for me in using one was the sealed shaft - I didn't have to jump through hoops making a resevoir and running the shaft or drive belts through it.

FWIW,
Wes

Traptop,
Sad to report that Findzit Divining Rod Co. was purchased by a Chinese chopstick manufacturer. All production in the USA ceased in 1998. The original American made units are now highly prized collector items.

That's why Traptop was offering a trade, Kevin...

Charles

Hello, Might i suggest you attach a flywheel with holes drilled 1/4" in apart (roughly) starting in the center and in line toward the edge of the flywheel. Attach this to the back of your lazy boy recliner, or favorite lawn chair. You may need to build a small frame work to support it. Experiment with various sizes and weight of nuts and bolts in the drilled holes to get the right amount of reciprocation and you can now relax in your new back massaging vibrating chair!

If you have another motor, preferably variable speed, put it on the same chair, but align the shafts perpendicular. This will add some variabillity to your massage.

motor bracket for orphan motors:
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=30047&cat=1,240,41067

drilling advice

gm54210 said:

Hot Wrench beat me to it - the FWW article gave me the idea to make a glass grinder out of one. They are typically used for stained glass work. I took the top and the grinding plate off, machined a spindle to hold the diamond bit and added a plastic cutting board for a top. It works much better than the $100 1/10HP plastic ones they sell.

Wes

Click to expand...

Going to attempt this disposal modification since I have this nice working induction motor suitable for wet grinding stained glass. Looking for advice on drilling the end of motor shaft to accept the above mentioned 1/4" diamond bit. I only have a drill press and I am more of a woodworker not used to such tight tolerances. Thinking that I only get one chance drilling perfectly, and if I miss then project is doomed.

So I took off the disposal's chopping blade that was held on by screw and washer at end of motor shaft that threadeded inside the motor shaft tip. Perfecttly centering/drilling a hole in the motor shaft on my drill press to accept 1/4" bits seems impossible? Any advice from you seasoned machinist would be great. How much error if any, do I have drilling so it would still be a useable grinder? Or alternatively, maybe there is an off the shelf adapter/extender I could buy that would screw into existing threads that would also accept 1/4" bits? 3rd alternative I just thought of, maybe I could use a tap/die thingy (never used one of those either) to put a threads on the diamond bit itself that matches thread in motor shaft -can tool steel be tapped by hand? Lots of questions no answers, thanks in advance.

Forgot to ask if anyone knows which issure of FWW this mod was in and how one may freely read this article?