I finally got around to writing up a tutorial on how to hack the GM3 gearmotor to lock the clutch, which will prevent it from slipping when you try and torque it too much. It can definitely cause problems during printing, and this hack will make things much better.Read the tutorial, or check out the flickr set.
I'm a fan of hacking things, and all of that, but I have this itching suspicion that the clutch might be there for a reason... What if the clutch was there to prevent the motor from overheating in case of too much resistance or to prevent gears from breaking? I would think that some engineer somewhere had a purpose for this extra part. :) Maybe you could do some life testing with your hacked motor to see if it was adversely affected? The whole thing just makes me nervous. :)
ReplyDeleteA quick dab of hot glue works just as well. I know as I destroyed a motor by stalling it.
ReplyDeleteThe goal is to simply keep the clutch from disengaging.