Slowing Down a Treadmill below 1.0 km/hr For Toddler Rehab Work

Forums › Home Workshop DIY › Slowing Down a Treadmill below 1.0 km/hr For Toddler Rehab Work

andrewdavidjohnson

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#315719 9-Aug-2024 13:59

Hi,

I've purchased a cheap walking treadmill for doing some rehab work with our 3 year old daughter who has cerebral palsy, the minimum speed is too fast (1.0 km/hr) is there an (easish) way to slow down the motor further to around 0.2km/hr ?

thanks in advance

Andrew

elpenguino

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#3269909 9-Aug-2024 14:27

You need to find out more.

If there is no feedback from the drive to the controller, your options are mechanical or electrical. Could you change the spindle / gear on the motor shaft to be smaller? Change that on the treadmill to be larger?

Can you change the control board to a generic PWM controller? Needs to be capable of 180 VDC output and probably 230 VAC input.

If there is feedback, then you could make changes to that, for example doubling the feedback pulses should make the speed to be half.

Any sign of optical or magnetic feedback mechanisms?

What kind of control does it have at the moment? Fancy read out or simple speed knob (which might be hackable) ?

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raytaylor

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#3269984 9-Aug-2024 19:06

180VDC would be higher than you can legally work with i think. I am not sure of the electrical certification requirements for working with appliances with >80V DC lines.

I would look at seeing if you can enlarge the spindle track end of the belt so you increase the gear ratio - the motor must therefore make more rotations for the same distance.

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pih

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#3270033 9-Aug-2024 23:57

Quick win might be to design and 3D print a couple of new drive belt wheels: smaller on the motor side and larger (if you can) on the other one. I'm guessing it's a toothed belt like a timing belt - If you can cut the number of teeth in half on the motor side wheel you'll halve the speed (but will need to adjust the other side to compensate for the reduced radius). If you can take this one step further (ie. quarter the number of teeth) you're getting into the 0.2kph territory). But there will be limitations going that small that might make this difficult, and it doesn't look like there's much room to make the larger wheel too much bigger without some structural modifications.

Ge0rge

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#3270101 10-Aug-2024 08:13

What is the frame that the motor is attached to made of? It looks to be metal, so easy enough to cut and weld. Cut the side of the frame out. Extend the driven shaft and either move the motor or extend it's shaft as well. Couple of pillow bearings attached to a extension of the frame to support the extended shafts. Then you'd have room for a much bigger pulley, or perhaps a reduction gearbox.

A bit of work and a bit of tooling required, but it looks possible.

Mark

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#3270157 10-Aug-2024 09:00

If you have a community repair cafe in your area you could pop in and ask some of the old boys haunting it :-)

Up here we have the Mangawhai Shed which is full of retirees from all sorts of trades doing personal projects and projects for other people, you might have similar where you are.

Ge0rge

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#3270158 10-Aug-2024 09:03

Mark:
If you have a community repair cafe in your area you could pop in and ask some of the old boys haunting it :-)

Up here we have the Mangawhai Shed which is full of retirees from all sorts of trades doing personal projects and projects for other people, you might have similar where you are.

There are quite a few "MenzSheds" around too - the same thing by a different name.

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andrewdavidjohnson

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#3270474 11-Aug-2024 09:03

Thanks All some great ideas there, I think the mechanical route is sounding the safest bet

tweake

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#3270475 11-Aug-2024 09:15

i would look at if you can move that motor sideways towards the controller. that could give you room to fit a planetary gearbox (eg off a battery drill) onto the shaft.

Eva888

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#3270482 11-Aug-2024 09:42

As Above maybe call a couple of the menz sheds and ask if they have anyone that lurks there that might be capable of helping doing a project like this. Everyone knows somebody.

Alternately if you mention your area, someone on GZ who has an experienced, retired young grandad to ask if they might be willing to help you out.

Hope the little one improves. She obviously has caring parents doing their best for her.