Motors

Here's my problem: Hello e v e r y o n e , Im new to the forum. I have a slight p r o b l e m ! ! ! I have a George Diamond Big Board I p u r c h a s e d approx. 4yrs ago. It c u r r e n t l y has two motors and I have severe dead z o n e s / s p o t s . How can I remedy this p r o b l e m ? ? Or can someone help me with t h i s ? ? ? ! ! ! I truly would a p p r e c i a t e it!!!!! PS: I feel I need better motors or extra motors!!! How can I get them, let alone add them to my board???

[Michigan Joe]

Hmmm...there's been several complaints lately of poorly running boards. I would always start with asking the person who you bought the board from for help. If that doesn't work, I can probably help. While the motor is critical, the vibration pattern is really a function of the motor AND the mounting scheme of the metal board to the frame. I need to understand the mounting technique of the board to the frame before I can provide feedback. Could you flip the board over and take a picture and post it...once I see the board mounting scheme I will try to walk you thru getting the thing running up to speed. Please make note of how the metal board is mounted to the frame and whether the board surface appears to have good surface tension or whether the board has some "sag" to it in areas.

Oh, and welcome to the forum.
Joe

[The Rookie]

Hey New Guy

You Have Michigan "MOTOR " Joe
He is the best and if it can be helped he can do it!!!

Hey Michagan Joe, do you have an email where I can forward the pics...I have them saved to my yahoo account. I dont know how to upload pics to the forum(Not to computer smart...) Hope to here from you

[Michigan Joe]

Here is the pictures of the LEO's board, if ANYONE has a board like this that runs well please jump in and help. It appears to be a fiber board field (or even a cardboard-like field construction) with a strange mounting scheme for two linear vibrator motors. My recommendation would be to try adhering a 308 motor style (rotary motor) on it to at least liven it up like a 308 (since his main problem is dead spots). Many people with 308s also screw down the corners (and sometimes along the sidelines) of such a field. If anyone else has another recommendation please jump in, I don't want to send Leo down the wrong path. Overall I would say not to sink much more money into this cheaply constructed board unless you know that it will yield good results. Its sad to see enthusiastic people spend the kind of big money on an item only for it to be a major disappointment.
Joe

[detroitchild]

Joe,

I have a George Diamond board that is similar to the one pictured here though this one looks like someone may have modified it a little. In fact, you gave me a little insight on correcting dead spot problems. I also got some help from Pierre (Pit Couture) in correcting my problems. The board is not a cheap one, it just needs a few corrections/upgrades. The thing is, you can pay about 100 bucks and some time to fix it or go ahead and buy a new board.

Leo22,

To fix it you may want to try the following. First, remove those foam strips from the fiber board and use something else to attach it to the frame. It looks like mine is held in place with some sort of caulk material. This has held up well in the year that I've had mine. I think the previous owner was ok with it as well. Whatever you use make sure that it holds the board firmly in place.

Second, I would attach my motors to the fiber board with 2 sided foam tape. Hopefully you have good motors. If not, contact Pierre as he supplied the motors to my board and they run fine. Make sure you place the motors in opposite corners (i.e. one in upper left hand corner - one in lower right hand corner)...as close to the rail as you can get them with out touching. You may have to play around with movement a little to get the the max vibration across the entire field.

This has worked for me. You may also want to use a trick that Michigan Joe taught me and that is to place some duct tape underneath the fiber board where you still may have a dead spot.

I hope this helps. (Man, I can't believe that I'm helping someone else with this!)

Don

[Michigan Joe]

Don,
Thanks for commenting. Its interesting to me that you caulk down the sidelines and that you have 2 motors on a fiber board field? The 308 uses one motor and from my experience one motor is MORE than satisfactory for fiber board. I believe Reg sells the FF.net motors for $35 but you need a train controller to adjust the speed. Maybe Pierre's motor's have a low weight on the coutner weight or are much smaller motors, I don't know. I'd sure be curios to see how two motors run on that type of a board.

As far as locking down the board to the frame, my experience is that liquid nails, glue, etc tend to deaden the side lines (which is fine if you don't plan on using the sidelines as the playing field). Does your board have dead sideline with the caulk? Using screws tends to hold the board down without completely dampening out the vibration on the sidelines, I first saw this on people using 308s. For my 308 I screwed down the corners, the 20s, and the 50 since the playing board started warping.

I hope to see you at Miggle and we can compare boards and board tweaking tips to get em runnng great.
Joe

[detroitchild]

Originally Posted by Michigan Joe;619[COLOR=Black

88]Don,
Thanks for commenting. [/color]Its interesting to me that you caulk down the sidelines and that you have 2 motors on a fiber board field?

That's how is was when I got it. I experimented by removing one motor but I did not get the power I needed across the whole field. I'm not an expert at this but with a little help/work I got mine to run fairly well.

The 308 uses one motor and from my experience one motor is MORE than satisfactory for fiber board. I believe Reg sells the FF.net motors for $35 but you need a train controller to adjust the speed. Maybe Pierre's motor's have a low weight on the coutner weight or are much smaller motors, I don't know. I'd sure be curios to see how two motors run on that type of a board.

The motors I have are used by Pierre and shown in his thread about making a board.

As far as locking down the board to the frame, my experience is that liquid nails, glue, etc tend to deaden the side lines (which is fine if you don't plan on using the sidelines as the playing field). Does your board have dead sideline with the caulk? Using screws tends to hold the board down without completely dampening out the vibration on the sidelines, I first saw this on people using 308s. For my 308 I screwed down the corners, the 20s, and the 50 since the playing board started warping.

The sidelines are not a problem except for it slowing down a bit around midfield.

I hope to see you at Miggle and we can compare boards and board tweaking tips to get em runnng great.
Joe

I'll be there!

See above!

[pit couture]

Personnally, I would go with two 3 volt motors. One in each endzone. They are pretty small and can be control with a switch and rheostat box.

Pierre