**A Journey of Trial and Error: Replacing a Motor with a 3D Printed Version**

I recently embarked on an exciting project to replace the motor in my vacuum system with a custom-made, 3D printed version. The original motor was not only expensive but also had some issues that made it unreliable. I decided to take matters into my own hands and design a new motor using 3D printing technology.

The first challenge I faced was choosing the right materials for the motor. After researching and experimenting with different filaments, I finally settled on PLA (polylactic acid) as the primary material. However, this choice came with its own set of problems. During testing, the motor became very hot, which caused the PLA filament to deform and stick together. This led to vibrations and instability in the system.

Despite these issues, I persisted and redesigned the motor mount with more vent holes to improve airflow. I also replaced the original motor's magnets, which were hindering its movement. However, the new magnets still came loose during testing, requiring me to take apart the motor and reposition them again.

After several iterations of design and redesign, I finally achieved a stable and reliable motor that reached speeds of 5m/s without any issues. However, this success was short-lived as I encountered another problem – the top piece of the motor mount was too narrow, requiring me to redesign it once again.

Throughout this process, I learned valuable lessons about the importance of proper material selection, design considerations, and testing protocols. Despite the setbacks, I remained committed to achieving my goal and eventually succeeded in creating a functional vacuum system with improved performance.

The new motor, while not perfect, demonstrated significant improvements over the original one, including reduced power consumption (60W less at 20V) and increased speed (4.5m/s). Although my girlfriend noted that the difference was noticeable and requested a better solution, I am proud of what I have accomplished, especially considering it was all trial and error for me.

If you're interested in exploring similar projects or want to learn more about 3D printing and motor design, feel free to follow along and share your own experiences. Consider supporting me through Patreon to help keep the show going, and don't forget to like, share, subscribe, and hit that notification bell!

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enSo this is my vacuum cleaner that at this point is slowly dying. You see, firstly I had to remove its internal battery pack because its capacity was dropping  quickly and instead replaced it with a Makita Battery Adapter and fitting battery pack. And then also the suction power of this thing decreased for reasons unknown and that  was the moment my girlfriend said: “Just throw this thing away and get a new one;  I need a better vacuum cleaner.”And yes, she talks with subtitles. But anyway I didn't feel like throwing this thing away because not only is E-Waste becoming more  and more of a problem nowadays; but also because I have tons of motors lying around looking for a job  and all that is left for a vacuum motor to work is a fitting impeller  which is also just plastic that I can 3D print right at home. So in this video in order to celebrate Earth Day, I will challenge myself to create my own  vacuum cleaner motor out of things that I have lying around at home in order to hopefully renew  my vacuum cleaner.Let's get started!This video is sponsored by the Element14 community which does all kinds of awesome  electronic how-tos, giveaways, contests, videos and much more, definitely check them out. And this  time I will be a part of their team, so feel free to head over to the element14 community  to get more details about this project or ask questions; I will see you there. Now first off; I had to find out what my vacuum was still capable of for reference  and for that I used such an Anemometer that basically tells me how fast the  integrated fan spins in meter per second.And with a freshly charged Battery pack  that outputs around 20V, I was able to reach a speed of around 4.8 m/s normally. And when we take this thing apart and position the meter as close as possible to the impeller,  we get around 5.5 which are the values I will need to beat. To do that I firstly gathered my collection of Brushless DC Motors. Now the big difference to the so far used Brushed DC motor of my vacuum is like the  name implies the utilized carbon brushes that do create some sparks while the motor is rotating. Those sparks not only shorten the lifespan of such a DC motor, but also its efficiency  which will be an advantage of my BLDC motor system if it works out in the end. But before getting to that, I firstly had to decide on one motor and the  most important criteria for that is the RPM.You see the faster such a vacuum cleaner impeller  spins the more suction power gets created meaning we want something at least as fast as the original  motor that spins with approximately 26.000 RPM.Now to get the RPM from a BLDC motor we got the  KV rating that multiplied by the voltage equals our RPM, so we need something like 1300 KV. Sadly though the closest motor I got that came with a similar size and power rating  as the original one, only came with 900KV which will hopefully be enough, we will see. And last but not least, of course, to let the motor spin we also need an ESC of which  I pretty much only had two fitting ones because of the high voltage applied by the battery pack. And initially I wanted to use this super basic one since it only requires a potentiometer to adjust  the speed, but as you can see it didn't wanted to cooperate, so it flew right back into its drawer. So Instead I went with this one which as you can see performs wonderfully and the  only slight problem with it, is that it requires a servo control signal to fine adjust the speed  which is common for ESCs though and about which we will worry about later because  for now we got a fitting motor spinning and I was getting fired up to make my own impeller. But as soon as I realized that there are several kinds of impeller designs;  I was first off very confused.But eventually I decided on such  a specific centrifugal design because it not only looks cool, but also because rctestflight tested  such a design in a video and it performed pretty well, definitely check that out. So I started my CAD software and had immediately no idea how to pull this off,  because so far I have only been designing fancy boxes for electronics projects. But thankfully YouTube is there for you when you need to learn something new and thus after taking  some real world measurements of my old motor, impeller, vacuum enclosure and new BLDC motor;  I created my first rough prototypes which includes the impeller and motor mount. And after 3D printing them with PLA filament I was rather happy  to see that the motor fit perfectly inside the holder as well as the impeller on it  meaning it was time for the first test run which came with a bit of excessive  rubbing that you can clearly hear; but we still got an airflow going, nice. So after checking that my mounting tabs on the 3D print would fit inside the vacuum enclosure,  which they did perfectly, I once again hopped over to my CAD software to improve the motor mount  with air holes and create a top piece for it all which ultimately all together looked like this. And after once again 3D printing everything and assembling it all, this time with all the screws  in place for safety and balance reasons, I was rather happy about the result which fit very  snugly and satisfying inside the vacuum enclosure.So it was time for the first proper test which  initially started out very promising by reaching a speed of 4.5 m/s with an input power of around 54W  which in direct comparison to the vacuum motor from before that I of course also measured at  different power levels, would equal a power drop of around 40W for the same suction power, nice. But sadly this success turned into a failure nightmare very quickly because  after 2 minutes of testing the system became very loud, unstable and vibrated. The reason for that was that the impeller got more or less stuck and the first reason  for that was that the motor got very hot and therefore deformed the PLA filament. The second reason though was even worse because it appears like some magnets of  the motors rotor got pushed downwards and thus hindered the motors movements  which is honestly something I have never seen before when it comes to BLDC motors. My solution for now though was pushing the magnets back into place and redesigning the  motor mount with more vent holes to which I later also added some more manually. And in case you are wondering why the motor mount is suddenly black, let me tell you that I switched  over to ABS filament because it should be able to handle higher temperatures without warping.And after the assembly was once again complete which this time I had to complement with a bit  of hot glue so that the top stays in place, it was time for another test round which once  again started out promising but quickly came with the same vibration problem as before. This time though the temperature of the motor was still in the acceptable range  and pretty much the only problem this time was that once again a magnet came loose. So I had not other choice than to take the motor apart, reposition all the magnets and  mix up some strong two component adhesive to hopefully permanently mount them all in place. And as soon as the glue was dry and a bit filled down, I put it back together,  tested it out and once again assembled the whole motor construction once again to  also once again find out that things still did not work perfectly fine. This time it seems like the top piece was too narrow meaning redesign time  and while I was at it, I 3D printed the remaining parts in ABS as well. And with that begin done, I moved on to finally a successful test in which I reached a speed  of 5m/s without too much trouble or problems.And that was my cue to move this whole project  into the vacuum enclosure, but of course my servo signal generator was a bit too big for that. To replace it I used an old Arduino Pro Mini board I had lying around to which I simply added  a potentiometer and some Arduino code in order to let it spit out an adjustable servo signal. After then drilling a hole for the potentiometer and securing it in place along with some nice  labels, all that was left to do was wiring everything up, closing everything up and  getting ready for the last test in which I went up to 100% power aka 120W at 20V. With that the vacuum reached a speed of 4.5m/s which is sadly a bit less than  what the original motor could do but it also drew 60W less of power to do that. So all in all this is obviously not a perfect result but for me definitely a big success  because this was all trial and error for me since I am not a mechanical engineer. And in case you are wondering my girlfriend said that the difference to the original motor  is sadly noticeable and she requested a better solution which I will hopefully come up with soon. But anyway, with that being said I hope you enjoyed this video and if you are  looking for more suction power and want to test some things on your own then you  can always try out a higher KV BLDC motor.As always consider supporting me through  Patreon to keep the show going.Don't forget to like, share,  subscribe and hit the notification bell.Stay creative and I will see you next time.