Where can I find the correct gear motors and ir controls to build my own horizontal masking. Any ideas will be appreciated. ( I'm going blind reading threads) Thanks, Jay

for the mechanical stuff:
www.grainger.com
www.mcmaster.com

for the IR stuff
www.smarthome.com

Note that Grainger does not sell to retail customers in some locations.

Thanks, do you know what rpm's, tourque or ac/dc would be the best

You might also want to consider linear activators

http://www.firgelliauto.com/product_info.php?cPath=69&products_id=52

Jay, Are you wanting Vert or Horiz type masking ?

Here is a link to some motorized curtain tracks, the IR rmt ctl has no presets (it stops at full & full close), push stop where you wish the edge of the curtain to stop. AVS member Vern Dias suggests the actual masks ride in a seperate track close to the screen, keeps the curtains from rubbing or dragging on the screen surface.

www.powercurtain.com

Links for DC gearmotors. Not all vendors know or will post torgue values, some post RPM & other info. Be sure the motor is reversible. Don from HTIQ suggested a torque of 175 oz-ins. Again I have not built anything as yet, just repeating wise words of others...

www.alltronics.com

www.allelectronics.com

www.robotcombat.com

Hope this helps

John :D

John, I am looking to build horizontal masking. Thanks, Jay

One motor is used for horizontal masking systems.

Mine uses a Somfy Sonesse 50 motor.

Outer pulleys use a flat cable for pulling up the bottom mask....

Ted, would love to see photos or drawings of your set-up !


Jay, There is so much info in these forums, it is overwhelming (is for me & I have been reading & lurking for over a year).

Below is a link to a drawing from the British Film Club, of a simple motor driven top roller design. The top mask's cable wraps around the roller in one direction. While the lower mask's cables wrap around in the oppostie direction. So as one mask moves upward, the other mask lowers. Cabling lengths would need to be experimented with to get exact. You might could add U-channels on the sides to capture the mask ends, to keep the masks at a certain distance from the screen surface and prevent them from flopping around.

http://www.bfcc.biz/masking.jpg


Here is an older build (2004) from AVS member "Juka" where he used top & bottom rollers run by two DC gearhead motors with an RF 4 relay board to control the setup (Be aware some links to pics in the archieves no longer work now & they are closed - no new posting);

pics: http://www.cardomain.com/ride/390161/2

write up from AVS Archieve: http://archive.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=400361&highlight=juka

John, Thanks for the info. It looks as though Juke's set up is a bit redundant with the weighted cables. It looks like his design could have used (1) motor with the cables and pullies or two motors without the tension cables and maybe a spring on the bottom roller to keep tension. Looks like he knew what he was doing, so maybe I'm wrong. I would love to know what motors and ir controls he used. Thanks, Jay

Found a picture of the ebay listing where I bought my brand new 72x96" 4:3 Draper masking system. Scored it far cheaper then I could DIY it. :p

Two careful cuts on the side frames and it's a 54x96" 16:9 masking system now installed in a mimalist stick framed front AT wall.

The Somfy motor is in the masking roller and the end pulleys roll up a
flat nylon ribbon style cable that runs to the lower mask roller which is spring loaded like a window blind.

I have been looking and I can't seem to find affordable gear motors or any info on what RPM's would be best. I was wondering if a car power window motor would work, it would be reversible and it seems to have the correct gear ratio. Any Comments, Thanks

Try jameco.com. That's where I got mine.

As for torque, it'll depend heavily on how hard it is to move your mask (a heavy top or bottom mask moving up or down? side masking panels on smooth drawer slides that move at the touch of a finger? Is your motor directly driving the movement, or will it be geared up or down?)

As an example, I'll walk through my side masking plans:

I'll have a panel on each side mounted on drawer slides. I expect it to slide very easily, and I'll be using a threaded rod attached to the slides, a motor directly turning the threaded rod.

Assuming the threaded rod has 20 threads/inch and I want to move each mask 16 inches (120" wide down to 88" wide) over about 10 seconds (got to keep it graceful), that's 20x16 = 320 rotations in 10 seconds or 1920rpm. In my application, the motor will be so amazingly geared up and the load so light that pretty much any torque will do.

Looking in Jameco, I can go with a bunch of 6/12v gearhead motors in the $10-$18 range that will do the job. Way more torque than I need, but that never hurt.

Here is my motor controller breadboarded up:

http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z196/pgmeyer/DSC_9350.jpg

You can see more how I plan to build the thing here:

my masking plans (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14065244#post14065244)

The motor in that picture will only do 60 RPM. It would take 5 minutes to move my masks at that rate. It worked for testing, though.

Jacob,

What price range you are looking for ?

Surplus web sellers often do not know RPM, torque on the surplus lots they buy. Below is another web reseller, Servo City. The link will take you to their DC gearmotors & they give tons of info on each motor. They also sell all manner of hardware, gears ect. The 3-12 Vdc gearmotors have huge range of RPM's & torque values, but maybe not cheap enough @ ~$25 each.

http://servocity.com/html/motors___accessories.html

John

Thanks John and Paul, What about IR controls, any suggestions. Thanks, Jay