Help Identifying useful bits from a large photocopier salvage

[Neuport]

I am in the process of salvaging a large photocopier with an eye to robotics and CNC.  I could use some advice as to which parts are suitable for various uses and if any of the boards can be used as is or if I should plan on new drivers or repurposing components to DIY drivers.  Thanks for looking.

Among the items salvaged so far:
(11) 24 volt brushless fans
(1) 12 volt brushless fan
(6) 24 volt stepper motors in various sizes, all 6 wire
(3) large 38 volt constat speed integral drive; the 7 pins are 38v and gnd, 5v logic and gnd, on/off, clock, lock
(1) Brushless motor DR-6236 26.40W 24VDC, 1.6A, 120mNm, 2200r/min
(1) Synchronous motor J205-363, 24v 62 hz, 4.2 r/min ccw
(1) unmarked round 5 wire motor
(5) DC motor reduction gear assemblies; these have 370 motors and rotate about 7 rpm at 24 volts
(10) electromagnetic clutches
(15+) opto-interrupter sensors, 5mm flag gap
power supplies
driver board
comm board
scanner head
gears, shafts, pulleys, timing belts, etc.

I am first interested in sorting out the stepper/driver/psu arrangement to decide if I can use the boards as is or if I'll need new drivers.  

I've attached some not so good pictures of these items.  Let me know what you think.

I would think the power supply which is pretty beefy would be great for a CNC setup.  The driver board I don't know about.  Is it straightforward to tap into the board to control it from my computer or microcontroller for robotic control or is it likely too proprietary?  If so, I would think I could repurpose the key IC's and connectors to a home built board to make my own drivers.  Is that practical or would it be best to start fresh?

The integral drive motors are large and heavy and mounted on very heavy aluminum.  The output shaft has a helical(?) gear and they interfaced with a gear train.  They are rated at 9217 r/min at 38v.

The other steppers looked pretty normal and I have a few sizes.  I would think a couple of the medium ones would be o.k. for locomotion.

[Neuport]

More steppers.

[Neuport]

More boards

[Neuport]

Clutch and DC motor/gear drive

[Neuport]

Solenoid/linear actuator

[Soeren]

Hi,

The integral drive motors are large and heavy and mounted on very heavy aluminum.  The output shaft has a helical(?) gear and they interfaced with a gear train.  They are rated at 9217 r/min at 38v.

Keep the controller board for that one an for all the brushless ones and find out how to interface them.
Unfortunately, a lot of the stuff will be 24V or higher, so works better for stationary stuff.

I'm puzzled why you ask what to salvage though - keep the lot. What you don't find an immediate need for will be handy later.
I save each nut, bolt, shaft etc. as well, when I strip copiers and such - a few PCB's can be utilized as is, but mostly, I just strip the good stuff, as they're usually cheap and weak phenolic/paper PCB's anyway.

If you want specifics for any particular post, try making a post with that alone - a 20+ photo post asking about the entire inventory of a photocopier isn't very edible.

[Neuport]

Thanks Soeren.  To me it seemed like I was just posting a small bit since the copier is huge and I have boxes of parts that I didn't show  .  I am keeping everything but the sheet metal and plastic for storage reasons.  What I was trying to do was get some high level suggestions about what, amongst the motor related equipment, was readily useable or might be difficult to use.  Specifically,

• Is the motor driver board useable as is; is it realistic to think I can tap into the logic to use it to drive, e.g. the steppers, or should I just plan on a new driver board or making my own from the parts on this one?
• Assuming I can provide the voltages required, are the large drive motors good for robotics or would they not be good for some reason?
• Are these particular steppers useable or do they have major limitations that I should know about before I start planning around them?

I realize I have a lot to learn and will need to dig very deep on any given part/project.  I was just hoping for a heads up.

Thanks, again for taking a look.

[Soeren]

Hi,

To me it seemed like I was just posting a small bit since the copier is huge and I have boxes of parts that I didn't show  .

I know the feeling.
A guy delivered a huge copier with sorter a late noon some years ago and since I couldn't get it up the stairs alone, I had to take it apart on the street, as I had to get it out of the way - I was done the next morning at around 9 or 10 (am), hands and arms jarred from sharp sheet metal edges, fingers black from a mix of grease, oil and a generous amount of toner and otally worn out from spending a semi-cold night with a flashlight, but I netted around 100kg of motors, switches opto-interrupters, solenoids and what not

Is the motor driver board useable as is; is it realistic to think I can tap into the logic to use it to drive, e.g. the steppers, or should I just plan on a new driver board or making my own from the parts on this one?

The copier was bild by professional designers and thinned down afterwards by the money men, so it's a safe bet that it is very modular in its construction.
That probably mean that you have driver boards that is nothing but and the input connectors are probably logic level signals.
There might be boards with drivers for more than one motor.

Assuming I can provide the voltages required, are the large drive motors good for robotics or would they not be good for some reason?

You mentioned an 38V motor and that I'd reserve for something stationary for a couple of reasons: 38V is a lot of voltage in a battery setup AND 38V is bordering on dangerous, unless you know exactly what to do. Not good in a 'bot I think.

The 24V units is usable, but you may be lucky enough that it is 12V units with a 24V chopper supply or similar (test and experiment).
In general, I'll advice against 24V in a robot, as it usually mean hauling too much weight in batteries, but if speed isn't an issue, go ahead.

Are these particular steppers useable or do they have major limitations that I should know about before I start planning around them?

Since I don't know the model etc. of your motors, I cannot say, but it's not hard to make a simple driver for testing them at eg. 12V.
Do you have any info on them at all?
What is the marking on them?

You could make a differential drive with just one motor and use two of the electromagnetic clutches to connect each side. For turning, disengage the clutch on one side - Then you don't need paired motors. It cannot spin in place this way, of course, but for eg. a line follower it should be fine.

I realize I have a lot to learn and will need to dig very deep on any given part/project.  I was just hoping for a heads up.

If you are able to take macro photos of the driver boards, showing each components name/value and crisp overall shot of both sides (I mean really-really sharp focused photos), you could post them here - you might be lucky that they use known chips etc. even though some of them may be in-house marked and thus will reveal nothing.

If the copier wasn't too old, you should have a nice camera chip good for a large format camera and you may have found a handful of distance sensors which is very usable if you can find datasheets for them


What make and model was the copier by the way?