Central Machinery (Harbor Freight) DC Motor orientation . . .

[Peter]

I don't remember if it was in here, or somewhere else, but someone re-oriented the motor in relation to the impeller housing on the ubiquitous HF 2 HP DC unit, in a top hat configuration and I would like to do something similar.

In other words, to relocate the impeller so that it blows directly into the filter ring, one must dismount it from the base plate and remount it on a vertical surface. As the machine comes out of the box, that requires a mounting plate on the left. But the install/remod I saw showed the motor mount on the rear. (Left, right and rear, as I'm using them assumes the regular installation with the motor/impeller on the baseplate, inlet in the front, hose up to the filter bags on the right.)

Now, I've looked at my ugly green thing for awhile and near as I can tell, to re-orient the motor requires pulling the impeller from the shaft to access the motor's mounting bolts. It appears that the motor has a C-face mount with something like a NEMA 145 T-base as well. It's this T-base that I want to relocate 90 degrees clockwise (as viewed from the motor side of the impeller). I am pretty sure the motor C-face bolts are behind the impeller. Which means I gotta haul the thing around to someone with a gear puller to remove the impeller first.

Am I right?

Should I redesign my whole mounting arrangement to avoid this hassle?

Thanks.

[RonS]

Do a search, on this site,  for "harbor freight DC" and you should find a lot of info on what others have done with the
HF DC
Ron

[Peter]

Yeah, you know, Ron, I did that.

I didn't find what I thought I'd seen here, assumed I hadn't looked hard enough and did it again.

Someone in another forum must have modified the motor orientation on their HF unit.

Thanks for trying though.

[RonS]

Check out these 2 links:

http://www.jpthien.com/smf/index.php?topic=243.msg1345#msg1345

http://www.zenreich.com/ZenWeb/shop/dustcollector.htm

Ron

[Peter]

Right.

The impeller unit and motor are re-situated from the intended vertical plane to the desired horizontal plane. That part's a no-brainer.

What I'm after is rotating the motor with respect to the impeller housing 90? so that the motor mounting bracket which as supplied looks like A in the attachment, winds up looking like B.

Somewhere, I saw a photo where this was done. I thought it was in this forum, but apparently, I am misled.

[phil (admin)]

I might be wrong, but isn't the impeller held in place w/ a set screw through the impeller, and into the shaft?

[Peter]

Phil:

It's secured to the shaft that way, but it's an itty bitty screw. The axle sleeve of the fan assembly is press-fit onto the motor shaft. There is an annular indent about 1/4" back from the outer end of that sleeve that sure looks to me as though it's intended that the fan assembly is to be removed from the motor shaft with a gear puller. At least, I can't tug it off with my bare hands.

But the issue is moot, now: I will probably not do this mod to the unit. I redesigned the support structure to leave the impeller/motor assembly as built. The main reason I wanted to rotate the motor is so that the switch faces front. Then I realized I'll wind up with a remote switch anyway, so pfeh, no big deal.

Thanks for looking, though.
Peter.