Thread: How do you slow down an electric motor?

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Is it direct drive off the motor, or belt driven??? If it's belt driven then maybe a pulley change would work... Otherwise, find a hand held tachometer, check the motor rpm and buy an equal sized motor with lower rpm.

What you can use is a variable frequency drive. You might call these guys http://www.variablefrequencydrives.n...encydrives.htm to see if they can help, but I expect they are going to need nameplate information to tell you anything. I have no clue on their cost, but expect it might be cheaper to just change the motor to a half or quarter speed unit if you can find one that fits.

That's the problem........it is a direct drive deal with the rest of the sander built around the motor in the middle. All the brackets and framework are an integral part of the motor, just one big cast iron affair. The base is even part of the motor.

What is confusing is that this thing was manufactured as what it is, so how did it run for so many years spinning away at that speed? The old guy who I bought it from said something about it "having some issues with the sanding belt" when we looked at it, but I found two bearings in the top drum that are worn, and replacing those should make the belt run truer. He failed to tell me this thing kills people!

Don