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MC-2100 Treadmill Motor Speed Control Circuit

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Note: I do not make these treadmill control boxes
I only made this one for me to get my can crusher working.
Please do not email me and ask if I can build you one.

UPDATE 9/2020:

A Youtube viewer found a PWM box on Amazon that can operate the treadmill motor.
Here is the Amazon link to the meter shown below
WHDTS Signal Generator

PWM meter
User Manual Link
People are using treadmill motors to replace motors and pulley belts in drill presses, lathes and other machines
That makes it nice if you want to get rid of pulleys and belts to control the machine speed
Changing speeds on a drill press becomes way easier and faster

The speed of a DC treadmill motor can be controlled via a circuit board
Treadmill motors are heavy duty DC motors and have lots of horsepower
Plus, they have a heavy metal flywheel which gives them a nice smooth power band
The treadmill motor shown on this page is 2.65 HP

The MC-2100 motor controller needs to have an external circuit that creates pulses.
These pulses tell the MC-2100 how fast to drive the treadmill motor
The circuit that does this on a working treadmill is up on the user console
So when you get rid of the console, you need to replace that circuit in order to drive the MC-2100 board.

Note that other treadmill motor controllers like the MC-60 are self contained
All you need is to solder a speed pot onto a MC-60 board

I found a non working Gold's Gym 450 treadmill on Craig's list for $10 and it had a MC-2100 motor control board
This page describes how I built an external circuit to drive the MC-2100 control board

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Here's video #2 update after I mounted the control box onto the frame of the crusher

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Here's what I used my treadmill motor for.
This is a Video showing my aluminum can crusher
This is Video #1 - See video #2 update above

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Click on the image to see a larger image

Treadmill Motor Speed control
This is the original circuit that I found on the web
It creates pulses and drives the MC-2100 speed control board using a couple 555 timer IC's

Thanks to Terry and Schoolie for the info on the MC-2100
The Sons of Invention MC-2100 information web page is located here

Here is a link to Terry's PDF build document
Read Terry's PDF document for details on how the circuit works and lots of building notes
You may not understand and all that is going on here with my build unless you read Terry's PDF document
Terry's PDF document has the MC-2100 schematic, terminal descriptions and lots of other good info

I ended up modifying Terry's circuit in a couple places - See my modified version below
 
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Click on the image to see a larger image

Treadmill Motor Speed control
This is my modified version of Terry's circuit

I added a .68uf cap across the 12 volt supply and ground.
I could not get the circuit to start up and generate a pulse until I added this cap

I did not have a 10k trim pot on hand and so I used a 50k multi turn trim pot to tune the circuit
After I had found the sweet spot, I measured the 50k trim pot value and found that 31k was the spot the circuit would start to work properly
I replace the 50k trim pot with a couple resistors that added up to 30.8k and used a 1k multi turn trim pot to do the fine tuning

Note that you need to have a multi turn trim pot for R2
You cannot use a regular pot, it is too coarse and not able to dial in resistance in fine increments
R5 is a pot also and you can use a regular 100k linear pot for the speed control

The last mod I did was to add a normally Closed momentary Switch between the trim pot and the 12 volt supply
A treadmill motor controller is designed to not turn on until there is user input
You do not want a treadmill to start up full blast and possibly injure the person using it
Breaking the voltage connection with a momentary switch seemed to do the trick

There are four wires coming from the MC-2100 board
Two Black ground wires
One Red +12 volt power wire
One Blue signal wire
The other wires on the jumper plug are not used

After the MC-2100 board receives power, the LED comes on solid
This means the board is receiving power
Once I push the momentary switch, it removes power from 555 timer IC1
Then I release the switch and power is restored
Now the MC-2100 board will start up and turn on the Motor
The MC-2100 LED will now blink because it is receiving a pulse from the 555 timer circuit
 Watch my you tube video below to see the circuit in action

Note that you must have a motor load hooked up to the MC-2100 board or it will not operate


Here's a YouTube video of the motor controller in action
Click on the you tube link belowto go to you tube and see a larger video image
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWk7b0snB9c

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Click on the image to see a larger image

Treadmill Motor Speed control
I first constructed the circuit on a breadboard to make sure it worked properly

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Click on the image to see a larger image

Treadmill Motor Speed control
Once I had the circuit working properly, I used this scrap piece of radio shack board to construct the final circuit
The top left corner of the board was broken off, it's just fine for this project

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Click on the image to see a larger image

Treadmill Motor Speed control
I then cut down the full sized board down to size with a Dremel tool cutoff disc
This image has some descriptions of where the wires get connected

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Click on the image to see a larger image

Treadmill Motor Speed control
Here's a shot of the back side of the board
It was nice that the board material had copper bus runs on it
I had a +12v bus and a ground bus
They are colored red and black with a sharpie pen

The copper buses allowed me to keep the jumper wires to a minimum

Click on the image to see a larger image

Treadmill Motor Speed control
I mounted the board in a box with three standoffs and some #6 screws
The wires from the MC-2100 were routed through a small hole
A cable tie was used to keep the wires from being pulled back out of the box
The normally closed start switch was installed below the board
The 1k multi turn trim pot was installed below the board
The 100k linear speed pot was installed below the board

Click on the image to see a larger image

Treadmill Motor Speed control
Here's the front shot of the box
I used a Brother P-Touch to create the labels

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Treadmill Motor Speed control
Here's a shot of the whole rig
The 555 control box
The MC-2100 board
The Treadmill DC motor
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Treadmill Motor Speed control
Here's a shot of the MC-2100 board
The Black and White wires on the right side are the AC power cord wires
The black and red wires in the middle are the Motor wires (A- and A+)
Red is A+
Black is A-
Do not reverse your motor wires
Some motors are designed to turn in a specific direction
My motor turns clockwise
The flywheel is threaded onto the motor shaft so that running the belt clockwise does not loosen the flywheel

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Click on the image to see a larger image

Treadmill Motor Speed control
Here's a shot of the HD2 jumper plug on the MC-2100 board
The two black wires are ground wires. They are twisted together at the other end.
The red wire is +12 volts
The blue wire is the control signal that brings in the pulses from the 555 circuit board
You do not need to use the other wires on the jumper

Click on the image to see a larger image

Treadmill Motor Speed control
This 15 amp circuit breaker was located on the frame of the treadmill
It is used to prevent a current overload condition

I soldered the breaker directly to the two lugs on the MC-2100 board
I use the rocker switch to turn the MC-2100 On and Off
The MC-2100 board will not operate unless the two lugs CB1 and CB1A are connected

My motor had two blue wires that went to a heat sensor cutoff switch
The heat sensor will open open up and stop the motor if it gets too hot
I removed the heat sensor from the motor because it is not going to be used very hard for my application

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