I plan to use a motor similar to this to drive a hollow shaft. If you click the image, the motor has a hollow shaft, so my hollow shaft can slide through.
But I have two problems with this
- I'm unsure how to 'lock' my shaft to the female shaft of the motor. Brief googling tells me that I have to use a keyed shaft. But the problem is that my shaft needs to be hollow (for some cables to pass through). The key will probably just fall into the hollow space. Also, I don't have access to a milling machine, so I can't make the notch on my own
- I need my shaft to be placed vertically (so the orientation is like a flag pole, facing the ground). I don't know how to secure it properly to the motor. I'm assuming if I just put the shaft in, it will just slide out? (A few objects will be mounted to the shaft, so I can't purely rely on friction to secure it)
For problem #1, there should be an adapter that can convert the keyed female shaft configuration to a normal shaft, and then I can lock it using a set screw mechanism. But I don't know the search term for it. Or is there a better way to secure the shaft?
For #2, I'm thinking of attaching a pulley to the hollow shaft (this is also used to couple an encoder using a belt drive) and then maybe just resting the pulley on top of a flat bearing, so the whole system will look something like this (sorry for the crude image). However, I'm not sure if this is the best approach.
Are there better alternatives for both of these problems?
I come from an EE background, so I'm not really familiar with these kinds of things.
Any help is appreciated!
