Simple Electric Pottery Wheel

***WARNING *** Read all of this Instructable before starting work. Obviously if you are not completely confident with wiring mains powered appliances safely, do not use an AC/DC universal regulated switching DC power supply as your power option for this Pottery Wheel, and reduce the electrical risks by providing the 36V DC power supply needed by the ESC from a 36V ebike or hoverboard battery instead, or link three 12 V motorcycle or car batteries in series, but in all cases, make yourself aware of the potential hazards associated with AC and DC electricity.

If you are competent working with 240 V AC and 120 V AC and plan on using an AC/DC universal regulated switching DC power supply, always run it from an RCD-protected mains outlet. Whist the description below will work satisfactorily and safely when followed by a competent person, any work with mains power requires good knowledge and awareness of the electrical hazards likely to be encountered with AC and DC supplies. If you are in any doubt about these, always consult a qualified electrician before starting work on this project.

*** DISCLAIMER ***

The author cannot accept any liability for any harm, personal injury, damage to property, or loss experienced as a result of following this Instructable in an unsafe manner.

Background

The advantages of this Potters Wheel are: Simple and quick to build, cheap, wide and controllable speed range, plenty of power to centre 5 kg 10 lb of clay, parts readily available, not need special tooling, fairly lightweight and small size means it can be stored in a cupboard between use. Also, if any component fails you can replace it as you built it in the first place, unlike the very low budget commercial wheels that have poor availability of spares and are not designed for easy user maintenance.

This design was developed to be very easy to make and require only simple tools that a DIY enthusiast probably owns already, the most high tech tool being a jigsaw for cutting the circle of shower board / plywood for the wheelhead, and a soldering iron to extend the length of the motor wires and attach the multi-pin connectors.

As the main components are sourced from electric bikes and hoverboards, or are common electrical parts, they are not expensive and the total cost can be kept to around £60 $70, especially if you can obtain a faulty hoverboard (usually due to failed battery not the wheel motors) at low/zero cost from an online auction/marketplace.

The build process involves fixing the powerful brushless hoverboard motor (wheel) on a wooden base, adding an ebike electronic speed controller (ESC) incorporating a modified ebike twist grip throttle as foot pedal, and mounting the main wheel assembly firmly inside a plastic storage box which acts as a splashpan to catch the messy clay slip. For safety and ease of cleaning, the speed controller, power supply (or battery) and foot pedal are all located outside the splashpan plastic storage box. After use, the main wheel assembly can be lifted out of the splashpan for easy cleaning of the water clay slip left inside.

I've tried 4 different ebike Brushless electronic speed controllers (ESC) and 1 very cheap unhoused Brushless ESC and found the latter to be inferior as it had exposed circuit board and no heatsink. All the ebike brushless ESC were very similar quality and worked well. Try to buy one with a diagram identifying each connector as several of these connectors, like brakes, cruise control etc, are redundant for this project. We only need the 3 individual motor power wires each with a bullet connector, the Hall sensor connector (5 wires), main power input (3 wires, join the 2 reds so this becomes a 2 wire, red and black), and the throttle connector (3 wire) used for the foot pedal

Video of completed wheel and some tips on making at: https://youtu.be/kyMVY0iHxkA

Electrics

Hoverboard (whole thing or just a replacement wheel) (24v, 36v better) - online auctions/marketplace £0 - 20

Ebike speed controller (36v 350W BRUSHLESS) - online auctions/marketplace £10

AC/DC universal regulated switching DC power supply (120/240v to 36v DC 10A (360W) - online auctions/marketplace £25 - 30

ebike/scooter twist grip throttle (£7)

2.8 mm multi-pin connectors Auto electrics shop or online auction

RCD safety plug (£7)

16 m of 1.5mm multistrand (flexible) electrical copper wire or similar

3mm heatshrink tubing or PVC insulation tape

Other

Splashpan e.g IKEA Vessla storage box or similar £10

Multipin connectors 2.8mm auto electrics type (6 pin , 3 pin and 2 pin)

Various pieces of MDF, plywood (waterproof showerboard best if available), CLS timber, screws etc (£5)

Biscuit tin or other splashproof container to house the external electrics.

Silicone Bathroom Sealant

Tools

Drill, jigsaw, soldering iron, adjustable spanner, screwdrivers, wood saw, combination square, Hex Allen keys

Remove Hoverboard Motor Open the hoverboard casing by removing all screws including any hiding under labels. Disconnect all electrical connectors and cut cable ties etc in order to safely remove battery (for disposal). Then remove the 4 Allen head bolts that clamp the wheel motor shaft to the chassis and lift out wheel motor.

Extending the Motor Wires Make notes recording the position of the 5 wires of the Hall Sensor connector (the large multi-pin connector on the motor) as the wires need to be reinstated in the same positions in the connector block once the wires have been extended. Remove the wires from the connector by pushing a small screwdriver against the retaining tab on the pin and slide the pin out of the connector.

Extend the 5 Hall Connector wires by soldering a 2m length of 1.5mm wire to each, with heatshrink tube or PVC tape to insulate each soldered joint. Hint If you only have one or two colours of wire, then using a permanent marker pen, mark each wire with a bar code (e.g. black wire is 1 bar, red wire 2 bars, green 3 bars etc. Add bar codes to each end of the 5 wires. This will allow you to track each coloured wire later on when adding multi-pin connectors to them.

Now add bar codes to 3 more 1.5mm x 2m wires ( use 6 bars to 8 bars codes), which are then used to extend the 3 thick motor wires.

Rather than have 8 loose wires, braid the 8 wires together, splitting the braid into a 3-wire braid and a 5-wire braid for the last 20 cm or so. Find a tutorial on Youtube how to braid hair and rope, and repeat with these wires. Seems complex at first but its worth persevering. Bind the area where the soldered joints are located with plenty of PVC tape to make it waterproof. You can also smear Silicone Sealant over this area for added protection.

Terminate Wires with Multi-pin Connectors Now connect a 5-pin multi connector to the 5 Hall Sensor wires from the motor (referring to your notes and codes so that each wire ends up in the right position in the connector as noted earlier) and also connect a 3-pin multi connector to the 3 motor wires, the position of these in the connector is not critical but i suggest you order them yellow, green, blue in the plug and match the same order when you replace the 3 bullet connectors on the ESC with a single 3-pin multi connector. To save time later, select the male/ female plug for your motor's Hall Sensor wires that fits correctly to the Hall Sensor plug already on the ESC (Photo H), and follow the same format for the 3 motor wires (Photo M).

Note: If you prefer you can reuse the individual bullet connectors on the motor and ESC, but I preferred a single 3-pin multiconnector here. If you do reuse bullet connectors, just ensure they connect yellow-yellow, green-green, and blue-blue for the respective ESC and motor wires each time you connect up, getting the wrong order does no harm anything but may cause the hall signal to be out of sync with the power signal to the motor (so motor turns noisily).

Cut Square Base The motor mount consists of a 335mm square of 17mm chipboard (plywood better) with its corners removed to allow it to fit tightly into the plastic splashpan (IKEA Vessla storage box). If you use a different box measure internal width at a point 60mm above its base and cut the square 20mm wider in order for it to fit tightly as you don't want any movement between the base and wall when you throw pots. The corners of the plywood/MDF base are cut back about 50mm 2inch as the corner will not flex at all, unlike the side walls.

Make Motor Mount Join together two 240mm lengths of 90mm x 38mm CLS timber with 60mm wood screws and cut a perpendicular groove centrally in the 76mm side (photo) using a hand saw. The groove is 10 - 12mm wide and about 3 - 5 mm deep, use the combination square to ensure it is perpendicular. Screw this motor mount to the base from the underside (4 60mm wood screws) so that the groove aligns with a 20 - 30mm hole cut in the centre of the square base. This centralises the wheel and helps drainage.

Add Feet Cut 4 short lengths of 38mm CLS timber and screw to the underside of the square base to act as feet, keeping the base above the pool of water and clay slip that accumulate when throwing.

Fix Motor to the Motor Mount Finally, using four 60mm coach bolts or large wood screws, attach the motor to the bracket using the square metal plate that originally held the motor onto the hoverboard chassis (if you buy a bare motor you will need to fabricate a metal plate) placing the curved face of the motor shaft against the wood and the flat face against the metal bracket (photo).

Prepare Wheelhead Cut out a 280mm diameter circle of 18mm exterior grade plywood (waterproof showerboard better) and mark a 145mm diameter circle centrally, and then drill 5 or 6 holes approx equally spaced along this circle. Later when you can run the wheel you can centralize this wheelhead on top of the motor and then fix it in place with temporarily with Silicone Sealant and then permanently with wood screws that locate into the rubber tyre. These dimensions work for a 6.5 inch hoverboard wheel.

Options to Control Wheel Speed There are three ways described here to control the speed of the wheel, either a bespoke footpedal covered in my next Instructable (best option), a hand controller with rotating knob (uses a potentiometer), or a foot pedal based on an ebike twist grip throttle. The bespoke footpedal described in the follow-up Instructable is very cheap, easy to fabricate, and will suit most potters as they will be familiar with this method from using commercial wheels. The the foot pedal from twist grip (photo) described below is more awkward to make as it requires adaptation of the donor parts and is less robust. The hand controller (photo) is very simple to make and is probably the best option to get the wheel working in a short time and without too much effort.

All these systems have three wires which connect to the throttle multi-pin connector on the ESC (photo FP). Some trial and error may be needed to establish the correct position that the 3 wires must be located in the connector, but since there are only 6 different ways to locate these 3 wires the answer is soon found. Most likely, the connector supplied with an ebike twist grip throttle should match the throttle connector on the ESC allowing you to test it but it will need modification described below (or at least have the spring removed so it can be rotated and held at any desired position).

1) Bespoke Low cost Footpedal

A simple, robust and fully-operational electronic footpedal can be made from a Hall sensor and two magnets with some scraps of MDF. See my instructable "Low Cost Footpedal for Electric Pottery Wheel" for full details.

2) Hand Controller with Rotating Knob Acquire a 100k potentiometer (photo) (10k may be better for some ESC) and fix it into a small box and add a rotating knob to make the hand controller. For ease of use with clayey hands, fixing a kebab skewer instead of a knob may be more practical. Now solder three 2m wires onto a multipin connector that will connect with the one on the ESC (named as "Throttle" by most ESC manufacturers). Take the wires going to the positive and negative (red and black) wires of the ESC throttle connector and solder them to the outer pins of the potentiometer (the way you connect Red and Black will determine whether speed increases with clockwise or anticlockwise turning), and solder the third wire which runs from the coloured wire of the ESC connector onto the middle (wiper) terminal of the potentiometer. Job done. Note: the potentiometer must be "zeroed" before the ESC will work, do this by turning fully clockwise or anticlockwise before turning on the power.

3) Foot Pedal from Ebike twist grip throttle Acquire an Ebike twist grip throttle (photo). Cut off rubber coating and carefully hack away the outer end of the plastic body and lever off the plastic side plate of the wired end (photo) so that the rotating sleeve part can be slid off the main body. Throw away the internal spring. Now you need to make some internal adjustments. First change the position of one magnet from position 1 to position 2 (photo), leave the other magnet at position 3. I used hot glue to fix it. Second, create a new end stop for the rotating sleeve by gluing in some segments of wood or plastic against the original end stop, so that when the rotating sleeve is placed back on the main body it rotates through only 30 degrees or so. Dont let the magnet act as an end stop as the hot glue isn't strong enough for that. Be careful to keep the magnet the same way round as it was as the N S poles are critical, just move it forward a little bit. As these twist grip throttles use a Hall Sensor between the two magnets, shortening the distance between these magnets as described causes the 0 - 100% resistance output to occur more quickly (less degrees of rotation needed) and the 30 degrees value suits foot operation better than 60 degrees.

Now attach the reassembled twist grip throttle to a piece of plywood (glue and screw) and attach another piece of wood or plastic to the rotating sleeve using glue and cable tie. If possible support the free end of the man body by inserting a 22mm diameter piece of tube or wood so that when you operate it with your foot it can bear the weight. I suggest you look at the YouTube video to get a better idea. This foot pedal fabrication is the hardest part of the project. I have tried using a scooter throttle pedal which also uses hall sensor but still had to mess around with the magnets inside to get a useful electrical resistance output that matched the ESC. Some Guitar pedals and the HSL Junior VS pottery wheel pedal are foot pedals with mechanical levers that turn a potentiometer, but these cost more than the rest of this wheel put together so are not the solution here. The Hand Controller (option 2 above) may be the safest way to start off if you go for a build or simply use an ebike twist grip throttle as it is, or with its spring removed so it stays at any speed you set.

1) Electrics. So far i have given details of the connectors on the ESC for the Motor Power Wires, the Motor Hall Sensor, and the Foot Pedal or Hand Controller. So finally we need cover the power connector on the ESC which brings the 36V Power Supply to the Ebike Controller. As Ebikes and scooters use an on/off "ignition" key for anti-theft protection most ESC Controllers don't just have a simple 2-wire (black and red) connector for power, but instead use a three wire connector with two positive terminals and one negative so that the key switch can link the two positives when operated. This adds unnecessary complication for the Potters Wheel and we don't need an on/off key switch, so simply solder the two red wires together (the 2 positives may be red and orange) then create 2-wire multi-pin connector for the power wires with one pin negative (black) and the other positive (the joined reds) (Photo Power).

All that remains to be completed now is to take a 36V DC supply (positive and negative wires), either from a 36V battery or a 36V mains Power Supply as mentioned earlier, and add the appropriate 2-wire multipin connector to fit the one on the ESC. When you want to operate the wheel just connect these two multipin connectors, when you finish throwing just disconnect these connectors.

2) Cables. I've tried various arrangements to bring the braided motor power cable into the splashpan from the external ESC power controller box (holes through the splashpan sidewall or base etc) but the simplest way is just to trail the cable over the top edge of the splashpan in a corner on the opposite side to where you will sit. It may be helpful to add extra water protection to the braided cable near to the motor shaft by cutting the bottom off a plastic milk bottle and using it to cover the vertical loop of braided wire at the point where the soldered wire connections have been covered with PVC tape (photo shows cable at the point that a milk bottle cover can be added). Further protection could be achieved by covering this PVC taped area of cable with Silicone Sealant. In practice, as long as water/slip accumulation in the splashpan is kept to less than 25mm the motor and vulnerable part of the braided cable will be high and dry.

Most Ebike ESC have a few plugs we do not need e.g. for braking, cruise control, power regeneration, and "Tuning". The Tuning plug, if you have it, can be used on the very first power up to tune (synchronize) the Hall Sensor with motor field frequency if the motor does not run smoothly. If you don't have this feature and the wheel turns noisily or just hums without turning, the Hall Sensor is out of sync with the motor electric field windings. Don't panic, just do some switching of the yellow/green/blue pins in the Hall Sensor Connector (eg start by trying yellow to yellow, green to blue, and blue to green, and if that does not solve the problem then proceed through the other 5 alternative pairings, e.g. yellow to green, green to yellow and Blue to blue, etc etc., and if you still have no joy try it all again after you have swapped around two pairs of the motor pin connections in a similar way. In total there are 6 lots of 6 i.e. 36 different ways to connect the YGB wire pairs of the Hall Sensor AND the YGB wire pairs of the motor, but you will hit on a working combination after just a few trials as there is more than one working combination.

The final ESC connector which is possibly very helpful is the Reverse Gear. This is usually two single white wires ending in a small connector (photo). You can either use this as it is if you just want to set the rotation direction permanently as clockwise or anticlockwise, but if you want to change direction regularly then run these wires to a switch so its easier.

All the remaining redundant connectors i would leave as they are and bind up with PVC Tape to avoid shorting. If you cut off the connectors the exposed wires may short.

WARNING the description above states to use 3-pin multi-pin connectors for both the motor power and the foot pedal. To avoid plugging the wrong ones together accidentally, mark each pair of male and female connectors with an "M" or an "FP" and check these labels carefully every time so you make the right connections. A better solution would be to use a 4-pin multi-pin connector for the 3 motor wires and leave one of the pin positions empty so there is no way to misconnect. The other safe way is to use a male 3-pin connector on the ESC for the motor wires and female 3-pin connector on the ESC for the foot pedal wires.

3) Fixing the Wheelhead. Step 2 described how to prepare the 280mm wheelhead but only now that the motor can spin under power should you fix the wheelhead onto the motor. Using a few spots if Silicone Sealant on the top of the motor centralise the wheelhead by eye (like centring a pot for turning) also check any vertical misalignment and if there's too much, pull off the wheelhead and add some small coin-size pieces of paper under the low point and try again. After a bit of trial and error you should get the wheelhead spinning true vertically and horizontally. Use very low rotation speeds for this centring. Wait 12 hours until the Silicone Sealant has set before screwing the wheelhead firmly onto the motor with the holes drilled in Step 2. Tighten the screws gradually in a sequence checking you don't create vertical misalignment of the wheel head by applying too much pressure on one side.

4) Operating the Wheel. It was not mentioned in Section 2, but the top of the wheelhead must be about 20 mm below the top edge of the splashpan in order to stop slip spinning everywhere and creating a right ol mess! The timber dimensions stated earlier achieve the correct height with the Vessla Storage box, but you can adjust the height easily by changing the size of the 4 blocks of wood that act as feet.

One of the advantages of this wheel is the small size and light weight that allows discrete storage at home, but this has the disadvantage that the wheel is not a 50kg lump that you sit on comfortably. So operation in a seated position is best achieved by placing the wheel on the ground and using a very low stool to sit (squat) on. Alternatively you can rest the wheel on a solid object (wooden chest, concrete blocks, chair, etc) and use a taller stool. Either way you should be able to brace your forearms on the top edge of the splashpan to steady your hands for centering of clay and achieve accurate lifting and turning techniques. Higher seating heights will give a more natural foot position to operate a foot pedal, but if using the Hand Controller this is less important. An alternative operating position is to place the wheel on a low table and just stand in position. Experiment to see what's best for you.

If you build a wheel please drop a comment here or on the Youtube video, and if you get stuck i will respond on these platforms.

Happy Potting.