I'm planning to make a spinning adapter using a small rc airplane brushless motor. I know it requires some kind of circuit to drive it. So can I just buy a cheap brushless esc to drive it?
I wonder how the receiver give signal to the esc to spin the motor. If we could provide a constant "Drive" signal to the cable connecting to receiver. Then the esc will spin the motor.

lau, i'm not sure what DC motor you're referring to, but the ones i have experienced with, all move when just hooking the recommended battery up to it. no circuit to drive it.

that's a servo i believe you're thinking of. that only moves 90 and 180, sometime 360 degrees.

check some of these out:
http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0093p?&C=CKA&P=ML

Brushless motors for scale aircraft can be made to work but it does require an extra box to be made up. I had one hand-made up over here to drive two of the larger scale motors to spin gyros.

Operating the controller is not as simple flicking a switch and it does not start instantly. It has to calibrate itself on power-up. Once you are powered up, then the controller works instantly.

I would favour staying with the CD motors for home builds.

Yes. That's why I'm thinking about cheap brushless esc(Cheap one. Since we don't need all those fancy function). And find some way to mimick the signal from the receiver. Then the motor will spin continuously.

I'm aware of the quality of CD motors. Does it provide enough torque and speed? And how to mount the non-CD GG disk on the motor?

I have no idea what motors you guys are used to, but this motor here, will spin freely with just a battery....it's rpm's are at 6000 and plenty to spin a disk. same make as habuchi, the disk motors.

what motors are you guys talking about where you'll need to mimic the signal?

Lau, how fast do you need the adapter? I'm going to post a video tutorial, hopefully at the end of the month for a spinning 35.

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXSR92&P=ML

The motor I'm talking about is a brushless motor. Like the one in the picture. The one you are refering is a DC brushed motor.

But anyway. Is it a good idea to spin the GG with a high quality brushless motor than using a simple DC brushed motor?

http://www.kanamx.com/uploadpic/20084162211266513.jpg

don't know if there's a difference besides the price.

An brushless ESC for radio controlled models receive a PWM (pulse width modulation) signal from the receiver. You also have ESC (not for RC-models) which has a voltage input to control the speed, here you could simply use two resistors in a voltage divider circuit.

You could also control it yourself directly using a AVR or PIC controller:
http://www.atmel.com/products/AVR/mc/3p_bldc.asp?family_id=607

A brushless motor is basically a stepper motor with only three steps. They run much cooler, use less power and live much longer (no sliding contacts).

Wow.Where can I get a ESC that use voltage input then?

I can get a rc brushless motor for airplane with a very cheap price here.

I don't think there's a need for a brushless motor in this application. You're not driving airflow here--you're just spinning a piece of glass which is a pretty simple load for something like a typical brushed motor.

Good luck if you do take this path, but if I were you I wouldn't want to overcomplicate things.

You said it Winter.

You are right. Another question is that how to mount the GG perfectly on that motor shaft? I can't really figure out how to mount it. I'm not worrying about the centering problem. I just want a way to stick the GG firmly to the shaft.

Brushless RC motors comonly mount the props to a plain shaft with a compression collet arrangement which takes care of both centering and alignment of the propellor.

These motors are loaded along the shaft axis in tension as well as torsionally in their normal application. The collet sits well out on the shaft. An adaptor disk loads the motor shaft torsionally only. A loaded prop pulling forward, to some degree wil dampen an out-of-balance state. Slight aerodynamic differences in each blade will introduce forces which behave like an out-of-balance state. The airframes are built to take it.

Combined 35mm adaptor/camera structures are not.

If you have a disk that is not true for centre, it will run out of balance and sitting well forward, gives it a lot of leverage over the motor mounts.

At best it will only run out across the focal plane and soften the focus. More likely it will do this AND shake the whole appliance-camera combination. It takes little vibration to introduce a vibration artifact to an interlaced imager or a rolling shutter imager.

Centering is important.

Some of the RC motors are called "outrunner" motors. Some of these have a shorter shaft on the opposite end and a flange face with axial screw holes which might make for easier fit up.

Whichever way you go, there is some custom machine work to do.