Reversing a motor
RETURN TO JUNK BOX ENGINEERING
To reverse the direction of a DC motor you must reverse the polarity of the battery to the motor. You can do this with a switch as shown below.
Wire the switch using the following procedure:
1. Strip about 1" of wire from its insulation as shown:
2. Wrap the wire from one corner to the other corner as shown and solder.
3. Prepare a similar wire to connect the other diagonal connections, but leave some insulation in the middle of the wire so it will not touch the wire below. The red wire will go to the positive of the battery, the black to the negative.
4. The center two connections will connect to the motor. be sure that there are no wires touching between any of the switch connections.
You are now ready to test out the motor reverser. Attach the battery and attach the motor to test the reverser.
5. Since this switch will run the motor either forward or back, there is no off! To add a switch that will turn the motor on/off only, add a switch as shown in the picture below:
One leg to the motor will have a push button switch so that it will only go on when pressed. The DPDT slide switch will change direction, but the push button will actuate it.
6. Since we have two motors in the system, there are two controls. The final set-up looks like this:
