Got the second flange installed and needed to shim the lazy susan bearing by 1/8" so the height was level all around. So far using that bearing and two single bearing flanges is a $10 solution for a rotating monitor. I painted both sides of the disk with that Zinsser mildew primer just so that no grease would penetrate the wood. I suppose using plywood might be better for this piece, but it's heavier than the 5/8" particle board I had on hand.
Now back to the electronics.... I mounted the PWM board and Secret Motor Drive to the hinged motor arm (Photo 3). I think the screen door hinge provides just enough tension to the wheel. Anything more would probably be too much tension. I mounted the arm on top the back piece and secured with with a few screws. I finally got to try out the motor! Plugged the circuit in and nothing happened at 5V. Made sure the PWM module was cranked up all the way, still nothing. Switched to 12V connection and voila! It works. Well sort of. ...
First of all the motor is not supposed to be continuously run at 12V. Since this is just for a few seconds, it probably won't hurt it too much. I played with the switch turning it back and fouth, and I really didn't need to throttle down the motor at all. Like I said before, if you use the GM3 motor you don't need to slow it down. It's geared pretty low. Once in a while I could hear the internal clutch kicking in on the motor. Not good. It seems this motor setup is probably not strong enough for this type of bearing. I think it would work okay in cases where you have a single axle for the rotation, but what I was after was a cheap rotation solution. Which could be mounted to a monitor's existing mechanism. This comes at a cost however because you will need to buy a stronger motor to overcome the friction. The bearing isn't tight, it's just that the combination of the ball bearings in the lazy susan, then the two flange bearings, there's too much friction going on. I used some bicycle wheel hub grease which may have not been the best choice of lube, however I wanted something that wasn't going to evaporate out. If I were to try this route again I would use lighter oil on the bearings. But even without doing so, I think the GM3 motor while perhaps doable, just really isn't a robust solution.
All is not lost however, I have the pololu motor which should be here tomorrow with 10X the power, metal gearbox and is meant to run at 12V. The downside is I need to ditch the secret motor drive so I can use a driver that can handle more amps. I went for an all in one solution, but it wasnt' cheap. This is closer to a $100 solution but that includes the motor, mounting bracket, hub, wheel, and motor driver which can be talked to through USB, serial port, command line, or RJ45. It also has built in PWM which is all software controlled. More on that later. .. RIP GM3