Motor Sync Problem

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Ryan Phillips by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <xanth-at-voyager-dot-net>

List,

    I've been working on making my first SRSG and I'm running into some
difficulties.  The motor I am using is a brand new Emerson 1/3 H. P. at 3450
RPM.  It's really very basic, CCW rotation, no start cap, two wires is all
there is to hook up.  I took it apart and measured the diameter of the
armature to be 2.810" and the distance between dead poles (or my best guess
of dead poles) to be .75".  I had two flats milled exactly opposite each
other and .750" wide.  After reassembling the motor, I spun it up and to my
dismay, it did not sync.  I've read many discussions on checking for sync so
I was prepaired.  I made two disks, one cardboard with a single black line,
and one plexi half black half white.  I used an unrectified supply to power
about 50 ultrabright LEDS for my strobe.  While the motor is spinning it
changes tone slightly about every half second.  When using the strobe, the
black line was very visible but moving slowly CW (about 1-1.5 RPM).  The
movement also follows the the tones produced by slowing down and speeding up
as it moves around.  It always slows down in the same spot so I'm guessing
it trying to lock sync.  It also heats up quite a bit during even short
runs.  My guess what that the flats were not wide enough and I was going to
have them milled at 1.0" wide and try it, then 1.25" if that failed.

What do you think my problem is?

If anyone has a motor about the same size that they have successfully
converted, could you please post what size armature and flats you have?

Thanks in advance,

Ryan Phillips