Can you advise me on AC motors and gearing to safely create a continuously scrolling art piece?
I’d like to create a continuously looping 15ft tall painting on 2 rollers, the bottom of which is powered by an ac motor that can be plugged into a standard 120 volt socket.
I think I have an okay handle on how to make and mount the rollers (e.g. concave shape to prevent it from slipping off), but could use advice on how you might suggest a tensioning system to keep a gentle, consistent 10-20 lb tension on the canvas.
Where I really need expert advice is on the electrical and mechanical side. My constraints are safety (don't want it to be a fire, electrical or child’s finger / dog tail injury risk) and cost (I don’t expect to recoup via sale). I need some way to be able to regulate the speed, but this doesn’t need to be adjustable, just for the painting/building stage. Most of the economical motors I see online have low horsepower but extremely high rpm, whereas I’m estimating I’d want to end up in the 30-200 ballpark. My intuition is that there is some sort of way to use gears or something to convert this higher rotational speed at low power into lower rotational speed at higher power.
How would you suggest designing such a device? What range of motor specifications would you think would work? What tools / skills would I need to implement this that I might not be considering? And above all, how do I make sure this is safe?