animated truck conveyor belt gift box

Step 5: The drive system

By far the most frustrating part of the build.  I have an AC geared motor that would have worked perfectly but I did not want to have to plug the present into the wall.  Finding a dc motor with a gear system that had enough torque proved to be time consuming and frustrating.  I ended up using an old toy my wife had picked up called capsela.  I used to play with it as a kid and it seems they just decided a few months ago to stop making it.  It came with a motor, battery holder (1 aa was too small), gear system and wheels to drive.  It seemed almost perfect.  I used a rubber band and some more foam board to build a mount and spring to tension it against the tape.  On the other side of the tape was an old wheel from a broken rc car.  I ended up using 2 d cells to make it run.