Power Feed ?

Terry, I have removed two of those type motors in the past. The first one is powering my craftsman 6 inch lathe. It works great, totally adjustable speeds. I can go from about 25 rpm, with lots of power, to around 3600, again with lots of power. The 3600 speed is of course way to fast for the bronze bearings of the lathe. The other feeds my craftsman bandsaw. What I have found is that these motors don't have a lot of low speed torque, which is what you need for an X power drive. My craftsman lathe didn't have any of the screw gears, so I found a small gear reduction motor that I coupled to the feed screw for the carriage. Its only one speed, but it does go back and forth. It turns a lot steadier then I can, so it put a nice final finish on!! I wouldn't suggest using the tread mill motor, because you cant stop it on a dime, it will bog down and slow down on a heavy cut and that will effect the finish of the cut. you might get away with it if you add a gear box????

I would suggest a stepper motor. That's what my brother uses on the Sieg x3 mill and its trick as all get out....

the motor will work, but you will want to gear it down quite a bit - 100 to

1 or 200 to 1 seems about right - I'd encourage a worm gear for this application. And you will need to protect it from chips by fully enclosing it, and then you will need to add a muffin fan for cooling (with a filter to keep chips out). Beware also that it is a DC motor and so it will have significant stall current - I presume this is a PM motor, not a motor with a separate field coil. Also, these are commonly "rated" at 2 HP, but in reality they are closer to a real 1/4 HP or less motor, if you try and run them anywhere near 2 hp for very long, they will not be at all happy. They are good for wood lathes, where the load is not continuous, but I'd be careful for a power feed.

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Worm gear, nice touch.

Wes

Thanks , y'all ! I was planning on reduction with a belt/pulley , but I can see that might not be enough . First step will be to see what RPM it turns , and if there's reduction built in . The motor might end up powering my little drill press if I can't figger a way to adapt it for the mill . Might end up still powering the treadmill , AFAIK that part isn't broke , just the incline motor system . If that can be repaired easily , I might be able to get some cash outta this thing . Cash is good ...

Terry - I sold a number of these motors in the past for a surplus store I used to hang out at they turn around 5 to 6000 RPM max, and I sold them for $20 tested and working, $5 if there was anything wrong, and some just ended up a scrap.

In the treadmill, they have a pulley, no gears. this really is NOT your best choice for a power feed - find a damaged power feed unit and fix it, you will be way ahead

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But , but , where's the challenge in that ?

On Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:44:05 -0600, the infamous "Terry Coombs" scrawled the following:

Yeah, it's much more fun hanging 250-300# of crap on the side of the mill and seeing if it tips over on each pass, and seeing how many times it blows the circuit breakers as it hits on the power cord when it does tip.

Carry on.

-- Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in getting up every time we do. -- Confucius

Did you miss the ??

From the feedback I've received , I've decided to find another use for that motor/controller . I'll find another way to power feed the mill . Many thanks for the responses I got , even the humorless ones .

On Thu, 27 Nov 2008 23:15:46 -0600, the infamous "Terry Coombs" scrawled the following:

Of course not, and I even included that line. I was carrying on the whimsical notion you started, Terry. ;)

Jeeze, the one time I didn't think I needed to add a smiley...

-- In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. -- Bertrand Russell

A thousand pardons ! I was more than a little bit tipsy last night . I can see the whimsy in having a few hundred pounds of "stuff" hangin' off the left end of the table . I still haven't unloaded that thing from the truck . Dinner at the kids , getting a comp set up with bookkeeping software and Office , rearranging the shed yet again , and then it was dark out . Hopefully the youngest son will help me get it on the ground before he leaves for work today . I'm not even sure it works at all , might be just scrap for the "usable materials" pile out behind the shed . -- Snag every answer leads to another question

On Fri, 28 Nov 2008 07:54:02 -0600, the infamous "Terry Coombs" scrawled the following:

Whatever you do, don't breathe on the customer with alky breath if you're quoting security hardware to 'em at the time. =:-0

I envisioned a truly Goldbergesque monstrosity, sir.

I worked out some ropes and comealong to get my old cast arn table saur in and out of the back of my truck a dozen years ago. A V of rope from the front tiedowns to the comealong, a rope around the saur, and the winch in the middle. Took about 5 minutes total, in and out.

I unloaded a broken Searz Lifestyler treadmill myself, lowering the heavy end first via the strong arm method, then rolling it away from the truck on its own wheels by the light end. Dem beasties is heavy muthuhs.

HF had lift blocks on sale for $3 last week so I picked on up. I'll use it and some 1/4" cable to roll medium weight stuff on and off the truck away from home. I sold the old F-150 with the crane in the back, but now that I have the 2T HF shop crane here, I can play with larger items more easily.

-- In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. -- Bertrand Russell

I wasn't able to remember a motor name for days now, Snag.

The name that escaped me was Bodine, but there are a number of motors by other manufacturers that would also work well for a power feed, Oriental Motor (Japan), also numerous other names. Permanent magnet DC motors with a right-angle worm gear setup are versatile for lots of machine feed uses.

A good gear reduction for feed screws would be worm drive, but other gearhead motors would also be adaptable. A right-angle worm drive allows the motor weight to be closer to the table, reducing the length that a straight/parallel gear reduction gearhead motor would have.

It wouldn't be simple to get all of the features of a specifically-built power feed drive as compact as one, by using an improvised design with various separate components.

The commercially available power feed drives typically have variable speed and a lever to engage/disengage the gear train from the table feed handle, along with the start/stop control in one compact package.

Thanks , Bill . The treadmill is sittin' in my driveway , still intact until I decide just what I want to do with it . Looking , it's seen a good many miles ... shouldn't affect the motor and controls though .