Agree. Another idea would be a spring that keeps the motor disengaged requiring operator input. Your suggestion is preferable while mine is a bit easier and cheaper albeit more of a pain long term.
i would put an endstopon each site configuered as an NC and then put the power on there so that if it hits the end it shuts the power down to the circuit, in the end it is just a security option, normally you standing besides it when working on it but it can happen that you are looking at something else the longer you use the feature
I was thinking the same thing. My shop bought power feed has a 2 way switch and 2 end stops. And when the switch touches one of the end stop it stops the motor.
A nicely presented, designed and implemented project - you will never regret the time and effort you expended on this self-act! A real boon. I made one similar but when I converted my mill to CNC I then made a control box which could be used to drive any of the 3 axis stepper motors - constant torque at any speed - a great improvement!
Some detents on the shafts and a spring plunger replacing one of those socket screws that engages with the slots seem like a nice way to lock this assembly into engaged/disengaged positions
Not only does it show all your skills & abilities it is also one of the best videos & explanations of how to overcome one's problems. I'm gona update my mill now. Thanks for the info.
Very neat work. With a coat of paint on those chip guards it would pretty much look like a manufacturers option. I built something similar for my little antique lathe. I used a 12v car wiper motor that seems to be happy enough running at 18v (It's been running this voltage for over a year now and hasn't burnt out/caught fire yet. :) ). I didn't bother with a clutch as I can just twist it's adjuster 3 or 4 turns to slacken off and remove it's toothed drive belt. I used a wiper motor because they have 2 sets of windings in them for high and low speeds. Coupled with the PWM speed controller it gives me a brilliant feed speed range. One idea I had, that you might find useful, was to extend the direction switches wires and run them through the "Normally closed" side of a couple microswitches. With some mounting brackets you could use them as limit switches that only break the circuit for feeding in that direction (ie, you can still reverse the feed direction and back the bed away from the triggered switch using the powered feed). In your case it would prevent any chance of running out of bed travel and stalling your motor. In my case I want to do it to help me stop trashing ceramic cutter inserts. If I'm turning a long bar at a VERY slow feed, I'm not adverse to wandering a little way away from my lathe to do something else for a couple of minutes. Sometimes I've got distracted and had to jump back to the lathe when I've heard that familiar Click click click CLACK CRUNCH" sound of lathe tool hitting chuck Jaws !!! :D
Hi Phil, I used your idea to build my powerfeed, but I made some adaptations and it worked perfectly, thanks for the idea, of all it is one of the simplest and most functional.
Absolutely excellent!! Very impressive! This is some top notch quality engineuity! It looks so good and professional. The average person would without question think that was a factory component. This project is definitely something to be proud of!
simple and cheap, your going to put the shops out of business if you keep giving us these ideas, also well explained with proper video footage explaining the whole process. Loved it.
Excellent video... I have watched at least 50 videos trying to find the information you give in this video.. I wanted to use this same type of setup utilizing a windshield wiper motor on my metal lathe feed, this answered "every" concern and question I had and gave me some great design ideas to boot.
I like your videos a great deal. Not only are your projects worthy, your approach to them is admirable. What's more you have good sense in what I believe are called production values. Thank you.
Very enjoyable to watch. Was just asking myself how one would somehow insert the turbo switch somewhere into the PWM circuit when you came up with the solution of bypassing the potentiometer. Brilliant idea, and ex post so simple and obvious..
Awesome design! I would change out the screw in the motor sliding mechanism, with a ballbearing, a spring and a grubscrew. and make two divots in the slot at each end of the sliding part, for that satisfying snap-action ;)
Great work and great video. If you do you to add limit switches, you would wire them NC (normally closed) between the 'outputs' of that 3-position direction switch.
Very nicely done, I did much the same thirty years ago, getting into my own shop and not able to afford to buy the professional setup. I really like the "clutch" connect/disconnect. That's almost as easy to use as the designed for power feed. Thanks for sharing this!
I've been thinking about making my own drive but was stuck on the clutch mechanism, thanks to you I now know how easy to do it. Just like you have. I hope you don't mind me using your idea.. Cheers.
A nice solution to your problem It turned out very good, you could also add some limit switches to it as well. I might do something similar to my mill having seen your video. Thanks.
tip: to make the display even easier to read, add a smoked piece of acrylic (like from a dead alarm clock) such that the display sections that are off don't show up as 'white' to your eye. Increases contrast a tonne.
Nicely done! If you add another power feed to one of the other axis, check out the motors that are used to move electric seats. They cost about $12 to $15 USD and are very similar to the wind shield wiper motors. I think I'm going to be adapting some of your ideas to my mill, Thanks.
I really like this project as it covers different areas of manufacturing from mechanical to electrical work. The workflow is presented in a very calm way. I just enjoyed watching the video. Thanks for the effort.The only idea that came to my mind when watching the final operation was that it might be wise to install the limit switches so that the motor will stop automatically when the end position is reached.
Nice, clean upgrade without commercial extras that most hobby users never use. Have seeen that some react on your gloves. Me too, but I,d never use medical/nitrit gloves as their fingertips very easily get winded around rotating components( thankfully I reached the STOP button in time). Best regards.
Your stuff is always so interesting and cool. I bought an Opti BF20 mill this year. I need a power feed and you have given me a lot of inspiration. Great content Phil. Dan from Australia.
I borrowed you design and built something similar for my Benchmaster mill. I used a Bodine gear drive. it works great and has really been an arm saver. Thanks.
Great video, as usual! I don't know why, but no matter how bad my day is, I can watch one of your project vids & the troubles of the day just seem to disappear. No matter how many times I watch one of your vids, I always learn something. Keep posting them, I'm gonna keep watching them! 😃👍
Great! I chose to use your design on 2 of my machines, I used new Chrysler minivan wiper motors. Got tired of 250 to 350 for power feeds and have them fail.
Yeah I have actually added them a few months ago. I ran into the limit once and stalled the motor without noticing. It's actually not too bad, these motors don't have enough torque to actually damage the mill. The motor was fine too but it did burn up the speed controller, so definitely better to have limit stops. The quick and dirty method I've also seen is to add an automotive fuse behind the power input to prevent overloading the motor or controller. Not as elegant but prevents the worst by cutting power when the motor starts stalling and drawing too much power.
Very nice. Probably It will be more ergonomic if you put a connecting bar under the table (if possible) to be able to engage and disengage the motor from the side of the handwheel.
Very clean installation. Looked at a few builds and only one so far has made a listing of what the actual feed rates are. Maybe a lot just use it for moving the x axis quickly for positioning.
Thanks! As for the feed rates, I didn't bother calculating them because I feed by "gut feeling" with the handwheel and so far that has worked out fine, so I'm doing the same with the powerfeed. But that being said, even if I worked out the feed rates, there's no guarentee it would be the same on some other mill, since it depends on the pitch of the leadscrew which can be different between models. What I can tell you is that you probably want something roughly in the range of 10-250 rpm on the motor side to get a reasonable range of "normal" feed rates on a manual mill.
Great design Phil, it's the most practical X axis feed I've seen so far - simple but solid and compact. I used the same motor by the look of it, 24V 45W 220 RPM , on a Z axis feed for my mini mill and it works fine for travel and 'mill turning'. Thanks for sharing, Mike
Overall excellent job. When using a collet block, the flats should be against the jaws of your vise. With the flats against the jaws there will be much more surface area touching each other providing many times more grip. I was cringing the whole time you were cutting the 6 flats expecting the part to move and a broken end mill.
Built the same years ago 12volt used a dog clutch so the motor was fixed for the Z Axis I used a window winder motor which is much smaller this was on Taiwan round columb mill
I did the same thing on my 1936 atlas 10d lathe which was made without a power cross feed. i i used 12v wiper motor (free) and 6 amp pwm with reverse (less than $10.00}, cheap and works great, good vid thanx
It is always way cooler to build something than to just buy something. I run into cash flow issues especially lately. A little over 18 months ago I was hit and run over on my 1957 Harley and money has been red;ly tight. What is POM? Is that Delrin? Also is that called a hex shaped collet block? That is fantastic. Do you have a list of items that you used. Such as the wiper motor or the PWM with all the relays?
This was really awesome to watch . I recently aquired a lathe that has no cross feed and i think of implementing something similar . Well done ! It was carried out with great prescision and care to work just awesome .
Just a transverse feed motor and a tool feed motor and then adding a CNC controller can make it into a brilliant mill. Excellent video, thanks. (Although they would need to be a bit more upscale than wiper motors) ;)
Good design. Just a couple of comments from an old control systems Engineer. I assume, a bad word choice , that you turn the speed down to 0 to reverse direction. It would be useful to use an left right switch with a center position of off. This would allow the motor to be stopped then started in the other direction at the same speed setting it was going before it was stopped. You might want to consider limit switches on the table to stop the power. You have to keep an eye on the current operation. When the table reaches its limit the motor will stall out and possibly burn up the speed controller. It is more probable the controller will go before the motor can damage the drive screw.
I did sort of the same thing for a down feed. The only thing I did different was I slide the coupling back and forth instead of the whole motor. Good machining.
hi phil extremely well done, kudos would you want to consider ball detent latches for locking the motor in and out as you did on you belt sander project i was expecting the detent klicking sound somehow when you move the motor in :-) cheers and continue the great work pls
Yeah I actually thought about using a spring that pushes it in or out so it can engage in one direction by itself and lock in the other position (kind of like the grinderr). It would have been cool but this time I wanted to keep things quick and simple. It's more of a "I need to get this over with" build so that I can start doing other stuff ;)
Outstanding! I've been looking for guidance in making a power feed for my Benchmaster mill. This, with minor modifications, would work very well for me. Thank you for the excellent video.
Phil, great video as always. What about using a solenoid to engage and disengage the drive motor? Electronic door lock, (DC) fuel cutoff solenoid,(AC) or through shaft solenoid would work perfectly I believe. Anyway, just a suggestion to an already great build.
Just another thought. A 12 point socket might give even easier engagement with the hex drive adapter. The design Phil is really neat and minimalistic. The only extra I can think of is some auto stops at each end of the table. BobUK
Hi Phil, Very nice work, I have the factory power feed on my SX4 which has developed an intermittent fault.....sometimes it doesn’t work, other times it’s fine.....problem is the fault is getting more frequent, now there is a solution! Cheers
Hi, Phil... I would suggest, to add end switches or a slip clutch to the thing. I am shure, you will leave some slow / long milling tasks alone and walk away occasionally.. This is kind of a desaster waiting to happen. I tend to use this wiper motors a lot in my builds... Greets from Germany.
My only note would be to add two momentary buttons witch decide the turning direction along the side of the switch, so you can move it quickly and relative accurately to spots for detail work. I find this better than small switch like that. For the machining it self switch similar to that is fine. Just find it perhaps bit small for use. Dunno maybe its just me...
Noting the additional 'stop' bar added to the vice - why not drill and tap a thread into it s you can fit a long threaded (bolt) to make it an adjustable stop ?
Hi Philly, great video. I love your calm and down to earth comments, which take into account that most of your viewers probably don't have a workshop (yet). So I really appreciate how you break down the process for noobs. On that note: I'd like to know more about how you measure the cuts at the mill. Like, how do you reference a certain point or plane once the part is on the mill? Thanks a lot, this is top quality content. I became a patreon, because the entertainment and educational value of your videos should be rewarded.
Hey, thanks for the support! As for your question, you can kind of think as the mill table as a coordinate system. You usually start by picking a "zero point", which can be anything, but for square/rectangular parts, people will usually use one of the corners of the part as their zero. Then you zero out your measuring system, the old school ways is to use the dials on the handwheels which are marked according to how far the table moves in relation to how you turn the handwheel. So for example if one rotation of the handwheel moves the table by 10mm, then you know that a half rotation would be 5mm and so on. You can zero these dials at any position and then look at the scale and/or count the rotations to move the table to a defined position. As you can imagine this requires a lot of time, skill and patience, so nowadays most modern machines have what's called a digital readout which does all this work for you. It just shows you the coordinates on a digital display by measuring where the table moves. So in this case, you would zero out the DRO when your corner is directly under the spindle (there's tools to determine this, called edge finders, which can use to "touch off" on the part). Then all your coordinates show 0 and now if you wanted to drill a hole, let's say, 20mm from the edge, you'd just move that axis until the display says 20mm and that's it. Of course things get more complex depending on what you do but that's the basic concept. Same thing for the lathe, except here it's the tool that moves instead of the workpiece, but you measure it the same way.
Your skill level is outstanding. Both for ‘visualizing’ the problem and then imagining how to put it all together. If you don’t mind my asking, was your training formal and how many years? Also, what kind of mill and lathe do you own. I’m in the market. Weekend warrior type with no formal training, just interested in learning and doing. Thanks Phil
Hey thanks. I'm actually self taught in all of this, but have been tinkering/building ever since I was a kid in various ways so I guess the experience kind of adds up/translates to different things. I've only really been machining for 2-3 years or so. My Mill and Lathe are both from a company called "Sieg", models are SC-10 and SX-4. They're chinese machines somewhere between high-end hobbyist and entrly-level professional I'd say, as you can see in my videos you can do some serious work on them without spending a fortune or taking up a huge amount of space. There's always a few minor annoyances with these types of machines, but overall I'm very happy with them. If you're looking for mills you might also look at the very popular RF-45, a similar chinese design that is being sold under a ton of different brands all over the world. Generally I think these machines are better than their reputation. If you haven't, check out Stefan Gotteswinter on UA-cam, he's probably the most skilled/knowledgeable machinist I know on UA-cam and he works on an RF-45, so that's saying something. If you can get one of those used, I think that's a great starting point for a garage-type hobby shop, unless you want to go the used-industrial route, which is a whole different rabbit hole.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
MOST people don't learn from their own mistakes, and virtually never learn from the mistakes of others.
Nice video.
Brilliant ! You have a very effective presentation style; your unhidden “learning opportunities” are hugely valuable to many. Great work.
awesome job, just need to add some end stops, these could be added to the directional switch circuit to cut power when it reaches the end of travel.
Agree. Another idea would be a spring that keeps the motor disengaged requiring operator input. Your suggestion is preferable while mine is a bit easier and cheaper albeit more of a pain long term.
i would put an endstopon each site configuered as an NC and then put the power on there so that if it hits the end it shuts the power down to the circuit, in the end it is just a security option, normally you standing besides it when working on it but it can happen that you are looking at something else the longer you use the feature
I was thinking the same thing. My shop bought power feed has a 2 way switch and 2 end stops. And when the switch touches one of the end stop it stops the motor.
This is Absolutely the slickest diy build i've seen for this application!!!!
Excellent result Phil. I love the clutch mechanism. Nice and simple, but it works great.
A nicely presented, designed and implemented project - you will never regret the time and effort you expended on this self-act! A real boon. I made one similar but when I converted my mill to CNC I then made a control box which could be used to drive any of the 3 axis stepper motors - constant torque at any speed - a great improvement!
Some detents on the shafts and a spring plunger replacing one of those socket screws that engages with the slots seem like a nice way to lock this assembly into engaged/disengaged positions
Not only does it show all your skills & abilities it is also one of the best videos & explanations of how to overcome one's problems. I'm gona update my mill now. Thanks for the info.
Very well done from start to finish. You are gifted.
Very clever and efficient design! Simple, effective, low-cost and reasonable reliability. Another great build, Phil.
Very neat work. With a coat of paint on those chip guards it would pretty much look like a manufacturers option.
I built something similar for my little antique lathe. I used a 12v car wiper motor that seems to be happy enough running at 18v (It's been running this voltage for over a year now and hasn't burnt out/caught fire yet. :) ). I didn't bother with a clutch as I can just twist it's adjuster 3 or 4 turns to slacken off and remove it's toothed drive belt. I used a wiper motor because they have 2 sets of windings in them for high and low speeds. Coupled with the PWM speed controller it gives me a brilliant feed speed range.
One idea I had, that you might find useful, was to extend the direction switches wires and run them through the "Normally closed" side of a couple microswitches. With some mounting brackets you could use them as limit switches that only break the circuit for feeding in that direction (ie, you can still reverse the feed direction and back the bed away from the triggered switch using the powered feed). In your case it would prevent any chance of running out of bed travel and stalling your motor. In my case I want to do it to help me stop trashing ceramic cutter inserts. If I'm turning a long bar at a VERY slow feed, I'm not adverse to wandering a little way away from my lathe to do something else for a couple of minutes. Sometimes I've got distracted and had to jump back to the lathe when I've heard that familiar Click click click CLACK CRUNCH" sound of lathe tool hitting chuck Jaws !!! :D
Incredibly nice integration of the powerfeed whilst maintaining the original function, great job!
Hi Phil, I used your idea to build my powerfeed, but I made some adaptations and it worked perfectly, thanks for the idea, of all it is one of the simplest and most functional.
Saturday morning breakfast watching yet another therapeutic video from Mr Vandelay of beautiful engineering and inspirational talent...great stuff!
Absolutely excellent!! Very impressive! This is some top notch quality engineuity! It looks so good and professional. The average person would without question think that was a factory component. This project is definitely something to be proud of!
Good job.
Should hold hex collet block with the flats against the vise jaws though. Gripping on the points allows it to come loose.
simple and cheap, your going to put the shops out of business if you keep giving us these ideas, also well explained with proper video footage explaining the whole process. Loved it.
Excellent video... I have watched at least 50 videos trying to find the information you give in this video..
I wanted to use this same type of setup utilizing a windshield wiper motor on my metal lathe feed, this answered "every" concern and question I had and gave me some great design ideas to boot.
Definitely one my favorite designs for this I've seen!
Nice clever solid design man......you never dissapoint.......lovin the keyway broach. Congratulations on the new place look forward to seeing it
Wow, great build in all aspects. Great design, great fab, great fit and finish, very nice!
What about setting safety stops? What happens when the screw runs out of threads, and jams at the end of travel?
Outstanding. Rapids and all, well done sir.
First class work and video , you have a talent, no none stop talking, just to the point well done.
I like your videos a great deal. Not only are your projects worthy, your approach to them is admirable. What's more you have good sense in what I believe are called production values. Thank you.
Nice build. Very clean and professional. My only comment would be to add some limit switches for both ends of travel.
Absolutely - those worm drives have massive torque and would destroy the gears if not stopped.
Very elegant design. Thank you for taking the time to make a video.
Very enjoyable to watch. Was just asking myself how one would somehow insert the turbo switch somewhere into the PWM circuit when you came up with the solution of bypassing the potentiometer. Brilliant idea, and ex post so simple and obvious..
What an excellent video. It's so useful to hear your thinking as you design it. Really excellent.
Hi folks. I've been researching this topic and this is one of the simplest and best implemented self build designs I have come across. BobUK.
It is kinda fun watching parts fly from the lathe at crazy speeds.
Very nice job! How about sprucing it up with some endstops and a connection to the emergency stop button? Crashing that mill would be a bummer.
I think the gear in the wiper motor would budge as the first one, but still!
Awesome design! I would change out the screw in the motor sliding mechanism, with a ballbearing, a spring and a grubscrew. and make two divots in the slot at each end of the sliding part, for that satisfying snap-action ;)
detent!!
Great work and great video. If you do you to add limit switches, you would wire them NC (normally closed) between the 'outputs' of that 3-position direction switch.
Yeah I've actually added those since I made this
👏👏👏
awesome work, your stuff always turns out so polished-looking.
Very nicely done, I did much the same thirty years ago, getting into my own shop and not able to afford to buy the professional setup. I really like the "clutch" connect/disconnect. That's almost as easy to use as the designed for power feed. Thanks for sharing this!
Nice upgrade, good design, professional workmanship, great video! Thumbs up!
I've been thinking about making my own drive but was stuck on the clutch mechanism, thanks to you I now know how easy to do it. Just like you have. I hope you don't mind me using your idea..
Cheers.
Sure you can use it, that's why I showed it 🙂
A nice solution to your problem It turned out very good, you could also add some limit switches to it as well. I might do something similar to my mill having seen your video. Thanks.
tip: to make the display even easier to read, add a smoked piece of acrylic (like from a dead alarm clock) such that the display sections that are off don't show up as 'white' to your eye. Increases contrast a tonne.
There’s only one word to describe this mate absolutely brilliant😀😀👍
Super simple and so elegant! Thanks for sharing!
Nicely done! If you add another power feed to one of the other axis, check out the motors that are used to move electric seats. They cost about $12 to $15 USD and are very similar to the wind shield wiper motors. I think I'm going to be adapting some of your ideas to my mill, Thanks.
Dude that is so professional, great job!
What an outstanding video and build. Your amazing and must stay awake most nights thinking about things to build,
CAD program and all. Loved it Phil.
That was excellent work. People like the idea of wiper motors. I made two videos of them and one of them was my most popular video.
Genius design.
I'm going to shamelessly copy it
Now you’re just showing off.
Well done sir.
I really like this project as it covers different areas of manufacturing from mechanical to electrical work. The workflow is presented in a very calm way. I just enjoyed watching the video. Thanks for the effort.The only idea that came to my mind when watching the final operation was that it might be wise to install the limit switches so that the motor will stop automatically when the end position is reached.
Nice, clean upgrade without commercial extras that most hobby users never use. Have seeen that some react on your gloves. Me too, but I,d never use medical/nitrit gloves as their fingertips very easily get winded around rotating components( thankfully I reached the STOP button in time). Best regards.
Satisfying watch. Well executed design and build.
Your stuff is always so interesting and cool. I bought an Opti BF20 mill this year. I need a power feed and you have given me a lot of inspiration. Great content Phil. Dan from Australia.
I used a cordless drill - the clutch is adjustable. 2speed too!
Excellent design and build!!
"You would think I'd learn from my mistakes... *part flies off into the workshop*"
We've all been there. More than once :)
I borrowed you design and built something similar for my Benchmaster mill. I used a Bodine gear drive. it works great and has really been an arm saver. Thanks.
Great video, as usual! I don't know why, but no matter how bad my day is, I can watch one of your project vids & the troubles of the day just seem to disappear. No matter how many times I watch one of your vids, I always learn something. Keep posting them, I'm gonna keep watching them!
😃👍
Nice build and great video! I think NC switches for limiting table travel would be a good idea.
Great! I chose to use your design on 2 of my machines, I used new Chrysler minivan wiper motors. Got tired of 250 to 350 for power feeds and have them fail.
Nice. You might consider some power off limit stops so you don't crash into the mechanical stops.
Yeah I have actually added them a few months ago. I ran into the limit once and stalled the motor without noticing. It's actually not too bad, these motors don't have enough torque to actually damage the mill. The motor was fine too but it did burn up the speed controller, so definitely better to have limit stops. The quick and dirty method I've also seen is to add an automotive fuse behind the power input to prevent overloading the motor or controller. Not as elegant but prevents the worst by cutting power when the motor starts stalling and drawing too much power.
Very nice, simple and robust looking
Very nice. Probably It will be more ergonomic if you put a connecting bar under the table (if possible) to be able to engage and disengage the motor from the side of the handwheel.
Very clean installation. Looked at a few builds and only one so far has made a listing of what the actual feed rates are. Maybe a lot just use it for moving the x axis quickly for positioning.
Thanks! As for the feed rates, I didn't bother calculating them because I feed by "gut feeling" with the handwheel and so far that has worked out fine, so I'm doing the same with the powerfeed. But that being said, even if I worked out the feed rates, there's no guarentee it would be the same on some other mill, since it depends on the pitch of the leadscrew which can be different between models. What I can tell you is that you probably want something roughly in the range of 10-250 rpm on the motor side to get a reasonable range of "normal" feed rates on a manual mill.
Great design Phil, it's the most practical X axis feed I've seen so far - simple but solid and compact. I used the same motor by the look of it, 24V 45W 220 RPM , on a Z axis feed for my mini mill and it works fine for travel and 'mill turning'.
Thanks for sharing, Mike
Overall excellent job.
When using a collet block, the flats should be against the jaws of your vise. With the flats against the jaws there will be much more surface area touching each other providing many times more grip. I was cringing the whole time you were cutting the 6 flats expecting the part to move and a broken end mill.
Super clean and well done. I'll be copieing this one.
You are a true artist sir! Very nice job!
Thank you for such a professional looking and functional build.
An incredibly elegant design, expertly accomplished. Thank you for showing your work. 👏👏👍😀
Built the same years ago 12volt used a dog clutch so the motor was fixed for the Z Axis I used a window winder motor which is much smaller this was on Taiwan round columb mill
You are awesome. Just purchased my first small mill. Great idea. 💡 thanks
This is exactly what I want to do to my mill. Thank you for such a professional looking and functional build.
Neat project and outstanding CGI and matching transitions.
I did the same thing on my 1936 atlas 10d lathe which was made without a power cross feed.
i i used 12v wiper motor (free) and 6 amp pwm with reverse (less than $10.00}, cheap and works great, good vid thanx
It is always way cooler to build something than to just buy something. I run into cash flow issues especially lately. A little over 18 months ago I was hit and run over on my 1957 Harley and money has been red;ly tight. What is POM? Is that Delrin? Also is that called a hex shaped collet block? That is fantastic. Do you have a list of items that you used. Such as the wiper motor or the PWM with all the relays?
This was really awesome to watch . I recently aquired a lathe that has no cross feed and i think of implementing something similar . Well done ! It was carried out with great prescision and care to work just awesome .
Just a transverse feed motor and a tool feed motor and then adding a CNC controller can make it into a brilliant mill. Excellent video, thanks. (Although they would need to be a bit more upscale than wiper motors) ;)
Nice plan and execution. Inspire one of the next project. Could be perfect including two travel limit switches.
Good design.
Just a couple of comments from an old control systems Engineer.
I assume, a bad word choice , that you turn the speed down to 0 to reverse direction. It would be useful to use an left right switch with a center position of off. This would allow the motor to be stopped then started in the other direction at the same speed setting it was going before it was stopped.
You might want to consider limit switches on the table to stop the power. You have to keep an eye on the current operation. When the table reaches its limit the motor will stall out and possibly burn up the speed controller. It is more probable the controller will go before the motor can damage the drive screw.
Hi Phil,
A good design and well implemented.
Take care
Paul,,
I did sort of the same thing for a down feed. The only thing I did different was I slide the coupling back and forth instead of the whole motor. Good machining.
Nice job. I hope that bypass switch won't damage the pot if you have it set all the way down when you press the switch.
Very nice work. I like a solution for a problem and unique as well. Brilliant.
hi phil
extremely well done, kudos
would you want to consider ball detent latches for locking the motor in and out as you did on you belt sander project
i was expecting the detent klicking sound somehow when you move the motor in :-)
cheers
and continue the great work pls
Yeah I actually thought about using a spring that pushes it in or out so it can engage in one direction by itself and lock in the other position (kind of like the grinderr). It would have been cool but this time I wanted to keep things quick and simple. It's more of a "I need to get this over with" build so that I can start doing other stuff ;)
AWESOME!!! You could add an amp meter to show how hard the motor is working...
Outstanding! I've been looking for guidance in making a power feed for my Benchmaster mill. This, with minor modifications, would work very well for me. Thank you for the excellent video.
Phil, great video as always. What about using a solenoid to engage and disengage the drive motor? Electronic door lock, (DC) fuel cutoff solenoid,(AC) or through shaft solenoid would work perfectly I believe. Anyway, just a suggestion to an already great build.
Just another thought. A 12 point socket might give even easier engagement with the hex drive adapter. The design Phil is really neat and minimalistic. The only extra I can think of is some auto stops at each end of the table. BobUK
Hi Phil,
Very nice work, I have the factory power feed on my SX4 which has developed an intermittent fault.....sometimes it doesn’t work, other times it’s fine.....problem is the fault is getting more frequent, now there is a solution! Cheers
Hi, Phil... I would suggest, to add end switches or a slip clutch to the thing. I am shure, you will leave some slow / long milling tasks alone and walk away occasionally.. This is kind of a desaster waiting to happen. I tend to use this wiper motors a lot in my builds... Greets from Germany.
Better than the ones you can buy and will last longer, great job
My only note would be to add two momentary buttons witch decide the turning direction along the side of the switch, so you can move it quickly and relative accurately to spots for detail work. I find this better than small switch like that. For the machining it self switch similar to that is fine. Just find it perhaps bit small for use. Dunno maybe its just me...
Cool Phil.. I like the rubber swarf mats..
Noting the additional 'stop' bar added to the vice - why not drill and tap a thread into it s you can fit a long threaded (bolt) to make it an adjustable stop ?
couple limit switches wouldn't be hard to implement as well, just break the common of the direction control when limit is tripped
absolutely brilliant, loved every bit of this.
Simplest conversion I have seen to date. Good job.
Brilliant, Phil, well done!!
Super! Really nice work!
Hi Philly, great video. I love your calm and down to earth comments, which take into account that most of your viewers probably don't have a workshop (yet). So I really appreciate how you break down the process for noobs. On that note: I'd like to know more about how you measure the cuts at the mill. Like, how do you reference a certain point or plane once the part is on the mill?
Thanks a lot, this is top quality content. I became a patreon, because the entertainment and educational value of your videos should be rewarded.
Hey, thanks for the support! As for your question, you can kind of think as the mill table as a coordinate system. You usually start by picking a "zero point", which can be anything, but for square/rectangular parts, people will usually use one of the corners of the part as their zero. Then you zero out your measuring system, the old school ways is to use the dials on the handwheels which are marked according to how far the table moves in relation to how you turn the handwheel. So for example if one rotation of the handwheel moves the table by 10mm, then you know that a half rotation would be 5mm and so on. You can zero these dials at any position and then look at the scale and/or count the rotations to move the table to a defined position. As you can imagine this requires a lot of time, skill and patience, so nowadays most modern machines have what's called a digital readout which does all this work for you. It just shows you the coordinates on a digital display by measuring where the table moves. So in this case, you would zero out the DRO when your corner is directly under the spindle (there's tools to determine this, called edge finders, which can use to "touch off" on the part). Then all your coordinates show 0 and now if you wanted to drill a hole, let's say, 20mm from the edge, you'd just move that axis until the display says 20mm and that's it. Of course things get more complex depending on what you do but that's the basic concept. Same thing for the lathe, except here it's the tool that moves instead of the workpiece, but you measure it the same way.
Your skill level is outstanding. Both for ‘visualizing’ the problem and then imagining how to put it all together. If you don’t mind my asking, was your training formal and how many years? Also, what kind of mill and lathe do you own. I’m in the market. Weekend warrior type with no formal training, just interested in learning and doing. Thanks Phil
Hey thanks. I'm actually self taught in all of this, but have been tinkering/building ever since I was a kid in various ways so I guess the experience kind of adds up/translates to different things. I've only really been machining for 2-3 years or so. My Mill and Lathe are both from a company called "Sieg", models are SC-10 and SX-4. They're chinese machines somewhere between high-end hobbyist and entrly-level professional I'd say, as you can see in my videos you can do some serious work on them without spending a fortune or taking up a huge amount of space. There's always a few minor annoyances with these types of machines, but overall I'm very happy with them. If you're looking for mills you might also look at the very popular RF-45, a similar chinese design that is being sold under a ton of different brands all over the world. Generally I think these machines are better than their reputation. If you haven't, check out Stefan Gotteswinter on UA-cam, he's probably the most skilled/knowledgeable machinist I know on UA-cam and he works on an RF-45, so that's saying something. If you can get one of those used, I think that's a great starting point for a garage-type hobby shop, unless you want to go the used-industrial route, which is a whole different rabbit hole.