# Power feed



## Janger (Jul 2, 2015)

I have been working really hard on a power feed, X direction, for the milling machine. Here are some pictures. The speed control, a PWM, is the little circuit board with the gold colored heatsink I bought off the shelf. It makes the motor sound really funny when it is running slower. The motor is a $10 bosch princess auto  special. The switch is a center off double pole double throw - also from princess. This reverses the current so the motor runs both directions. The box is supported by little wheels.

You can see the slotted plate I added to the handle, this takes the simple spade type drive on the  shaft. I plan to put one on both ends.

Limit switches still to come. Also still need something to hold the motor box to the xy table. It needs to release really easily. Even running fast it only spins at 60rpm, when I am moving the table quickly I'll turn the handles at 600 rpm so the motor is slow for repositioning.

Improvements might involve a better pwm that runs at high frequency, that might change the funny noise the motor makes. The box could be smaller and fit in between the handle and xy table with some sort of cam engage/release.


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## Janger (Jul 2, 2015)

and a video.


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## Rick Runciman (Jul 4, 2015)

Nice, very inventive. How well does it work?


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## Tom O (Jul 5, 2015)

thats the style of motor I was thinking about using I think I saw that model at princess auto it seemed smaller (import car maybe) and the drive gears are different too I'll take a pic of mine and post it.


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## Janger (Jul 18, 2015)

Fly cutting...


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## Jwest7788 (Jul 20, 2015)

Janger said:


> Fly cutting...


Looks fantastic!

I've made a mental note to add this project to the ever growing to-do. 

JW


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## Rick Runciman (Jul 21, 2015)

Haven't seen a fly cutter in ages, inserted face mills are the way to go.


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## Jwest7788 (Jul 21, 2015)

Rick Runciman said:


> Haven't seen a fly cutter in ages, inserted face mills are the way to go.


Gotta work with what you've got.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯


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## Rick Runciman (Jul 21, 2015)

Ya, but even though I'm a retired hobby machinist now,, still thinking like an old journeyman,, LOL.


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## Tom O (Jul 22, 2015)

there is a lot you can do with the basics and a little creative thinking!


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## jcdammeyer (Jul 23, 2022)

Rick Runciman said:


> Haven't seen a fly cutter in ages, inserted face mills are the way to go.


I only just bought a face mill this year.  Up till then flycutting for everything and that includes some pretty big aluminum castings.  But I must admit, the surface finish from the 4 cutter face mill is amazing.


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## jcdammeyer (Jul 23, 2022)

Janger said:


> and a video.


You realize you've created something else to feed the HSS.  
What is HSS you ask?  (Not High Speed Steel). 
It's Horizontal Surface Syndrome that shows up whenever there is an empty horizontal surface.  Very shortly thereafter it's covered in all sorts of stuff. 
People suffering from this tend to have very messy shops.


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## SparWeb (Jul 23, 2022)

Great idea.

Do you have the box secured to the table, or does it work well enough just resting there?
Does the motor torque drop much when the controller is turning slowly?

If you are planning future changes, I'd suggest a die-cast Hammond box for this project.


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## YYCHM (Jul 23, 2022)

2015?


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## Janger (Jul 24, 2022)

Yah 2015! I don’t know why this thread has come back to life. I still have the little red box but the pwm quit so I haven’t used this in some time now.


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## Janger (Jul 24, 2022)

SparWeb said:


> Great idea.
> 
> Do you have the box secured to the table, or does it work well enough just resting there?
> Does the motor torque drop much when the controller is turning slowly?
> ...



The box rolls along on little wheels. I think the torque does drop but not enough to matter.


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## mickeyf (Jul 24, 2022)

I recognized those DPDT princess auto switches!

I was going to do something like this for the RF-40 that I just sold. The main speed bump was that I was not coming up with a simple way to engage/disengage so that I could also just crank the table by hand.

I would also have had a bypass to run the motor at max speed for rapid traverse.

Besides the 12 V Princess Auto surplus wiper motors, I have found that the motor and reduction gears from discarded paper shredders are useful. People throw these out the way they do treadmills. They are designed as 120V AC motors, but are easily reversible and being brushed could probably be run on DC with a PWM controller no problem, although I have not tried this yet. Out of the box, the gearing reduces the output shaft to about 60 RPM on the several I've tinkered with.


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## LenVW (Jul 24, 2022)

Rick Runciman said:


> Haven't seen a fly cutter in ages, inserted face mills are the way to go.


I hear ya Rick.
Even a 1” Dual Carbide Insert leaves you with a much better finish for less than $65.


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## Chris Cramer (Jul 24, 2022)

Is every other axis of the milling machine still controlled by hand? If every handle to rotate the lead screws were removed, and each lead screw was attached to a stepper or servo motor, then I'm thinking it wouldn't be too difficult to turn one into a CNC machine. I'm not sure how many variables are involved in CNC milling, but I built a laser engraver with 3 nema 23 stepper motors, 3 stepper motor drivers, and an arduino Leonardo for the control board. However that only controls the gantry and the firing of the laser module, I don't know if it could control the power of the laser module.


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## Janger (Jul 24, 2022)

People do turn these smaller mills into cnc machines just like you suggest Chris.


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