Power Feed Installation

[YotaBota]

My mill is a KBC 830 built 1995. The PF (photo PF0) is advertised for BP and BPish machines so I knew going in there need to be some adjustments for it to work on my mill. I watched a few youtubes to see how the thing is supposed to be installed and fumbled around from there. The first thing to be ignored was the black mounting brachet supplied, it is not going to work on the end caps of my machine. After a bit of measuring I found the PF could be mounted directly on the end cap and if I my measurement was out I had another end cap to play with. The bushing supplied was to short to fully support the bearing in the PF so I turned a new bushing (photo PF1) that fit better. That let me fit the PF on the shaft and I used a transfer punch to mark the holes you see already drilled and tapped to 1/4-20 (photo PF2). The mounting holes in the PF needed to cleaned as they were full of powder coat, I used a drill bit to match the transfer punch so the holes were bang on. Now that the PF was fastened to the end cap and the drive gear put in position I turn a shaft extension(photo PF3), drilled it with a #7 bit and used it as a guide to drill the end of the lead screw about an inch. Then I tapped the end of the screw and drill out the extension to .250 for the bolt(photo PF4). Next was adding the shims for gear clearance (photo PF5), there are three different thickness of shims so it's just a a game of trial and error to get the clearance right. Once the clearance was good I used the bolt to hold it in place just like a BP. As for the key, I just had to take a hair off a one side of a .125 key to fit in the gear and then all was well (photo PF6), it works. What I need to do now is make a bushing for the dial to fit the gear shaft and then make a handwheel to fit, I'll add the dial bushing to this post when I get it done but for now the PF is useable.
Hope this helps others with this install, and don't forget to reward yourself when done (photo PF7).

 

[DavidR8]

Tidy install! Well done

 

[PeterT]

Nice job.
One other point to note. Supposedly when you install a PF and still want a crank handle on the end of the shaft outboard of PF, its supposed to be the free wheeling kind. That's what came on my mill & I immediately disliked the feel of it. You have to kind of push in the handle to engage it in order to rotate the leadscrew & move the table. As opposed to just the normal turn handle to move table we are used to. The reason for the 'safety' free wheel handle is when you flip the lever to power feed, the handle on a 'regular' wheel can come around & do a number on your hand if it happens to be in the way. It has a lot of torque & spinning fast so I think it do some damage to your hand.

So there are a few options:
- leave the fixed wheel on & be careful
- remove the wheel altogether on the PF side & just use the wheel on non-PF side
- install the safety wheel & live with it
- possibly a variant which is a hinged or fold-up handle which might be equally irritating
- possibly re-orient the angle of the PF lever so its not quite in the line of ouch (not sure how its actually attached to shaft though)

 

[thriller007]

nice job. I have been to distracted lately to start working on mine. I would have to make a bushing if i was going to hang mine on the right hand side but even better was to try to make something like this style?
https://www.precisionmatthews.com/w...ower-feed-Install-Bench-mill-V1-4-29-2018.pdf

 

[kevin.decelles]

Gotta find me some sneaky weasel reward juice


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[DPittman]

Gotta find me some sneaky weasel reward juice


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Ha ha....I could not figure out what the heck you were talking about there Kevin... I finally clued in. And yes I need to find some of that stuff too. I'm starting my pf install as well and it looks a bit different as well.

Would it be a mistake to eliminate the dial gauge ( I cant think of correct name) thingy on the end where the pf goes? There is always the one on the other end hand wheel.

 

[PeterT]

Removing the dial reduces the utility a bit, but if you have a dial on the other crank wheel its basically the exact same thing. I hear some people prefer the manual wheel on one side & therefore PF on the other. This is partly personal preference but maybe also where the DRO is located or if you are right/left handed, or maybe how the table end is situated real estate wise like approaching a wall.

A DRO of some kind makes these machines SO much better to use. No more backlash & counting turns & resetting dials & mounting plunger indicators & wondering if locking the table moved it a couple thou.... PF is to reduce the monotony & exercise of cranking the handle, or a more controlled feed like finishing. I would spend my shekels on a DRO before a PF hands down. Especially now because there are so many decent Asian systems out there at a fraction of the cost they were 5 years go.

 

[DPittman]

"This is partly personal preference but maybe also where the DRO is located "

Very good point I hadn't considered...I'm thinking about deleting both the dial and the handwheel on the pf side mostly because I have to make extra collars and bushings to make them fit.
In regards to the dro's...I agree and I ordered a set right off the bat and I haven't even been able to turn the mill on yet as my shop isn't yet wired for 220.

 

[YotaBota]

Thanks folks, it turned out to be not as much work as I thought it was going to be.
PeterT- thanks for the heads up on the handle, I hadn't considered that it could be a problem. I mean, who'd be dumb enough to,,,,,,never mind. I think I'm still going to install a handwheel, I'm a lot more aware now than I was a few months ago.
DP - did you pull the handwheels yet looking for keyways?
Reward juice brewed in Vancouver, good for all.

 

[DPittman]

DP - did you pull the handwheels yet looking for keyways?

Yes and the keyways match up with mine, however the powerfeed did not come with required metric key. My leads screw shaft is way long and im going to have to make a collar to be able to incorporate the dial.
Here's a picture before I begin.

 

[YotaBota]

There was no key with mine either.
It looks like they only made one length of screw and adjusted the nose on the end cap.
I started on my dial collar yesterday, I think I'll use a couple of set screws to hold it the bevel gear.
Hope your install goes well.

 

[YotaBota]

I finished up the bushing for the dial, it fits not to bad. I had a piece of pipe laying around with an i.d. smaller than the bevel gear and bigger o.d. than the dial. I bored the inside for a tight fit on the bevel gear and the whittled the o.d. for a loose fit of the dial. It's a snug fit on the bevel gear but I used two set screws to hold it as well. I left enough bushing out past the dial to attach a handwheel if and when I go that route. All that's left to do is setup the stops and it's done.
One real annoyance with this thing is that the power cord is only 5' long, so unless your machine is backed up to the wall and right at the outlet you'll need an extension. I'm thinking of replacing the cord with a 12 footer to get to the outlet with out adding an extension.
I'm off to collect my reward juice.

 

[PeterT]

I attached a power bar to the back of my mill. So just one cord to the wall outlet & all the accessories plug into the power strip - light, DRO, power feeds... so cords are neat & tidy.
I'm not sure on the length of my PF cord, but yes you want to make sure its not constrained at the end of table extension positions. I think the bar was 15A & maybe 6 outlets. They are pretty common.

 

[YotaBota]

Power bar on the mill????- anybody can do it that way lol. I just happen to have one at the Logan bench that I was able to relocate to the back of the mill and still be able to plug everything in including the new PF.
Thanks you sir.

 

[YYCHM]

Power bar on the mill????- anybody can do it that way lol. I just happen to have one at the Logan bench that I was able to relocate to the back of the mill and still be able to plug everything in including the new PF.
Thanks you sir.

And you know what's nice..... one switch and everything is powered off, lathe, mill, DRO, light, compressor and what ever. I use one and love it. I have also tripped it with a lathe stall and ya it saved the day.

 

[PeterT]

I just use the power bar for the mill accessories since they are all 110v. The mill & lathe are both 220v so their own wall plug. The PF is the bigger power load but I'm not sure how many amps off hand. The bar is 15A & I think that means combined load, anything more & it trips a reset button. Might even have a fuse I cant recall. I can run my little bench grinder & scroll saw on the same kind of bar, but the compressor doesn't like it on startup.

 

[YotaBota]

I have the PF, the bench grinder, the task light and the Logan on the power bar and since I can only use two at the same time (light plus one other) time I don't think I'll ever be able to blow the breaker.

 

[PeterT]

I found some pics of the handle business I was mentioning. Hopefully you can visualize with the PF lever engaged to the right & your hand/arm extending to the right of that, there is the potential of the fixed handle coming around within the Owie Zone to engage your wrist or forearm if you stand just so.

The other pictures are the frizbee disc style. The handle can retracts & the disc floats on the shaft. I think they also make a metal handle that looks like the stock ones but they float on the shaft. To engage the leadscrew for normal table traversing you have to kind of push the whole wheel assembly 'in' before turning the leadscrew which I found... uhm... I didn't like it.

So meanwhile I'm extra careful. What I was thinking of doing is rotating the PF lever 90-deg left so the whole operation range is at a safer distance. But I'm not quite sure whats involved there. Could be a keyed shaft & require some work. If it were splined it would be easy.

 

[DPittman]

Got my pf installed without too much hassle. I had to make a couple of collar/bushings to make things work. As mentioned earlier the cast aluminum bracket that comes with the unit does not work with the smaller mills like mine and drilling and tapping of the table is required. If the aluminum bracket could have been used then the small extra collar for spacing the bearing out would not have been necessary.
I took of the handle/peg of the wheel to remove the risk of that whapping anything.

 

[YotaBota]

Looks good.
I don't know about the height of you table but getting a whap from mine could bump me into the boys choir.