Building a Powerfeed for my Milling Machine (with a Wiper Motor)

🔧 LINK LIST for tools I use in my videos:

[ken]

MOST people don't learn from their own mistakes, and virtually never learn from the mistakes of others.
Nice video.

[TWMist]

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.

[ussweeneyd]

Brilliant ! You have a very effective presentation style; your unhidden “learning opportunities” are hugely valuable to many. Great work.

[CraigsWorkshop]

Excellent result Phil. I love the clutch mechanism. Nice and simple, but it works great.

[johnantliff]

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!

[damienmiller]

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

[xrayaiz]

Very clever and efficient design! Simple, effective, low-cost and reasonable reliability. Another great build, Phil.

[westweld]

Nice clever solid design never the keyway broach. Congratulations on the new place look forward to seeing it

[richardhayes]

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.

[alandelivio]

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.

[Reman]

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

[MrCrankyface]

Incredibly nice integration of the powerfeed whilst maintaining the original function, great job!

[jeffvader]

Saturday morning breakfast watching yet another therapeutic video from Mr Vandelay of beautiful engineering and inspirational talent...great stuff!

[jdr]

Very well done from start to finish. You are gifted.

[davesalzer]

Outstanding. Rapids and all, well done sir.

[tano]

Good job.
Should hold hex collet block with the flats against the vise jaws though. Gripping on the points allows it to come loose.

[petercoates]

What an excellent video. It's so useful to hear your thinking as you design it. Really excellent.

[frollard]

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.

[AmateurRedneckWorkshop]

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.

[wayneemerson]

First class work and video, you have a talent, no none stop talking, just to the point well done.