Posted by:
roger wilson
(---.hsd1.mn.comcast.net)
John,
I have been building dc powered rod wrappers for some time. I use small 37 mm 24 volt gear motors. I normally use 1000 rpm motors having a 6mm output shaft and then 1:1 pulleys on the motor and on the headstock to give a maximum rod turning speed of 1000 rpm.
Perfect.
I can easily turn at 1 rpm for very precise start up and control. Also with the use of DC, reverse is just a matter of swapping the voltage leads to the motor which can be easily done with a cross wired double pole double throw switch.
But, this motor and motor rpm is NOT suitable for doing any sort of grip shaping work. This small motor is strong enough for any sort of rod wrapping, but it is certainly not powerful enough or fast enough to do any grip shaping.
I do all of my grip shaping on a conventional 1/2 hp wood lathe which easily turns and shapes at speeds from 1000-4000 rpm.
The speed control that I use these days is a simple inexpensive dc pulse width speed control which gives excellent control with no loss in starting torque.
The size of these motors are small. 37 mm or about 1 1/2 inches in diameter and about 2 inches long.
No reason to use any motor larger in size or with more power since it is very adequate for any sort of wrapping or drying chore.
I use a surplus musician's pedal for holding the element that is used to control the speed of the motor.
Here is a picture of the current power head that I use on my rod wrapper:
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www.rodbuilding.org]
The motor is inside the split pvc tube that is under the 1/2 inch keyless chuck that I use to hold a piece of solid stock for wrapping, or to hold the shank on which I have a 3 inch machine shop chuck mounted for holding rods that have butt caps on them.
The motor is simply mounted in a snug fitting hole in the vertical mount and then the belt tension is adjusted by rotating the motor with its offset output shaft, and locking it in the appropriate position. I use XL cogged pulleys and belts so that I can run the belts nice and loose and not have any belt tension subtract from the power of the motor.
By the way, the 24 volt power supply that I use has enough power to be able to turn a 24 volt cordless drill motor. So, I took an old 24 volt drill, stripped it down to the bare motor , gear case and chuck and mounted it into a wood base. This gear case has a high and low speed, so I can run it at 500 rpm max speed, or 1500 max speed in high gear. For the few times that I want to do some minor touch up on a grip, this drill motor has plenty of power to shape any handle material. But with a limited top speed, it is certainly not as good or as fast as my wood lathe. Then, if I want ultra control, I can shift to low gear on the motor and have a top 500 rpm speed, which works very well for drying or for very slow wrapping or teaching others about wrapping. The one big downside for continuous use of the drill motor for wrapping is the gear noise. Since this is a heavy duty drill with heavy duty gears; the running drill motor is quite noisy. I have had it for a long time and it was old when I first started using it. Right now, it is on its last legs, and I may or may not replace it with a new drill motor in the future.
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www.rodbuilding.org]
To supply adequate power to this motor, I started making a power supply using parts from an old electronic church organ. The voltage is the same for both the drill motor as well as my wrapping motor, so they are interchangeable with a simple unplug one connector and plug in the other motor connector.
By the way, I use the industrial keyless chuck on my wrapping motor as well as the industrial machine shop chuck, because I had nearly all of the different "rod building chucks" and found that I didn't care for each of the shortcomings of the various other chucks.
Be safe
Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/2015 07:01PM by roger wilson.
