I have an American Tackle wrapping machine that I bought several years ago. I'm happy the way everything works except for one thing, the foot pedal control. To me it seems difficult to control the speed. It seems like there is a very small range between applying enough pressure to get it started moving and spinning way to fast. Has anyone else experienced this issue?

I have not taken it apart so I'm not really sure how it works. Does anyone know if it can be modified somehow to work a little smoother ? or Are there replacement foot pedals available that might work better?

Thanks, Bob

I have the same wrapper and have noticed the same thing, there's no smooth progression. I'd love to find a way to do it.

I'm not OLD........I'm CHRONOLOGICALLY GIFTED

Me too. Found there is a sweet spot / sweet range in the speed control rheostat (the black knob left of the dying motor) that does significantly reduce the problem in my machine.

I have a Clemens lathe and I have a speed control that I put inbetween the foot pedal and the motor, that way I just use the foot pedal for a off and on switch and to slow the speed down even more.

Robert,
You speak of the exact problem that caused me to continue my search for a "better mouse trap" so to speak for a better and more precise speed control.

I tried a dozen different variations of speed controls for the AC/universal motors that are found on most of the commercial wrappers, but was never satisfied with the control.

Hence my search continued.

Here is a link to a video that I made.

[www.amazon.com]

The video illustrates a speed control, direction switch, foot pedal and DC motor that gives excellent bi directional speed control for a wrapper power unit.

Basically the concept is to use the following:
1. Foot pedal from a rock band "wah" pedal.
2. The resistor in the pedal then acts as the adjusting element for the speed controller.
3. The speed controller uses both a dial for hand speed adjustments as well as a switch to switch the speed control function to the foot pedal.
4. Then there is a switch to turn off the motor, or turn the motor either clockwise or counterclockwise.
5. Then, the power element is a 24 volt DC gear motor
6. Depending on how the unit is built, there is a power supply integrated into the controller box or there is a stand alone power supply to supply the 24 volts of DC power to power the unit.

Good luck

Robert,
If you wanted to stay with your current motor and foot pedal, there is one fix that helps quite a bit with your issue.

i.e. to convert your motor into a slower speed motor with the use of jack shafts, belts and pulleys.

The situation with the universal AC / DC motors used on the standard commercial unit is that the wide open speed of the motor is 5,000 rpm.

Generally speaking, the fastest that most folks would ever use a power wrapper is to have the speed of the rod turn about 500 rpm or so.

This means, that the speed reduction on the motor needs to be about 10:1.

So, if the pulley sizes between the drive and the driven pulley were 10:1 in difference, you would achieve this speed. Unfortunately, the speed reduction of the classic rod turning motors is only about 4 or 5 to one.

I will illustrate a couple of different examples of universal ad/dc motors using multiple shafts and pulleys to achieve a nice slow top speed which actually gave very good speed control for the user.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

[www.rodbuilding.org]

---------------------------------
I used these units for a short while before moving on.
My quest continued because, I did not have a good method to reverse the direction of the motors.

-------------------
I found the answer to both the speed reduction and the ability to easily reverse the motors by using DC gear motors to provide the power to turn the rod.
Each of these small dc motors utilize a set of gears on the end of the motor to reduce the maximum speed of the output shaft to something much less than the maximum 5000 rpm. For a typical power wrapper, I use a motor with a maximum speed of 600 - 1000 rpm.

It is easy to reverse the direction of a DC motor by simply swapping the polarity of the applied dc voltage to the motor that can be accomplished easily with a switch.

+++++++++++++++
An example of a typical dc gear motor:

[www.amazon.com]

you might want to unplug it and open the peddle case and clean the contacts and check them for ware, if that doesn't help then I would do what Michael did and add a dimmer switch in the power line to the motor and the foot control is the on and off switch but remember that you have to turn off the power line switch when your done

The best day to be alive is always tomorrow !!
Think out side the box when all else fails !!!
Wi.

Robert you may want to try and back off the speed control on the wrapper behind the drying motor on the main frame. This worked pretty well on mine. If you have a faulty rheostat in the foot pedal you can get those parts on line under sewing machine pedal repair parts cheap.

Tom

Michael Collier Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have a Clemens lathe and I have a speed control
> that I put inbetween the foot pedal and the motor,
> that way I just use the foot pedal for a off and
> on switch and to slow the speed down even more.

Thanks for the info. Do you have the spec's or id of the speed control that you used?

Bob Hummel

Thanks for all good info. Lots to think about and look into.

Robert Hummel

Double post



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/2017 07:35PM by Robert Hummel.

I used to have the same problem with my Alps wrapper & never used the power option, until one coming back from the beach I sat down to do a bit of binding & was determined to master it .At that time I was bare footed & to my surprise I found that I could control the speed with bare feet & the maximum speed switch turned part way down .From then on I now wrap with my right foot bare .I'm not sure whether it is the bare foot or turning the max speed down to a comfortable speed is the solution .One day I will test it out but for now I'll do both

Regards Baz

Bundeena
NSW Australia

Barry,
Join the crowd.

I have wrapped bare foot ever since I started wrapping many years ago. Yes, I have a much better "feel" with my bare foot.

However, I have still gotten rid of all of my ac motors and ac foot pedals and have gone strictly to DC motors and pedal controllers.

As the saying says, try it once and you will never go back.

Take care

Robert,
Linemaster used to make a very nice AC motor speed control. A few years ago, they discontinued its production.

I see that they have now come out with a new foot pedal that is even better than the one that they had before. I would expect that you would be very very well pleased with the use of this speed control on your current AC/Dc motor.

[www.linemaster.com]

In particular - 982-sc3 ---

These speed controls are not cheap, but they do work very very well.

Be safe



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/2017 11:15PM by roger wilson.

I have my wrapper on a bench with 4x4 blocks under it. I put all my tools in that space, also I have my foot control there, and operate it by hand, moving it along as I progress down the rod. Works for me.