[Mountaincraft]

Figured seeing as I just ordered a pulley to fit it, I ought to plug the pump motor in and make sure it runs...

It Does... The nice thing about these water pumps is that they have dynamic braking... Which means when I remove power from the sander, it will spin down very fast...

[Mountaincraft]

WOW! Much better prices!

If this is in inches, and the numbers mean what I think they do, I'll go ahead and build the powered feed at these prices.. So far, everywhere else I've found sells belts like this in the $125+ range...

Is 'THIS WHAT I NEED' for the power feed? What grit is best (I'm thinking 100-120G?)

[Mountaincraft]

As I move forward in deciding and designing how I am to build this, I have a couple questions as to what the machine can be expected to do..

Initially, I want it for cleaning up wide pieces that have been glued up from narrow pieces.. If I am careful to clamp things flat as possible during glue up, can this machine be used to remove glue and do minor flattening?

Will either method of attaching the sand paper (hook and loop or direct) work for this? Would this be possible with 150-200 grit paper?

I'm thinking that more extreme cases could be surfaced first with the CNC table and then run through the sander...

[ger21]

Trying to sand off glue will clog the sandpaper almost instantly, unless you use a polyurethane glue. But you definitely don't want to sand any titebond type woodworking glue (pva?)

As for flattening, I think you're looking at a max removal rate of .005-.01 per pass.

I'd glue the panels up a bit thicker than you need them, and clean up and flatten with the cnc, then run through the sander for finishing.

[Mountaincraft]

That's what I was wondering about the glue clogging up the sandpaper..

But gorilla glue doesn't?

[ger21]

Excess Gorilla glue cures into a hard foam that sands easily and doesn't clog.

[Mountaincraft]

Is gorilla glue a good bond for end gluing wood?

[radcliffe]

Is gorilla glue a good bond for end gluing wood?

No glue is good for end grain to end grain gluing. Finger or scarf joints are cut in the end grain so there will be long grain to long grain when gluing.

Harold

[Mountaincraft]

Sorry.. Said that wrong.. Meant side to side.. ie taking three 4 inch wide pieces to make a 12 inch wide piece...

[Mountaincraft]

Getting ready to order up the parts for the feed system...

Found the belt, the bearings, have plenty more bar stock, and have figured out a mounting and belt adjusting system...

I can use the tilt bed method to adjust for thickness as a temporary method, and then later remount it all on four acme screws and use a more accurate bed height adjustment system (or even a system to raise and lower the drum itself...)

But what I'm having a hard time figuring out, is what motor to use to drive the feed belt..

I'm planning on a 25" wide belt, thinking 120 grit... and I need to move it from 0-10 FPM.. which means with 2.5" rollers at each end of the drum I need something in the 15 RPM range.. So I'm looking at motors that go 20 RPM to give me some headroom...

There are all sorts of gear motors that do this, at all sorts of price ranges... Of course I want to go as inexpensive as possible..

Would be nice to get something that runs on 110vac and can be used with a speed control, like a cheap router control...

But what 'power' should I be looking for? What HP, or what torque is in the right range for such an application...

Any info or better yet motor suggestions... I'm not averse to using a low voltage or DC motor, as long as providing power to it is not price prohibitive...

Thanks,
Mark

[radcliffe]

But what I'm having a hard time figuring out, is what motor to use to drive the feed belt..

Just throwing ideals out for possible use.
1-Would a heavy duty rotisserie motor work. They are 110V and about 16 RPM.
2-An old variable treadmill motor.
3-An old Vehicle wiper motor if you have a good transformer.

Harold

[TrickyCNC]

3-An old Vehicle wiper motor if you have a good transformer.

Harold

Any cheap battery charger will drive it

[Mountaincraft]

Just throwing ideals out for possible use.
1-Would a heavy duty rotisserie motor work. They are 110V and about 16 RPM.
2-An old variable treadmill motor.
3-An old Vehicle wiper motor if you have a good transformer.

Harold

Good ideas... I wonder how 'torquey' the rotisserie motor would be...

I have a few things I might want to move with the belt that could be kinda heavy..

I'm thinking the treadmill motor route would be plenty of power, but might be a PITA to get everything required to use.. Controller, power supply, etc...

Windshield wipers could be pretty strong if I could gear them down a bit...

[Mountaincraft]

Harold, thanks for the ideas..

I think the wiper motor might just be the hot ticket!

Found a great website on using them for other things... Haven't gone though it all yet, but a cursory look-see shows that this might indeed be the hot ticket....

Here's the site.. worthwhile bookmark to have in general IMO...

Using a wiper motor in your Halloween projects
by Scary Terry

[radcliffe]

Take a look at this home made drum sander, he has it on top of his table saw and uses saw motor to turn drum.

Wide Thickness Sander - Shop Made by Edwin Hackleman

Harold

[Mountaincraft]

Take a look at this home made drum sander, he has it on top of his table saw and uses saw motor to turn drum.

Wide Thickness Sander - Shop Made by Edwin Hackleman

Harold

Someone posted that earlier... Mine is going to be a bit bigger, and I already have a motor.. But he upgraded his to have a power feed on the belt.. I wish he listed what he used for the motor on it...

:cheers:

[ger21]

He said he used a 60rpm gear motor. Probably similar to this one.
Surplus Center - 45 RPM 220/240 VAC 50 HZ BISON RA GEAR MOTOR

Note that he also said that he only removes a MAX of .002"/pass with 120 grit paper.

[Mountaincraft]

I saw that.. but he gave no more info... 60 rpm seems kinda fast, but I guess that depends a lot on the size of the drums it powers...

220v would be a PITA at this point... easy later on when I get the shop all cleaned out though.. (working on it.. man there's a lot of crap in there!)
I suppose that as long as there aren't any electronics in the thing, the 50hz would mean it would probably just run 20% faster here?

Hoping to spend a bit less too...

He says he spent $192 total...

Would love to get my hands on the plans for that belt sander in the background!

[Mountaincraft]

You know, from the same website, this might be the hot ticket too.. More in the price range I'm hoping for, 68 RPM, 115 VAC, 1/10 HP.. comes with a chain sprocket on it... If I were to figure a 3-4:1 gear ratio, it would multiply the torque significantly... and reduce the speed down to 17-23 RPM...

I wonder if it can be speed controlled... Since they are talking about needing a start relay and cap, I doubt it...

Too bad THIS ONE isn't continuous duty.. I'd buy it right now if it were.. Lots of bang for buck... right voltage, right speed.. probably 1/3 HP or better.. and it's reversible.. $10

wonder what it's duty cycle actually is.. Maybe it could be run long enough to feed 8 foot lengths through the sander, then switched off?

[Mountaincraft]

looking around for more info on that last gear motor, I came across another surplus website that has 'garage door' motors listed.. You know, I have two old unused garage door openers out in the garage...

Hmmmmm!!!!