[Mountaincraft]

So, I went out and looked at both openers.. one is chain drive, the other has a screw... This might be perfect..

Maybe I can take the motor and chain sprockets off the one with the chain, and then shorten the chain to drive the feed belt, and then take the screw and nuts off of the other one and cut it up to use for raising and lowering the feed table.... Would just have to order three more of the nuts, and then maybe come up with some more chain sprockets for the other one, and then I can use the left over chain to link all the screws together...

Both of those motors are pretty beefy.. So I'm think that at the load I'll be driving them, the duty cycle should not be a huge issue...

[radcliffe]

Found this motor with speed control on Ebay. RPM a litter high 96 but if price is right you could do external reduction.
Link
BODINE NSH-55RH GEAR MOTOR DC MOTOR SPEED CONTROL BASIC SPEED RANGE ASH-600 | eBay

The 22 44 Performax conveyor motor is 43 inch lb (3.58 ft lb) torque and 90 volt. Gear reduction ? but direct connect to drive roller 0-10 sfpm.

Another find on Ebay, 12V motor with speed control. It has 8.5 ft pounds of torque, 0-50 Rpm.

12v DC Worm Gear Motor Variable Speed 12vdc Gearmotor | eBay

Harold

[Mountaincraft]

Been watching that Bodine.. and as I expected, it's increased out of my price range...

That other one is interesting, although it's more than I wanted to pay too.. But I bookmarked it and can think about it for a bit...

In the meantime, I picked up that link belt, and am probably gonna order the four bearings for the feed belt shafts tomorrow morning...

Then other than the motor to drive the belt, all I have to buy is the feed belt itself and the sand paper for the drum...

I have to decide which paper to get yet, and if possible will order it from the same place I'm getting the 25" wide belt..

Starting to kick around the idea of buying a 1.125 inch thick sheet of MDF (or at least 3/4") to make the table out of.. Then gluing up a box/web structure to house the feed belt and drum... as well as a fold up infeed and outfeed table... folded up the thing would be a foot print of about 3' x 4', and folded down would be about 3' x 9'...

Then I could just design it all on the computer and let the CNC cut all the pieces..

[radcliffe]

Starting to kick around the idea of buying a 1.125 inch thick sheet of MDF (or at least 3/4") to make the table out of.. Then gluing up a box/web structure to house the feed belt and drum... as well as a fold up infeed and outfeed table... folded up the thing would be a foot print of about 3' x 4', and folded down would be about 3' x 9'...

Check with cabinet/counter top supplier, ask for sink cutout, free ?. I say go with the 1.125" same as bench top thickness.

Another alternative for conveyor drive is get wiper motor from local salvage yard and get dc motor controller from link below (Canada) or from Ebay (China, Hong Kong, Thailand).

QKits Electronic Kits: MX033, PWM DC Motor Speed Control Module

Harold

[Mountaincraft]

Check with cabinet/counter top supplier, ask for sink cutout, free ?. I say go with the 1.125" same as bench top thickness.

I'll need pieces several feet long, as well as enough to make all three drums out of, the table surfaces, and supporting structure.. Gonna have to just buy a sheet (or two)...

[Mountaincraft]

So I just ordered the four bearings to support the feed belt...

And I also ordered a firewire card so that I can post YouTube vids..
Y'all are in for it now!
(chair)

[Mountaincraft]

Pretty soon, I'll have everything I need and be out of excuses.. I'll have to actually start building the thing!

[Mountaincraft]

So what grit paper should I get for the drum... Looking for something that is a compromise between ability to remove material, and getting me close to being able to finish.. ideally as is...

I was thinking maybe 150 grit... If I got something like 180 would that still remove material to speak of?

If I got something like 120 would that be too rough of a finish?

Or should I plan on getting some 100-120G and also some 180-220 and just switch back and forth?

The hot ticket would be to have two or more drums on shafts that were easily replaceable.. Pop rough sanding drum out, pop finish sanding drum in.. But I have no idea how to set up a quick change like that when it has to be supported on both ends... If the bearing blocks were attached to a piece of wood on each end that sat in a saddle, and then the drum top or something else were used as a 'strap'.. then it could work that way... With a gravity tensioner on the motor/belt then each drum could have it's own pulley.. So it would simply be a matter of an extra set of bearings and pulley...

Have to think about how to design that in as a future 'upgrade'... In the mean time, I could use some advice on the best grit choice to use.. Do I go for more than one, or is 150 a good 'all around' choice?

[Mountaincraft]

Well, I went ahead and ordered a 120G 25" x 60" belt for the feed, and a 6" x 50' 150G for the drum..

So now all that's left to buy is the MDF, and come up with whatever hardware I need in the way of bolts, castors and a lift system (got a couple ideas), and to come up with some to power the drive belt...

Oh, and I gotta get some adhesive to glue all this stuff together.. probably some epoxy... Or would gorilla glue hold all these disks to the 1" steel bar?

[radcliffe]

Originally Posted by Mountaincraft

Oh, and I gotta get some adhesive to glue all this stuff together.. probably some epoxy... Or would gorilla glue hold all these disks to the 1" steel bar?

Gorilla glue will work find to glue mdf to mdf, I don't know if it will hold mdf to steelI have never tried it. I suggest epoxy and put grooves in both end disk and pin drum with roll pin.


Below are links on Ebay for possibe motors that will work for your conveyor.
115V ,1/25 hp, Torque 50 in lb? unable to read label, RPM 28
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dayton-Gear-...item1e67219d5a

115V motor RPM 6.7, Torque 50 in lb, price US $50.00 ship free.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dayton-AC-Ge...item3a6a5be107

Harold

[radcliffe]

Well, I went ahead and ordered a 120G 25" x 60" belt for the feed, and a 6" x 50' 150G for the drum..

So now all that's left to buy is the MDF, and come up with whatever hardware I need in the way of bolts, castors and a lift system (got a couple ideas), and to come up with some to power the drive belt...

Oh, and I gotta get some adhesive to glue all this stuff together.. probably some epoxy... Or would gorilla glue hold all these disks to the 1" steel bar?

Originally Posted by Mountaincraft

Oh, and I gotta get some adhesive to glue all this stuff together.. probably some epoxy... Or would gorilla glue hold all these disks to the 1" steel bar?

Gorilla glue will work find to glue mdf to mdf, I don't know if it will hold mdf to steelI have never tried it. I suggest epoxy and put grooves in both end disk and pin drum with roll pin.


Below are links on Ebay for possibe motors that will work for your conveyor.
115V ,1/25 hp, Torque 50 in lb? unable to read label, RPM 28
Dayton AC Gearmotor 1MBG4 New Free Shipping | eBay

115V motor RPM 6.7, Torque 50 in lb, price US $50.00 ship free.
Dayton Gear Motor | eBay

Harold

[Mountaincraft]

Big brown box on wheels brought my pulleys today.. They fit the shafts they are intended to, and the belt fits the pulleys.. Yay!

Just gotta nail down the feed belt drive and then when the rest of the stuff arrives, i can start designing and cutting and assembling...

[revwarguy]

probably some epoxy... Or would gorilla glue hold all these disks to the 1" steel bar?

I used epoxy and a steel pin, but then I was a bit "belt and suspenders" about it. Don't think polyurethane glue is all that great on steel, though.

I just now saw your thread. My build log for a "face" type drum sander using velcro is at Snailworks Sander Build Log which shows some pics of how the disks are attached on mine.

[Mountaincraft]

That's pretty nice.. I'm actually kicking around the idea of having multiple drums that can be easily swapped out.. Doing this would allow me to just pop in a hook and loop version of the drum and have a removable top on the dust collector that will allow that style of drum sanding as well....

like the idea of having the air cleaner underneath

[Mountaincraft]

BTW... What kind of epoxy did you use?

I'll be doing my drum slightly different, in that I'll be sandwiching 25 4" disks of 1.125 MDF together on a 1" CRS bar stock... I'm thinking I should use gorilla glue to glue the discs together, so that it's easy to sand off... Because to true the drum, I'm gonna glue a couple pieces of sand paper to a wide board, and let the belt pull it through underneath the drum.. several light passes should get it spinning pretty nice seeing as I'll be cutting the discs on the CNC...

Gonna use a similar method for the belt drums too... Although I'm thinking it might be cool if I could find some kind of spray on rubber product to put on the belt drums for extra traction...

Gonna design some sort of threaded rod and turnbuckle setup to tension/adjust the belt rollers apart from each other..

[Mountaincraft]

I haven't put anything on paper yet, but have been kicking a lot of ideas around in my CRS riddled bean..

I have a major design decision to make before I start committing things to work on the computer...

Whether to adjust the height by raising and lowering the table/belt feed assembly, or to have that stationary and raise and lower the drum/motor assembly..

The idea that I can hang the motor off of the back of the dust housing, makes raising and lowering the drum feasible, but I'm wondering how much axial load is created that way, which might cause weird forces on the lifting mechanism..

In either case, I have three options I know of for lifting/and adjusting thickness.. I could use the Acme Screw, along with gears or pulleys and a chain or belt to turn all four screws at once... This is probably the smoothest and most accurate method of lift, but it is also the most complex and expensive...

A second option, is to use a 'cam' to lift either the drum assy or the beltfeed assy...

The third option is to use one or a pair of scissor jacks with a screw through the middle of them..

I kinda like the third option, although the second one would be the very simplest...

I have four bearing loaded heavy duty drawer slides laying around I could use for vertical rails to lock the motion in the Y direction......

Curious as to what some of you creative types out there think would be a good way to approach this...

[Mountaincraft]

So I pulled one of those garage door openers down from the rafters in the garage.. Took the chain and the bar off, took off the cover, removed all the electronics so that just the power cord, motor, mounting bracket and starting capacitor remained.. Hooked up the motor to the power cord and plugged it in.. It ran... both directions... So I let it run for a few minutes... the chain sprocket turns at about 110 RPM.. Pretty fast.. would require a 4-1 reduction or more... But, as I was hoping it would not, even under no load, it quickly got too hot.. too hat ot touch and hot enough to smell...

Too bad... It's a half horse motor.. Oh well, I can probably use the sprocket and the chain.. and possibly even the worm drive gear reduction...

So I gotta find a continuous duty motor, preferably 110v and vari-speed... and I'll need a sprocket and master link for the chain...

[Mountaincraft]

What do you all think of this idea...

1/2" Variable Speed Reversible D-Handle Drill

• Powerful 10 amp motor for unbeatable performance
• Superior balance and handling
• 0-800 RPM variable speed, reversible
• Ball and needle bearings for smooth operation
• Precision-cut heat treated gears for maximum life
• Three-jawed keyed chuck
• Easy access brushes

<table class="data-table" id="product-attribute-specs-table_1"><colgroup><col width="100%"> </colgroup><tbody><tr class="first odd"> <td class="data last">120 volts, 10 amps, 60 Hz</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td class="data last"> Chuck capacity:1/16'' to 1/2''</td> </tr> <tr class="last odd"> <td class="data last">Shipping Weight: 8.25 lbs.</td></tr></tbody></table>

It should have plenty of power still at low speeds... If I added a 5:1 gear reduction, I could probably get the speed down..

Or better yet a two stage reduction.. maybe a 4:1 off of the motor, and then a 3:1 chain drive to the rollers... That would give it a max speed of 67RPM...

It's $32 plus tax...

[Mountaincraft]

HA!

The gear reduction unit on the end of that garage door opener motor is 16:1

It has a 1/2" shaft input, and a sprocket on the output shaft that fits the chain on the opener bar.. So all I'd need is a sprocket for the roller and the stuff to shorten the chain up...

That means the max speed (with a 1:1 sprocket ratio) would be 50 RPM with a 'boatload' of torque....

Figure out how the speed control on the motor works and put the equivalent mounted through the belt frame along with a 3 way switch, and I have a vari-speed, reversible drive with more torque than I can shake a stick at...

[revwarguy]

BTW... What kind of epoxy did you use?

I'll be doing my drum slightly different, in that I'll be sandwiching 25 4" disks of 1.125 MDF together on a 1" CRS bar stock... I'm thinking I should use gorilla glue to glue the discs together, so that it's easy to sand off...

I think it was just good ole JB Weld. I only used three disks, and if you CNC them you should get a perfect fit in the drum.

No matter how you mount the sandpaper, IMHO I think its critical to put the whole drum in a lathe and turn it down so that it rotates with no surface movement.

I think one needs to ask how much pressure will be involved to push the wood against the drum. In the case of my sander, the answer is very little pressure. Let me explain.

The enemy of sandpaper is heat. Heat is what makes the abrasive come off as well as burning the dust and clogging the paper. If you eliminate heat buildup, the sandpaper, being so much harder than wood, lasts a very long time. The whole idea behind the velcro sander is not just a way to mount the sandpaper.

When you adjust the height of the table on mine, you do it so that the wood is just barely NOT touching the sandpaper with the motor off. Then, when you turn it on, the velcro mechanism around drum allows the sandpaper to expand slightly from centrifugal force, with the net effect of continually throwing the sandpaper against the wood but never bearing down on it. I can say that in this way the sandpaper does indeed last a very long time. In fact, the only time I've changed it over the course of year now is when errant splinters ripped the paper apart. (I am using 180 grit.) You can even stop the piece in the middle of a pass, pause for a bit, and then go on and it won't leave a mark on the wood where you stopped. Try that with just about any other sander. (If you want to take off more wood per pass, use a courser grit.)

I am not sure what a velcro mounted paper would do in a thickness sander where the pressure could build. Not sure if velcro was intended to be squished like that in the long run.

In all, I really like the way it works. With a thickness sander, you learn that you take a lot of little passes or your sandpaper is ruined. If you are going to do that anyway, why not do it in a way that conserves sandpaper? But there are good uses for one of those, too.

If you do use a velcro method, make sure you can freely turn the drum by hand because changing paper on them is a snap. You just grab a leading corner of the paper and pull the whole thing right off in one movement. To put on another, start a corner of the paper (It needs to pre-cut at the right angle) and turn the drum by hand and it will wind itself right onto the drum. Takes me less than a minute to change grit with no tools.