Sometimes The Project In The Workshop Is Something For The Workshop

[electrovice]

In the process of "restomodding" my old Delta Homecraft table saw, I picked up a parts unit saw that had an interesting accessory that Delta offered for the saw. The accessory was a drill press that would be attached to the right side of the tabletop in lieu of the right hand table extension. The drill press base was hinged so that the drill could be folded down when not needed. When needed it would be raised up. The drill press would then be powered by replacing the saw blade with a pulley. The design was quite clever but the process to convert the saw to a drill and then back to a saw again was pretty tedious. Over the years I acquired the motor mount and the drill press base that would convert what I had into a free standing Delta DP 11-120 drill press. These items were placed in a box labeled "Someday".

A month or two ago on a dog walk I saw a free "Lifestyler" treadmill at somebody's curb. Peeking through the broken motor cover I could see that the drive motor had two rare qualities for a treadmill motor. The motor had a NEMA standard base for mounting and the motor drive shaft was a standard 5/8" in diameter with a keyway. This would be ideal for the "someday" project.

I verified that the treadmill worked and then scuttled it. I saved the motor, the rollers and the electronics. With guidance from this website I was able to use the treadmill's PWM board and control the motor speed with a 10k potentiometer.

Use a Treadmill DC Drive Motor and PWM Speed Controller for Powering Tools

Use a Treadmill DC Drive Motor and PWM Speed Controller for Powering Tools: Power tools such as Metal cutting mills and lathes, Drill presses, bandsaws, sanders and more may require .5HP to 2HP motors with the ability to fine tune the speed while maintaining torque.Coincidentally most Treadmills...

www.instructables.com

Forward progress on this project is currently stalled until I get to Harbor Freight to get a link belt. Hopefully that will happen today.


In the meantime, here are some pictures...

 

[Kpatch]

In the process of "restomodding" my old Delta Homecraft table saw, I picked up a parts unit saw that had an interesting accessory that Delta offered for the saw. The accessory was a drill press that would be attached to the right side of the tabletop in lieu of the right hand table extension. The drill press base was hinged so that the drill could be folded down when not needed. When needed it would be raised up. The drill press would then be powered by replacing the saw blade with a pulley. The design was quite clever but the process to convert the saw to a drill and then back to a saw again was pretty tedious. Over the years I acquired the motor mount and the drill press base that would convert what I had into a free standing Delta DP 11-120 drill press. These items were placed in a box labeled "Someday".

A month or two ago on a dog walk I saw a free "Lifestyler" treadmill at somebody's curb. Peeking through the broken motor cover I could see that the drive motor had two rare qualities for a treadmill motor. The motor had a NEMA standard base for mounting and the motor drive shaft was a standard 5/8" in diameter with a keyway. This would be ideal for the "someday" project.

I verified that the treadmill worked and then scuttled it. I saved the motor, the rollers and the electronics. With guidance from this website I was able to use the treadmill's PWM board and control the motor speed with a 10k potentiometer.

Use a Treadmill DC Drive Motor and PWM Speed Controller for Powering Tools

Use a Treadmill DC Drive Motor and PWM Speed Controller for Powering Tools: Power tools such as Metal cutting mills and lathes, Drill presses, bandsaws, sanders and more may require .5HP to 2HP motors with the ability to fine tune the speed while maintaining torque.Coincidentally most Treadmills...

www.instructables.com

Forward progress on this project is currently stalled until I get to Harbor Freight to get a link belt. Hopefully that will happen today.


In the meantime, here are some pictures...

View attachment 88699View attachment 88699View attachment 88700View attachment 88701View attachment 88702View attachment 88703

So… there’s a pulley that goes down into the table and replaces the saw blade and the table motor then runs the press? Very cool indeed.

 

[electrovice]

So… there’s a pulley that goes down into the table and replaces the saw blade and the table motor then runs the press? Very cool indeed.

Yup, that is how it works. The kit came with two pulleys (2 1/4 and 3 inch). Belt tension is controlled by raising or lowering the arbor. Speed is adjusted by changing the drive pulley or changing the belt position on the step pulley on the drill press itself. The drive belt is quite long and has to make two 90 degree bends to go from the vertical arbor to the horizontal step pulley. Here are the factory instructions. For now I

I am keeping the parts used for the tablesaw mount.

 

[Kpatch]

Yup, that is how it works. The kit came with two pulleys (2 1/4 and 3 inch). Belt tension is controlled by raising or lowering the arbor. Speed is adjusted by changing the drive pulley or changing the belt position on the step pulley on the drill press itself. The drive belt is quite long and has to make two 90 degree bends to go from the vertical arbor to the horizontal step pulley. Here are the factory instructions. For now I

I am keeping the parts used for the tablesaw mount.View attachment 88705

Very cool!

 

[Tables_and_Tubes]

In the process of "restomodding" my old Delta Homecraft table saw, I picked up a parts unit saw that had an interesting accessory that Delta offered for the saw. The accessory was a drill press that would be attached to the right side of the tabletop in lieu of the right hand table extension. The drill press base was hinged so that the drill could be folded down when not needed. When needed it would be raised up. The drill press would then be powered by replacing the saw blade with a pulley. The design was quite clever but the process to convert the saw to a drill and then back to a saw again was pretty tedious. Over the years I acquired the motor mount and the drill press base that would convert what I had into a free standing Delta DP 11-120 drill press. These items were placed in a box labeled "Someday".

A month or two ago on a dog walk I saw a free "Lifestyler" treadmill at somebody's curb. Peeking through the broken motor cover I could see that the drive motor had two rare qualities for a treadmill motor. The motor had a NEMA standard base for mounting and the motor drive shaft was a standard 5/8" in diameter with a keyway. This would be ideal for the "someday" project.

I verified that the treadmill worked and then scuttled it. I saved the motor, the rollers and the electronics. With guidance from this website I was able to use the treadmill's PWM board and control the motor speed with a 10k potentiometer.

Use a Treadmill DC Drive Motor and PWM Speed Controller for Powering Tools

Use a Treadmill DC Drive Motor and PWM Speed Controller for Powering Tools: Power tools such as Metal cutting mills and lathes, Drill presses, bandsaws, sanders and more may require .5HP to 2HP motors with the ability to fine tune the speed while maintaining torque.Coincidentally most Treadmills...

www.instructables.com

Forward progress on this project is currently stalled until I get to Harbor Freight to get a link belt. Hopefully that will happen today.


In the meantime, here are some pictures...

View attachment 88699View attachment 88699View attachment 88700View attachment 88701View attachment 88702View attachment 88703

You do realize, you are going against the very fabric of the universe. Broken exercise equipment is to ONLY be reused as laundry hangers!



Dan

 

[MrEd]

I would not have thought about a treadmill motor.
Totally cool project.

 

[electrovice]

You do realize, you are going against the very fabric of the universe. Broken exercise equipment is to ONLY be reused as laundry hangers!



Dan

I also saved the handgrip bar which has two threaded studs at each end. My first thought for repuposing it was to use it as a a bar to hang coveralls, shop coats and such stuff out in the workshop. I hope that helps.

 

[electrovice]

I got a link belt at Harbor Freight yesterday. I installed it today. The motor drive pulley is a bit smaller in diameter than the center step of the step pulley on the drill press. The motor is rated at 3000 RPM and the drill press is not rated anywhere near that. I mocked up an installation using a cheapo fold up sewing machine table as the base. The drill press was attached to the table with gravity. I have a "no contact" tach for measuring the rotation speed.

I fired it up. The controls clearly retained the "soft start" feature of the treadmill. The potentiometer has to be turned to the "zero" setting before it can be set to run speed. Once the speed has been established it can be adjusted up or down. The slowest practical speed of this motor seems to be about 400 RPMs. It can continue to spin at even lower RPMs but it is clearly on the verge of stalling. A smaller diameter drive pulley or using one of the larger steps of the step pulley might increase the torque at slow speeds. I will play around with this.

There are suggested fixes to bypass the soft start feature that entail using a momentary contact normally closed switch in one of the legs of the potentiometer. This would allow the motor to resume at the previous speed upon start up without zeroing out the pot. I will pursue this too.

Finally, there will be a challenge to package all of this in a package that also reduces some of safety concerns about having all of those unsheathed whirling and spinning things so close to your fingers when using the drillpress.

 

[electrovice]

I have been making some progress on this little project. I have been focusing mostly on getting the speed reduction aspect of the drill press working to my satisfaction. I have actually used this drill press to fab parts for this drill press remodel.

I have the drill press permanently installed on an old child sized school desk that is approximately the same vintage as the drill press. It has a small footprint and puts the work piece at a reasonable height with good sight lines. I can use the tool either standing or sitting on a shop stool. It is quite stable back to front but it has an annoying tendency to wiggle from side to side. I have found that a piece of plywood clamped between the left and right legs will stiffen the structure enough to eliminate the wiggling. Future plans are to build a small cabinet to fit in the knee hole of the desk that will provide the needed stiffening and some storage for drill press related stuff.

I have settled on a small (BK23 2.3 inch) motor drive pulley (sheave) that goes to the second largest diameter step of the stepped pulley. This combo gives me a rpm range from about 125 to 1800 RPMs. I can also fit a BK28 (2.95") drive pulley which will move the speed range up a bit. My major incentive for this project has been to get lower RPMs so I will probably stay with the smaller pulley. Time will tell if this will provide the low speeds without stalling the motor.

I built an enclosure to house the motor control unit from the treadmill as well as the switches and stuff necessary to run the drill press. The enclosure and contents can be seen in the pictures. There will be a cover that will cover the exposed wiring

It turns out that a momentary NC switch between the wiper of the 10K potentiometer and the motor control unit is all that is needed to bypass the most objectionable aspect of the use of a recycled treadmill board. The motor will resume at the preset speed after being shut off. Just momentarily press the blue button on start up, the motor will spin after approximately 3 seconds. The blue button switch simulates resetting the speed to zero.

Using a conventional 10K linear pot, it takes almost a quarter turn before the motor starts to spin. Fine tuning the speed with the remaining range of the pot is rather imprecise. I found a 10K ten turn Duncan pot in my stash while looking for something else. I put this in the circuit and it makes fine tuning the speed a breeze. It takes two turns of the pot to see 133 RPMs at the chuck. Each subsequent turn gives me an additional 220 (or so) RPMs. A ten turn pot would be precise but a major PITA without the blue button solution mentioned in the prior paragraph. Clever types could also wire up a stepped attenuator type of approach to achieve predetermined fixed RPM settings. Goldpoints anyone?

The second picture shows the control panel. Does the chicken beak knob clash too much with the modern switches?

I will have to relocate the drill press to the shop before I can complete the balance of the woodworking on this project. I need to do some reconfiguring and decluttering out there first.

For the benefit of anybody who finds this thread via a Google search: The donor treadmill is a Lifestyler (Sears) 5000 PSI. The control board is a PCB 30770 PWM. The motor and control board can probably be found in a number of different treadmills. The cross referencing data can be found in the web listings for folks that sell replacement parts. This data source is also useful when looking at free treadmills on craigslist.

 

[GuyK]

I have a similar Rockwell drillpress. I scrounged up a length of thick-walled steel tubing the same O.D. as the column and replaced it with something quite a bit longer. The distance from the chuck to the table at lowest position is now about 24" instead of approx.10" as supplied. Much more useful this way.