Temporary Drive For My Mill

magu

magu

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Hello all, thank you for taking the time to read my post.

I am looking to put together a "temporary" drive for my milling machine to make it usable for the short term. In the future I plan to build a much better drive with a high/medium/low ratio and a 3 phase motor with a vfd, however that will not be for a while as my wife and I are expecting our first child in about 6 weeks. Once our son comes I expect I will have a lot less time, energy, and money to expend on hobbies for a while so I would like to be able to at least use my mill when I have time to tinker, even if things are not ideal.

I have a Vernon 0 horizontal mill with this porter cable vertical head and a 3/4hp 1725 rpm single phase motor. My plan is to build a clamp on motor mount with a fixed ratio chain drive. If I use a ratio of 1.25:1 then a 1/4" endmill will give me 92 sfpm and a 7/16" endmill will give me 160 sfpm. My thought is that I could mainly use the small endmill for mild steel and brass/bronze and the larger end mill for aluminum. While far from desirable, does anyone see a real problem with doing this? I don't really mind having to slow my feed to compensate for fixed spindle speed for now, and I am not doing a lot of milling and it is strictly for fun so no need to rush.
 
Sounds like it will work. Not optimal, but sometimes ya gotta work with what ya got;)
 
Why would you use 3 phase? If your buying a motor & you have single phase power then that is what you need to get. You can still use a VFD with a single phase motor.

I have a 3 phase motor 3HP I'd love to trade for a 3HP single phase motor.
 
With an endmill I use rpm, not sfpm. On a milling machine sfpm is the feedrate of the table/work.

I am not familiar with a Vernon 0 or how the drive system functions. Do you have any pictures of that area?

Without seeing if it's possible I would do it this way...Find 2 v-belt step pulleys on ebay (they are cheap), make a tensioning plate, then NAPA for the v-belt. This would give you a number of speeds at minimal expense.
 
Thanks for the comments gentlemen.

I have the motor already taking up space, that is why I am using it. Perhaps there are ways to make a single phase motor play like a 3 phase motor, but I have used 3 phase for a long time and am comfortable with them. I will try to get a sketch or something uploaded today which may help clear things up.

Eventually my plan is to go with a stepped pulley/sprocket design along with the vfd so that I can ave infinite speed control while still keeping the motor nearish to nameplate rpm.

Perhaps I am using the wrong terminology when saying sfpm, I am revering to the tip speed of the endmill which if rpm is held constant will vary in proportion to the diameter. What is the correct way to refer to this?
 
Hi Magu,

Your suggested speeds seem reasonable.
I do like Aaron's idea of adding a couple of step pulleys in the drive to give speed ranges.
I am also not familiar with this mill and would like to see some pics.

Whatever you do please enclose the belts/pulleys/chains/sprockets for safety.
Your new son deserves to know his Dad.

Congratulaions on the addition!
Welcome to a new, amazing, crazy, inspiring, worrying, loving, frustrating, wonderful time of life.

-brino
 
this one i built out of a chair linear actuator, cut of the lead screw and added a timing pulley, variable speed, and forward101_0487.jpg 101_0488.jpg 101_0487.jpg 101_0488.jpg 101_0487.jpg 101_0488.jpg and reverse
 
Thanks, and I will definitely enclose everything. I suppose my days of diagnosing things by fiddling with moving parts need to come to an end too, oh well.

Kernbigo, I like that power drive setup. It is definitely on my list as well, although a bit down the line.
 
kingmt01 said:
Why would you use 3 phase? If your buying a motor & you have single phase power then that is what you need to get. You can still use a VFD with a single phase motor.
Click to expand...

I have never heard of using a VFD with a single phase motor. I would be interested in understanding how this is done.
 
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