# X2 powerfeed from a cordless drill



## Bill S

This is my first contribution to the forum 

This project began over a year ago. Shortly after buying an X2 mill I immediately saw the need for a powerfeed and research showed most homebrew feeds were made from auto wiper motors, soooooo a quick trip to the local auto scrap yard and $15 later I was ready to start. After many failed attempts at trying various power supplies (I have very little electronic knowledge) I put the whole thing aside while I worked on other things.

Fast forward to about 2 weeks ago and I came across a post describing a powerfeed made from a cordless drill. Hmmm, interesting, I had an old Dewalt 14.4 cordless lying around not doing anything, so I figured lets try this thing again. 

First I want to see about getting power to it, so I dusted off a nice power supply I got on Fleabay while working on the first one (it has a 1v to 15v - 6a variable mode and a 13v - 10a mode). So I crack open the drill case and jump the power directly to the motor, and pretty as you please it runs just fine. I suspect I got a bad wiper motor the first time. Now that I knew it would work I cut the handle off of the drill and soldered extensions to the leads coming from the motor. 

Next step was to make a drill to leadscrew adapter. I cut a piece of 3/4 alum stock, chucked it up in the lathe, faced, center drilled and then drilled it out to ½ dia 1 inch deep to fit over the end of the mill x axis lead screw (which fortunately was already slotted for a powerfeed). I then flipped the piece around and repeated the same procedure on the other end to fit over the arbor of the drill, also ½ dia and 5/8 deep. Then off to the mill to drill two 5/32 holes for the pin and 10-24 set screws to mount the adapter. I used my own version of the MK-2 eyeball to line up the centerline of the piece (a special thanks here to Sir John  you da Man) I then ground two flats on the arbor of the drill as a land for the set screws. 

Next up was an adapter to mount to the mill. I considered making an elaborate sliding mount to disengage the unit when using the hand wheel using steel rods and a cam action handle, but to my surprise I found that when the drill is in the high speed range (1400 rpm) the hand wheel turns just fine. I used some 4x4 ¼ alum angle I had around to make the mounting plate. Marked out and drilled holes to match the mill end and one for the shaft to pass through. I next fabbed a box, mounted the box to the angle and made a contoured seat for the drill to nest in from some ¾ solid pvc I had lying around, mounted the drill with a strap of .050 alum sheet - isnt it great when you actually use some of the stuff youve been saving, the problem though is remembering what you have and where the devil you put it. I made a removable top so I can change the speed range when needed and access the clutch, which I left on. In the original post the clutch was used on a low setting so it would slip if the mill jammed or ran to the end.

I wired up a double pole double throw switch (I had to Google how to do that), then installed the unit on the mill, ran the wire to the power supply, turn it on, flip the switch and there she goes, table moving along nicely! I stop it, hit reverse and .. Whoa! it keeps going forward! I told you I didnt know anything about electronics. Any way I just forgot to cross the two jumper wires on the switch. After I changed that around all is well. 

I am still experimenting with speeds, It seems that leaving it in the slow range (400rpm) and running around 10v will be the best for general milling. I had thought originally to move the switch from the power supply to the feed box, but wanted to keep it simple for now and to make sure it would work. I also am working out a lever to operate the speed range button on the drill to get rapid traversing. 

I dont remember what forum or web page I saw the post on, but I want to thank the author, it inspired me to get off my duff and do it.

Bill


P.S. Anyone want an old wiper motor


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## Brass_Machine

Nice job. That is pretty neat!

Eric


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## T70MkIII

Great idea, Bill - I may just have to borrow it!

Have you made any other X2 mods?


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## spuddevans

Well this has got to be a bit uncanny, I just had the same idea last week but havent had a chance to implement it as I haven't found a donor drill yet.

My plan is to hopefully find one with a working speed control so that I can use the speed control with it. I too had the same thought regarding the clutch being used as a safety system.

I'm very glad you've posted this as now I can have a visual reference when I build mine. ( I need all the help I can get )



Tim


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## DickDastardly40

Ain't it always the way, I turned my nose up at a cordless drill with a duff battery at our clubs bring and buy sale this week!

I was intending to use an old wiper motor for my VMC a' la Tel's when I get to it, but you may have changed my mind.


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## Andrew_D

I have a 20 year old variable speed 120V drill laying here that I was planning for the same project. Great minds think alike!

Was going to do away with the trigger switch and use a rotary variable speed like a light dimmer. Don't know yet if that will work though, haven't thought it through completely...

Andrew


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## Kermit

Andrew_D  said:
			
		

> I have a 20 year old variable speed 120V drill laying here that I was planning for the same project. Great minds think alike!
> 
> Was going to do away with the trigger switch and use a rotary variable speed like a light dimmer. Don't know yet if that will work though, haven't thought it through completely...
> 
> Andrew



a variable transformer would be a good control for such a device. Rheostats tend to burn out when used to control high current draw motors and such and dust and dirt causes skips and drop outs so it will never perform as well as when the controls are new and clean.

Or a cheaper method for those with the electronic skill is an SCR diode with a variable squarewave timer (a 555 chip) to set the duty cycle on the 120VAC line feeding the drill. Varying the timer ratio of ON to OFF will give you around a 10% to 90% range of speed control.

I too will try to use a similar device when I get to that point,
Kermit


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## Bernd

An FYI for you guys building power supplies for those 12 Volt DC motors. Check out the net for Robotics. Might find some drive designs that can be adopted to power feed motors for the mills.

Bernd


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## Davidh

I'll add a pic of my lathe power feed. There was a bit of trouble wit the geartrain so this was a quick fix to get me going, wiper motor powered off a 12v psu via a simple Pulse width modulator speed control. 

Purists look away ;D


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## BobWarfield

Izzat a distributor cap???

I like these power feeds. They're kewl.

Best,

BW


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## Kermit

How much power loss is there when you crank down the duty cycle to 10 or 20%. It looks like a pretty well geared down motor to begin with. That was exactly what I was talking about when I mentioned using a squarewave activated SCR. The proper motors will not lose any noticeable power with such a pulsed drive voltage. Excellent adaptation. 

Something I've been wanting to investigate is the torque limits of the platter drives in microwave ovens. That 4 RPM speed would work well on SOMEthing wouldn't it?

Say goodnight Gracie,
Kermit


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## T70MkIII

Kermit  said:
			
		

> Something I've been wanting to investigate is the torque limits of the platter drives in microwave ovens.



Yeah, hard to grab hold of it to see how torquey it is with the microwave on!


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## tel

I powered a 'Bingo Barrel' with one once - had plenty of torque to turn a wooden box with the 90 markers in it


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## Julian

Drive it with a stepper. They are now so cheap and make a very tidy job with very fine control available
Look at the below topic on this forum
http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=3069.0

Wiper motors are great but they need the amps....some use 10 amps and have a 15amp fuse. I also find they can run very hot if run for too long. Doesn't matter on a car cos you don't normally get out into the rain and touch it. Me and firbird built powered hacksaws using them and found they do run hot and pull some power.

Julian.


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## Davidh

Julian  said:
			
		

> Wiper motors are great but they need the amps....some use 10 amps and have a 15amp fuse. I also find they can run very hot if run for too long. Doesn't matter on a car cos you don't normally get out into the rain and touch it.
> 
> Julian.



Yes, you are correct about the heat...but i hardly notice it over the heat of the little PSU ;D

..and that is a nice project, the stepper box.


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## BobWarfield

Doesn't look like you guys ever got around to posting the electronics needed to drive the stepper.

Best,

BW


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## Julian

I can see that. A 6amp psu running a 10amp motor does sweat a little. If its in the centre of your shop you could probably use it for your main heating in the cold!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Julian


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## Bluechip

Hi Bob. W.

Not seen much response to your request for Stepper CCTs. It's too cold to be in the shop, so here's one for you.

A cct. for cheap Stepper Driver, ignore voltages, works from 5V to 15V.

Don't know how much electronics you do, no clock generator cct. shown.
From memory it works full-step mode. Colours shown are common on steppers. but there are exceptions. -- LOTS!!
Will post a clock cct. if you want 

Circuit is no good to drive cordless motors of course ..

Edit .. The motor coils marked '2 & 3' should be '3 & 4' as per 'W3, W4' ..












Dave .. now a bit warmer ..


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## BobWarfield

Bluechip  said:
			
		

> Don't know how much electronics you do, no clock generator cct. shown.



Dave, thanks very much.

What, no 555 chip?!?? LOL...

I only do a little electronics these days, and almost all of it is for my machining hobby: just polishing off my CNC conversion for my mill, but it only involved point to point wiring of boards. Every now and again I'll build a new PC, but that hardly counts these days.

Back in the day I didn't mine digging in deep and building shortwave ham gear and the like. Had my novice license in 3rd grade and still remember the Morse code, though I doubt I could take it very fast. 

Now I settle for just connecting up boards, and sometimes I'll do a little wire wrap of those funny little buglike components with all the legs. Never learned to do surface mount, but I eyeball it about once a year.

I hate all the stuff you forget if you don't keep plugging, but there just isn't time to do everything. I did just get a Tek 465 scope to play with, so maybe I'll "relearn" a thing or two!

Cheers!

BW


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## Bluechip

BobWarfield  said:
			
		

> Dave, thanks very much.
> 
> What, no 555 chip?!?? LOL...
> 
> I only do a little electronics these days, and almost all of it is for my machining hobby: just polishing off my CNC conversion for my mill, but it only involved point to point wiring of boards. Every now and again I'll build a new PC, but that hardly counts these days.
> 
> Back in the day I didn't mine digging in deep and building shortwave ham gear and the like. Had my novice license in 3rd grade and still remember the Morse code, though I doubt I could take it very fast.
> 
> Now I settle for just connecting up boards, and sometimes I'll do a little wire wrap of those funny little buglike components with all the legs. Never learned to do surface mount, but I eyeball it about once a year.
> 
> I hate all the stuff you forget if you don't keep plugging, but there just isn't time to do everything. I did just get a Tek 465 scope to play with, so maybe I'll "relearn" a thing or two!
> 
> Cheers!
> 
> BW



No Bob, no 555 .. my paws are too cold to grip 8 pin DIL .. 

Incidently, mentioning wire wrap, do you not have Veroboard in the US. ie. the perforated board with copper strips on one side.
Some years ago on another forum I had a discourse with a US citizen who'd never seen it. His 'Perfboard' had no copper side??
The exchange ended with no resolution. He'd no idea what I was on about, no Piccys in those days [ 1995 ish ]

Tried Morse in the RAF, utterly useless, so had to be a Radio Tech instead 

dave



Dave


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## Noitoen

Hi,

Just to move a little stepper motor, you can connect it to a the secondary winding of a transformer, with a 10uF capacitor, just like an ordinary single phase induction motor. 12VAC will work fine.

I usually program a little micro controller chip like the Pic12f675, to drive my motors.I build a actuator that uses a stepper and a threaded rod to imitate an hydraulic cylinder. All it's needed is the programmed chip, a couple of buttons and a potentiometer to vary the speed. The problem is that you need to program the chip. I can post the drawing and program if you like.
(forgot to mention 4 transistors)
Helder


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## BobWarfield

Bluechip  said:
			
		

> No Bob, no 555 .. my paws are too cold to grip 8 pin DIL ..
> 
> Incidently, mentioning wire wrap, do you not have Veroboard in the US. ie. the perforated board with copper strips on one side.
> Some years ago on another forum I had a discourse with a US citizen who'd never seen it. His 'Perfboard' had no copper side??
> The exchange ended with no resolution. He'd no idea what I was on about, no Piccys in those days [ 1995 ish ]
> 
> Tried Morse in the RAF, utterly useless, so had to be a Radio Tech instead
> 
> dave
> 
> 
> 
> Dave



Yep, there is something like Veroboard. 

It's been quite a while since I did any wire wrapping too.

I'm thinking CNC'ing a PC board is my likely path if I wanted to do a circuit like what you've presented. I've played with some of the PC board layout software a year or two ago and it looked straightforward. I was fiddling with the idea to create a lathe feed as a matter of fact. Here were my notes:

http://www.cnccookbook.com/MTManualStepperController.htm

Your circuit is a lot simpler. I was only trying to generate a pulse train to use with a stepper driver and trying to make it easy to keep both manual and CNC control. I ultimately decided it wasn't worth it and headed down the pure CNC path that people like John Stevenson warned me at the time would be my destination.

Cheers,

BW


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## Dan

Oh my thats alot of work sure does look good though, I just drilled the end of my leadscrew and put a bolt in it and use a nutdriver in my cordless to move it.

And you say you have a used motor for sale, I will have my bank mail you a check for it and you cash it, then keep payment and give the rest to my shipper when he comes to pick up the item as I have other items in your area also,,,, :big:
  (small world hugh)


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## Bluechip

Bob

Very good site, I'd no idea CNC was so complicated ???

Mental note to self .. Avoid like plague ...

The cct is full step, lashed one together last nite. If you do make one, the diodes are not reqd, BUZ11's have 'em.

Think we're wandering off topic a bit  Apologies  

Dave


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## gunboatbay

Back to the original post for a moment. I like the cordless drill because most of them have all the desirable features; infinitely variable speed, reverse/forward, power at low rpm because of the gear train,etc. An inexpensive source of supply if yoy live in North America is the Goodwill Store or Salvation Army Store. People donate these things because the battery pack dies, becomes obsolete or too expensive. I have yet to buy one ($1.50 - $3.00) that didn't work perfectly when I hooked it up to an appropriate voltage power supply. Usually there's half a dozen or so in a bin at these stores.


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## Bill S

This is an update on the powerfeed after some use. The unit works very nice and makes using the machine much more efficient. I found if I leave it in the high range -1400 rpm- I can have a nice range of feed speeds from just starting to move at 3V to a rapid traverse at 15V. I will definitely move the switch from the power supply box to the powerfeed unit to keep both controls at the same location. The clutch is set at its lowest setting and works great in both directions. All in all I am very happy with it.

Bill


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