Shopsmith Forums

Just to note mods made today, the rectifier was moved onto the metal plate, seen here:
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The clip was made again (3rd time) and allows the idler shaft to move in a bit more so that the belt is a little further from the casing. A brace was propped under the table so that a heavy 5" metal x-y vice could be used, primarily for drilling bits of metal. The vice is on a piece of 2x8 to get it up so the crank handles do not hit the table and the wood protects the aluminum table. A bottle jack is handy for raising the head, per Bill Mayo's setup, seen sitting under the table in this shot.
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Here is the brace: (without it, the assembly sags somewhat from the weight of the vice)
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Thanks for the info Peter. Looks like a great idea. Hmmm..I've got a spare treadmill motor laying around...I might have to consider using it like this. Around here you can get treadmills for free all the time and usually the motors work. It's a good way to get variable speed. Thanks.

A Little Update:
Eleven months later and sure enough, the sparking at the brushes eventually carboned up the commutator of the dc motor and it quit. While looking into repairing it, I still have not run across a cheap treadmill to get a better control from, so I just replaced it for now with a different dc motor:
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It has a cooling fan so I put a guard on made from the bottom of a waste basket from Value Village ($0.99). I also added a LED ring light at the quill (from Princess Auto), which gives great light and is transformer (wall wort) powered, so no batteries. See how it lights up the chuck area.
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It is running smoothly and makes a super drill press but I still am looking for a treadmill.
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I like the setup. I was playing around with using mine, in vertical as a makeshift milling machine. I, of course, had to support the table as well. As a tip, I did make a couple arms that fasten to the way tubes. These 2 arms have a bearing that then can rest against a chuck (and spin with it) thus are able to take some pressure off the spindle bearings during side thrust. Just a thought, but you are of a modification mind like me.

Just curious (since I "plan" on making a dedicated drill press out of a spare greenie) but why not use the Shopsmith motor and speed control?

jcraigie wrote:Just curious (since I "plan" on making a dedicated drill press out of a spare greenie) but why not use the Shopsmith motor and speed control?

He cannibalized the speed control, and it did not have a motor to begin with.(see post #1);)

Ahhh, well that makes sense:o

Thanks for the comments and especially holsgo's idea about support bearings, however I do have a mill/drill. I assume that it is felt that the SS quill bearing (s) is not strong enough for the side forces of milling.
On a regular drill press with a chuck that fits on a tapered quill end, the chuck vibrates off under milling action. (unless "glued" on with Loctite or similar) The Shopsmith has an advantage with its' set screw chuck mount, so I might try light milling in wood or aluminum if the mill/drill is occupied by another job, or more likely in my shop, the table is so cluttered up with "stuff" that it is expedient to use the SS.
The ring light mentioned earlier was on sale for $20. The switch is mounted by magnets on its back.
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ctxman wrote:Can you explain the electrical portion of this setup? I see the router speed control, but what is a rectifier and where is it located. It looks like a great setup.

I know this isn't about motors but it's very interesting (to me at least)

We have to use rectifiers in X-ray to change AC to DC. To produce X-rays we slam electrons from cathode to anode at voltages between 50,000 and 125,000 (we set the voltage and current for each different exam depending on what we are looking for). We need AC to start since the high voltage transformers require it to take us from 220v to 50,000v -125,000v. The voltage is then converted to DC just before the xray tube because if electricity were still alternating, we would fry out our tubes as the sine wave falls negative and the electrons slam backwards from anode to cathode.

Here is a link that shows the sine waves before and after. We use the last one listed in X-ray (3-phase, 12 pulse) as we want the voltage to be a nice smooth line so that the X-ray penetration is consistent across the entire film.
http://www.ndt-ed.org/EducationResource ... urrent.htm