Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 7:51 am
Stop collars also work great in helping you setup the vertical and horizontal alignment of a Special Purpose Tool (SPT) on the eccentric mounting tubes. You can get the drive shaft aligned faster to minimize vibration.
One example: I needed to strip sand and found vibration in the setup because the drive was a "little off" in the vertical adjustment causing the power coupler to be on an upward angle on the strip sander side. So the process is to loosen the set screws and lower the strip sander ever so slightly, which never happens (I seem to always over-correct), but with split collars already snug just slightly below the bottom of the strip sander's frame, I now have a "controllable" way to make this adjustment ever so slightly on each tube. I can even rotate each tube, once the split collar is secure, to manipulate the horizontal adjustment of the power coupler without changing the vertical setting I just got to where I wanted.
I also wanted to mention that I replaced the two original 3/16" allen screws in the split collars with button head screws with a 5/32" allen drive so I could use the do-all Shopsmith allen wrench. I did have to shave some of the button head off to fit the split collar bolt recess but the outcome was well worth the work.
One example: I needed to strip sand and found vibration in the setup because the drive was a "little off" in the vertical adjustment causing the power coupler to be on an upward angle on the strip sander side. So the process is to loosen the set screws and lower the strip sander ever so slightly, which never happens (I seem to always over-correct), but with split collars already snug just slightly below the bottom of the strip sander's frame, I now have a "controllable" way to make this adjustment ever so slightly on each tube. I can even rotate each tube, once the split collar is secure, to manipulate the horizontal adjustment of the power coupler without changing the vertical setting I just got to where I wanted.
I also wanted to mention that I replaced the two original 3/16" allen screws in the split collars with button head screws with a 5/32" allen drive so I could use the do-all Shopsmith allen wrench. I did have to shave some of the button head off to fit the split collar bolt recess but the outcome was well worth the work.