Well i wouldn't say that the power feed was a total failure but it didn't work well enough to my liking. There were two issues - first the motor spun fast so it had a very nice travel speed up and down however it didn't have enough power at the very top of the travel and didn't lift the head very well. The second issue is that i used a "lovejoy" like flex coupler and threaded the mill side so that it could jam against the other jam nut on the lead screw. Even after using loctite i had issues with the lovejoy unthreading - and it was pulling threads and stripping out so long term it would not hold up.
Neighbor had some linear actuators from a power adjustable bed like these here. I was able to take the lead screw and shorten it, then turn it down to the proper diameter to put a pulley on it. I am driving the hand crank shaft instead of the top nut to eliminate the issue i had with the flex coupler.
Here's a short video:
It moves a bit slower than i really wanted but it works really well with plenty of torque so i'll call it a win. If you look closely you can see a C clamp in the video. I attached a bracket to the plastic gear motor housing and attached a block to the mill. I need to drill and slot the bracket so that i can attach the bracket to the mounting block and eliminate the C clamp.
. I disassembled and cleaned the air box. I hope to rec ever this week and to get everything installed and operational next weekend. It’s a big job, but I’m not going without ac. I am concerned that I haven’t found an obvious leak. I’m all ears if you have a suggestion.
