- Joined
- Feb 2, 2014
- Messages
- 1,217
Some of you may remember the band saw I made back in February.
http://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/bandsaw-project.31960/
The band saw worked very nicely for wood and I have used it often but the other day I needed to cut some aluminum plate and it was too large to get into the 4X6 saw. It was only 1/4" thick and if I took it real easy maybe I could cut it on the 16" band saw. Well at 3000 feet per minute the blade lasted about as long you can say don't do it. At $30 a blade I sure didn't want to do that again so I got to thinking. If I added another motor that ran half as fast (1725 rpm) as the original and then reduced that down by about 3 to 1 belt drive to the original motor the speed would be about right for aluminum. I bought a one way bearing and made a pulley to mount on the fast motor connected to the slow motor. I added a switch to set which motor would run and this is what I ended up with.
When the fast motor is running the slow motor doesn't turn because of the sprag bearing. When the slow motor runs it drives through the fast motor.
The final speeds are around 400 fpm for the slow to around 2400 fpm for the fast.
In retrospect it would have been much easier to just install a treadmill motor but I didn't have a treadmill motor and I did have two A/C motors. Total cost for switch, bearing and belts was $38 and a lot of fun.
Cheers
Ray
http://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/bandsaw-project.31960/
The band saw worked very nicely for wood and I have used it often but the other day I needed to cut some aluminum plate and it was too large to get into the 4X6 saw. It was only 1/4" thick and if I took it real easy maybe I could cut it on the 16" band saw. Well at 3000 feet per minute the blade lasted about as long you can say don't do it. At $30 a blade I sure didn't want to do that again so I got to thinking. If I added another motor that ran half as fast (1725 rpm) as the original and then reduced that down by about 3 to 1 belt drive to the original motor the speed would be about right for aluminum. I bought a one way bearing and made a pulley to mount on the fast motor connected to the slow motor. I added a switch to set which motor would run and this is what I ended up with.
When the fast motor is running the slow motor doesn't turn because of the sprag bearing. When the slow motor runs it drives through the fast motor.
The final speeds are around 400 fpm for the slow to around 2400 fpm for the fast.
In retrospect it would have been much easier to just install a treadmill motor but I didn't have a treadmill motor and I did have two A/C motors. Total cost for switch, bearing and belts was $38 and a lot of fun.
Cheers
Ray
