Treadmill Motor & Control Housings

I bought a treadmill motor and controller to power a die filer.

The die filer is c1910 vintage and I wish to build a housing for both motor and controller.

50/50 to keep the filings out / to hide them as far as possible. It will be on a movable baseboard to sit on my workbench, the motor cannot go underneath
as the working height would be too great. So something aesthetically pleasing, possibly both wood and metal.

The motor itself is open each end ie likely needs some ventilation. The control box as you can see in the photo has a perforated casing suggesting this too needs some airflow around it.

A visiting electritan suggested 1/2" or so gap around the controller would be fine, but as I have no idea I'm asking the question, how much space between the components and any housings should I allow?
I wish to keep it as compact as possible but obviously don't wish it to overheat.

Thanks

Chris.

Any thoughts on this one please?

Chris.

I think you've already answered your question Chris.

It sounds like a simple box at the rear of the base will do the business. You will need to bring the shaft out to one side to drive the filer and make a hole for the speed control. Bring the power lead out the back and make sure it's well anchored. You could make the box out of sheet metal but I find 6mm ply is very convenient for this kind of thing. If you think ventilation is an issue, make some slots in the back. Make the box large enough to take the parts and to look like it was designed (rather than just knocked together) and I'm sure it will be fine.

I've just converted my 1/4" Cowells drill to DC drive. I needed to mount the motor and after faffing around with various bits of angle iron, finally just made an open box to hold the motor and give some adjustment for belt tension. The PSU (which sits behind the drill pillar) came in a somewhat flimsy plastic case, so a ply cover will be used to keep out wandering swarf. The motor didn't have 'feet' as such, so I printed a 3D saddle to hold it (designed in Open SCAD).

It's all painted etc now and looks fairly neat and seems to work - I've still some things to tidy up. Here is the open ply 'box' before painting etc. A 2x4ft sheet of 6mm ply is not expensive and can be used for all sorts of jobs like this. The slots were drilled at each end and then just cut with a jig saw.

Try it and if you have problems, then change or improve it - it will probably be fine but maybe not. Either way you will learn what is required in practice, without breaking the bank or spending loads of time on an overkill.

Regards,

IanT

Edited By IanT on 09/11/2020 17:03:23

Thank you Ian, some good pointers there that are most helpful and I will take onboard.

How do you find the motor, are you pleased with it?

Chris.

Hi Chris,

Yes, it's a nominal 200W DC but I suspect it actually delivers a bit less than that. It also has a 'remote' control which I'm going to try for a while but I might substitute for my own-brew IR/PWM controller if it doesn't work out. So I now have variable speed on all three pulleys, so that's an improvement.

It works very well on smaller drill bits 1-2mm (which is what it's going to be mainly used for) but I was getting belt slip on a 6mm one. I need to alter the 'V' depth on the motor pulley I'm using to match the belt but it was OK for a quick test. So the motor seems to have sufficient welly for its intended use.

I have a large (12-speed) drill press as well as the usual Dremel, Proxxon etc tools that most modellers have, so I've got plenty of choice.

Regards,

IanT

PS - It kind of looks like this - the (much larger) motor was sat behind the drill previously with the belt running up and over jockey pulleys. This arrangement seems neater and the belt is quieter.

I use both the original drill table and the compound vice (which can just be lifted off). I've fitted extra bearings and reversed the 'Y' handle to make it a bit easier to use. It's not intended to be an accurate X/Y table - but it is a convenient way to set up smaller work.

I decided to change my 'control' box around a bit - the first one was a bit too high.

Regards,

IanT

PS Mods - Can you rotate images??

Thanks for all this Ian.

Not knowing anything about motors and bearing in mind it was both cheap and modern made I had my reservations as to whether 200w would be powerful enough, so went for a 500w version. Time will tell if that was overkill, but I'd rather have too much power for the filer than not enough. I'm still using a small grinder and belt sander I bought 30 years ago, both of which whilst still hanging in there are under powered and so a constant source of frustration.

Your drill/motor set up looks neat, I have a UPT and Champion No 1 that also need motors. I found on eBay a modern replacement motor for a Unimat with inbuilt variable speed which is very neat and compact that I will in time fit to the UPT.

Today I need to study the Polly Vee pulley on my treadmill motor, I want to replace it with an iron or brass one, thinking maybe (I'm a beginner) I can turn one, just concerned about getting the regularly spaced vee grooves correct.

Before that though I shall mostly be learning to use a 4 jaw.

Chris.