Mini Mill Power Feed

[jjr2001]

About a year ago I added a power feed to my mini mill. Saves the arm when doing repetitive tasks. It runs at about 10 inches per minute which is fast enough for me. Cost was about $50 total using on line components.
The motor is the jewel of this system. All Electronics has them for $17.95 each. Surplus car seat drive motor that is rated at 180 rpm. The lead screw adapter could have been turned on the lathe but for $8 I just ordered it from Little Machine Shop Part Number: 2546. It fit my mill perfectly. I may have had to bore out the end for the motor shaft but it worked perfectly. I did cut the shaft for a good fit on my machine. Just use an abrasive wheel grinder for that. Ground a flat on it for the coupling.

The engage/disengage is a manual affair. Just move the motor/shaft coupling to the inside hole on the motor mounting plate and rotate the lead screw just a bit to capture the pin and it is engaged. When no longer needed just relocate the motor to the outside hole and it is disengaged.

The power controller comes with a switch and pot for speed/direction control and that was a bay purchase.
Power supply is rated at 15vdc and 5 amps. Mounted that in a mini box with a clear poly carbonate cover so I could see the led on the power controller.

Oh, yea, the motor mounts to the motor bracket with a pin that can be seen in the pictures. A set screw would be good to secure it but mine has never fallen out.

[DIYer]

Thanks jjr2001! We've added your Mini Mill Power Feed to our Milling category,
as well as to your builder page: jjr2001's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Mini Mill Power Feed by jjr2001

tags: mill, power feed

[PJs]

Looks great and easy to do...Thanks! Nice add on for lots of projects. Thanks for the hit on the surplus seat motors too! With the speed control you could adapt the same thing to the lathe lead screw where you manual crank went...might stick out a bit but hey for $25 and some elbow grease. Thanks for sharing! ~PJ

[jjr2001]

Thanks PJ.

Actually I purchased extra motors and another power supply with controller. Even have the small enclosure for the "controller". My plan is to make one for the lathe and also one for my "universal grinder". The slowest speed I can run it on the mill would be a bit faster than I would want to run the lathe for a fine finish pass. Slow speed is about 1.5 inches per minute on the mill.
Just by watching the mill handle it looks a bit fast for the lathe. So I plan on making a gear reducer before I put it on the lathe.
I will swap the control box and power supply to either the lathe or grinder.

[Paul Jones]

JR,
Did you buy the electronics on eBay? Does the switch control the "Forward -- Off -- Reverse" directions and the pot for fast reverse?
Thank you for parts ideas, Paul

[jjr2001]

JR,
Did you buy the electronics on eBay? Does the switch control the "Forward -- Off -- Reverse" directions and the pot for fast reverse?
Thank you for parts ideas, Paul

Exactly. The pot controls the speed. The switch is forward, off, reverse. Here is a link to what looks to be the same one I bought. Costs about $9 with switch and pot. It is even wired up to the pot and switch.
Here is the link:

DN Reversible 6V 30V 6A Pulse Width PWM DC Motor Speed Controller Governor | eBay

Cheers, JR