Round column mill

[rodzilla]

I have a round column HF Mill 33686 i believe is the part number i is the big green one i am interested in putting a motor from my treadmill on this to power the spindle as i see people out there doing this very thing to what degree of success i din't know as most of these threads do not say. Which brings me o my question(s). After doing this will i be able to machine steel as most of my machining is steel with the occasional alum parts. Also seeing that i have a treadmill to cannibalise can i use the motor and controls and just build a different housing for the controls and electronics or will i have to get a different set of controls to run the motor. Please any help on this subject would be greatly appreciated as i don't want to take apart a good running treadmill if it is not going to work.

[rodzilla]

Wow does anybody want to answer to this post Please!!!!

[acondit]

Rodzilla,

Why do you want to replace the existing motor? It may be more powerful than a treadmill motor (depends). Sorry I can't help with the treadmill controls question.

I put a DC motor on my 9x20 lathe and I bought a controller on ebay. It is more powerful than the motor that came on it originally (3/4 hp replaced by 1 1/2 hp). However, my round column mill has a 2 hp AC motor on it and I would only consider replacing it with a DC motor if it went bad. To find a good 2 1/2 to 3 hp DC motor with continuous rating would not be cheap, not to mention that I would have to rewire for 220v for the mill. It currently runs on 110v with a 20 amp breaker and if I try to run anything else on that circuit at the same time it trips the breaker.

Alan

[Robin Hewitt]

Originally Posted by acondit It currently runs on 110v with a 20 amp breaker and if I try to run anything else on that circuit at the same time it trips the breaker.

I have much the same, the start up current sometimes throws the RCB when I turn it on. I reckon it has to be when my turn on coincides with a peak on the mains cycle.

I'm replacing the motor relay with a fat triac and an MOC3041 that switches as the mains crosses zero volts. See if that fixes it

[rodzilla]

I am not going to do the motor change if i will lose to much power i just think the vriable speed would be alot better and faster than changing the belts. I just wanted some opinions from some people who have more experience with this stuff as i am pretty new to this stuff. I also don't want to convert to 3 Phase i have wenough problems figuring out single phase stuff throw 2 more phases in there and my head will explode.