power feed w/o cnc

[dlenox]

I am looking to add a power feed to my mini-mill but do not want to have the hastle of CNC'ing it.

Looking for recommendations for simple power feed for the X-axis with something like 0-24ipm. Do not want to go through the hastle of using computer as controller, but simple directional control (left/right/stop) and a way to control speed.

Saw the unit sold by LittleMachineShop.com and the DC motor is severly underpowered as well as limited to 12ipm.

I have many bipolar stepper motors that can be used but is the best bet to use a DC motor with some kind of PWM board? It would be great if someone had a PWM board that also included the power supply needed to simplify matters...

[sendkeys]

sure sure how mini we are talking but harborfreight has some mid size for around 200-250 or so. might be able to make it work but you know they must be a little crapy

just saying because i saw some looking around today

[HuFlungDung]

Dlenox,

Adding "manual" power feeds is probably more expensive than some kind of cnc. There still needs to be motors and gearboxes mounted. The trouble is, the manual drives can never permit cnc.

Having said that, perhaps you can rig up some portable, reversing electric drills to do the job for you. A person would simply have to find an improved method to replace the variable speed trigger and reversing buttons on the drill, ie., move them to a remote panel, and voila, you have manual motor drives. If you decide to scrap them someday, you can take them off and reassemble the original switches, and hopefully have 3 usable power tools to dispose of.

[ESjaavik]

For manual auto feed try an old wiper motor. It must be the type rotating continously (most are).
You can even have some crude speed control by varying the voltage to it. They are built for continous running. No good for CNC as they are built to run one way only. It will run backwards although with somewhat less speed and power, probably not noticeable for a feed, but will "confuse" the kind of amplifier/feedback used for CNC.