Here is a picture of an upgraded Alps headstock where the stock motor had been replaced with a DC motor and XL cogged belts and pulleys. The small motor is in the base below the headstock shaft.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

Be safe

Sweet & regaining additional geography normally taken up by the sewing machine motor & electronics.

Looks awesome, what range of rpm will this give you.

How much was the up grade, do u still control via pedal. What benefits does this upgrade have cheers

Chris,
I have it set up so that the speed may be controlled by a dial or by a pedal. The two big advantages of a DC wrapper motor is the ability to have very precise low speed control and torque as well as to be able to reverse direction at the flip of a switch.
The range of rpm is 0 to the maximum speed of the particular motor being used for the power source. If one uses a motor with a higher top speed, one gives up a bit on the low end for speed and control.

Be safe

Very nice Roger, i was thinking about doing the same sort of thing on my Alps head.

Is the Alps foot pedal electonic or anologue?

Marty,
The slps foot pedal is not compatible with the control unit that was designed for the unit. So, a different pedal is employed.

Be safe

Roger -
would you mind a detailed explanation, or even a step by step, on how you acheived? I think a lot of forum members would be very interested in the sourcing of parts you used for this upgrade. This looks like something I would be very interested in doing. thank you.

Bryan,
Sorry, I can't do that. It is outside the rules of the forum.

Take care

It's not against the rules to provide a parts list for a do-it-yourself project.

It is against the rules to use the forum to promote, advertise and obtain sales for your own products or service, without being a sponsor.

.....................

Tom,
Thanks for the correction.

So u arnt happy to share, would be keen to try this

Roger

Shot these guys an email OR build it yourself

Bill - willierods.com

Bill -
"...OR build it yourself" - I believe that's what we're trying to do.

Roger -
If you have a financial stake or rely on such modifications as part of your business, I competely understand any reluctance to share the parts/process. In such case an email would be greatly appreciated.
Otherwise, some assistance for the non-engineers among us would be most appreciated.

Providing a list of parts for others as part of a do-it-yourself project isn't necessarily a violation of the rules. But posting photos or ideas related to items you sell, and then engaging in private email conversations with folks as you arrange to build and sell products to them is indeed a violation of the rules. You need to be a sponsor in order to do anything like that. There are far too many people in this industry today that use these back-door, under the table techniques to sell product without incurring any advertising expense. It's a very poor business practice.

If Roger, or anyone else, is selling these as part of a business, they aren't supposed to use the forum to generate interest in, advertise or promote that business.


.................

Here is a short lesson on DC motors and control systems for those who might be interested.

DC motors have the advantage of high torque at low speed, as well as a characteristic that causes the speed of a motor to be directly proportional to the applied voltage.
DC motors also have the characteristic that the direction of rotation is dependent on the applied voltage feeding the motor.
DC motors speed can also be controlled by variable width speed controls. A Variable width speed control is a semi conductor circuit which contains an oscillator, to run at a particular frequency, and a control circuit to vary the width of the output pulse on each of the pulses of the oscillator. Because the frequency of the oscillator is very high, the net result is a change in the applied power to the motor as the pulse width control resistor is changed.

So, in the design of any sort of rod wrapper, you need the typical wrapper bed, the rod rests, and finally, the powered head stock.

In this case, we are taking a high quality commercial head stock and chuck and removing the motor and belt system and replacing it with a DC motor, control system and possibly a different drive system.

Note:
In all of the following discussion, the DC motors being discussed are small low voltage, relatively low rpm output shaft speed that are being used to wrap and potentially dry rods. These motors are NOT going to be used for any sort of handle or grip shaping. Handle and grip shaping can be done much better in a different area by using a wood lathe or similar to properly shape the grips with the necessary speed and power to do the job in the best way possible.

By doing searches, one can find a wide variety of small low voltage DC motors that will work very well for this application. After trying a bunch of different motors and voltages, I have found that for my wrappers, the use of a 24 volt DC motor seem to work the best with an appropriate gear system on the end that allows a top speed of between 100 and 1000 rpm. If one wants to use the same motor for both drying and wrapping the use of a 100-200 rpm is a very good choice. However, if one does a lot of wrapping on long rods with very long butt wraps and or guide wraps that are long; one can get impatient if the rod does not turn faster during the long wraps. Hence the use of a faster motor like 400-600 or 800 rpm might be more popular.

However, when considering the choice of a motor speed, one needs to consider the low speed operation of the wrapping system. By using a gear speed that turns the rod faster at the maximum setting, one tends to give up some low speed control at very low - i.e. 1 rpm or so, speed. Also, if one wanted to use the same motor for both wrapping and drying, then the use of the 100-200 rpm motor is perfect because, one then gets a reliable 1 rpm of rotation while only giving up on a high speed that may not be wanted to be used very often. Or, if one is willing to dry at a faster speed, say 10-15 rpm, then the use of a 400 rpm motor will give the 400 rpm top speed, but still allow a reliable 10 rpm drying speed.

Once you have considered these options, you then need to consider the size, and cost of the motor as part of your build system. Do you want a small motor, a big motor, a shaft of a given size, etc. etc.

I like to use the 37mm DC motors with the 6mm output shaft for building a wrapper for myself. Then, I purchase pulleys with 6mm bores so that the pulley will fit nicely on the motor. Then, I put the pulley for the head stock into the lathe, and bore out the center hole to fit the diameter of the head stock that I am using for the wrapper. if the pulley comes with no set retaining screw holes; holes are drilled and tapped for set screws to hold the pulley on the motor shaft and on the headstock shaft.

In the picture that I posted at the beginning of this post use XL cogged belt pulleys using 1/5th pitch and 3/8th wide 1/5th pitch xl belts. The reason for using these pulleys is that they are available in a variety of sizes and bores and belts of nearly any length are also available. Also, since the motors being used are of rather low power, the belts can be run quite loose and never slip because of the cogged design. Because of the inherent ease of reversing the direction of the motor, the rod is NEVER turned by hand. All turns of the rod will be done under power. But, since one has such very good control of the speed, the use of power only, is a great way to build the rods.

With respect to the power system for the motors:
One can use a couple of variations. One can use a variable voltage DC supply that varies the voltage from 0-max motor voltage - like 24 volts, or one can use a variable pulse width controller that varies the width of the applied voltage from 0-100%.

A few years ago, the variable voltage supply made the most sense, since the price and availability of variable pulse width controllers was expensive and tough to obtain. In recent years the availability of pwc controllers has gone up and the price has gone down. So, one might want to consider this option.

For a variable voltage supply, one uses a transformer to supply voltage to the adjustable power supply board, and then the variable resistor for the power supply is incorporated into the foot pedal to adjust the voltage.

For the pwc controller, the controller is connected to a fixed low voltage supply - like a 12 or 24 volt supply depending on the motor being used - and the variable resistor in the controller is moved to the pedal to allow for pedal control of the speed.

The pedal is a big part of the problem of a good control system. Both of the power units listed above require the implementation of a pedal that can vary a given resistor from minimum value to maximum value over and over again, with no flat spots and no jumps in the resistance. One of the big issues with many foot pedals is that they only have about 20 degrees of root movement. So, if one uses a rotary resistor, one needs to use a pedal that will convert the 20 degrees of pedal movement to 270 degrees of rotation for the variable resistor. These pedals can be found and then high quality variable resistors can be installed of the correct value to properly control the voltage or pwc supplies. . However, these pedals come at a price, as do the cost of the variable resistors.

Then, to implement direction control, a simple double pole double throw switch will take care of that. The two outside switch leads are connected in an X configuration, the power is fed into one end or the other and the motor power is taken from the center set of leads.


So, the above gives the theory and reasons for design and build of a great DC controlled rod wrapper head unit. Good luck with your endeavors.

You can find cogged pulleys, belts, Dc motors, speed controls, even motor mounts, Dc power source's and what not here [www.mcmaster.com] and here [www.servocity.com] These two sites will have every thing you would need... And their are plenty more robotics sites on the web, I would say you could do this Mod to any power wrapper to make it more user friendly,, Poke a-round in these sites to Familiarize yourself with some of the parts. Tight-Lines Jaa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2015 02:55PM by Jay Dubay.

Roger, thanks for the the great explanation.

Steve Hartzell
Lake Conroe - Willis, Texas

Cheers roger appreciate the explanation

X3 on explanation and time spent gathering and sharing, very kind.