I had built a motorized bracelet domer -which wasn’t as good as the
manual (large beasties that you sat in and operated similarly to a
kick press) ones I had made. Then one day the need for lots of
rolling came up and the light bulb over my head fizzled for a while ,
inspiring me to another feat of perverted engineering transgression :
tear apart the domer and use the base and motor for a motorized
rolling mill !!!. Brilliant !!.. maybe.
I already had a 1/4 hp, 10:1 ratio, DC gearmotor wired up to a foot
pedal control, and a rolling mill that wasn’t quite mine yet (basic
4" wide, 4:1 model).
The motor is 250 rpm, but the 10:1 ratio leaves the shaft output at
just over 4 revs per second, which wisely ought too be slowed down by
one’s gearing/pulleying of the setup, but which I did not do, being in
need of fast production times (rolling texture impressions into a few
thousand 2" by 6" strips of base metal strips). The motor has 45 ft.
lbs. of torque ; as the first postor (so that’s how it’s spelled?)
suggested and to which I agree, 2.5 hp and 5 rpm is probably overkill
for most applications, except heavy reductions, but I’m no expert at
any of this.
Anyhoo… I found gears and motorcycle chain at the surplus store ; I
don’t think plain belt and pulleys is that good for something like
this but I could be wrong. Taking the handle off the mill and putting
the gear on was no big deal, sizing the chain… mounting the motor
and mill. Took less than a day, since the base was already built and
the motor wired up. It was plenty strong for the task ; the speed was
just there at the edge of too-fast since I had to hold the strip
close to the texture plate as I fed them into the rollers. Only a
little scary ; more of a psychological thing than a real danger of
getting sucked in. Like I said, wise to slow it down, and give it more
strength, by using a small gear on the motor and a larger one on the
mill, whereas I used same-size gears. A beautiful thing it is, to
push that pedal with your foot and have a textured strip spit out a
second later !!!. Especially with only a hundred bucks or so invested
beyond the mill itself, and the satisfaction of another mad scheme
turning out great.
Dar