Author Topic: Repurposing mill power feed  (Read 3281 times)

Offline Markfd

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Repurposing mill power feed
« on: June 18, 2018, 12:59:06 PM »
Hi everyone. I recently sold my Alpine minor mill ( clone of RF25 etc) which I had owned for 25 years & bought a Chester 626 mill. I had retained an Align power feed which was bought from Axminster tools as it was nearly new & 240 volt. This clamps horizontally on the left hand side of the table unlike the 626 which hangs vertically on the right hand side. I saw no reason in principle why my unit couldn’t go on the left hand side horizontally, saving me several hundred pounds. The only problems were that the original clamping bolts were too far apart for the 626 table, necessitating an adaptor plate made out of 10mm alloy, countersunk for longer hex bolts & tapped 8mm for bolting to the power unit. A second problem was the differing diameters of the leadscrews, 17mm for the old mill & .625” on the 626. This was simply solved by making a bush & pressing into the gear. I could have bored out the gear & turned a larger bush, but I wanted to keep it standard. The grub screw already in the gear fitted into the keyway providing a weak point in case of any table jams.
The power feed now works perfectly, & apart from increasing the length of the table, appears to be just as good as the vertical unit.
I see that there are other units for sale on eBay cheaper than the Align units, but they are still 110v requiring a transformer.

Offline awemawson

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Re: Repurposing mill power feed
« Reply #1 on: June 18, 2018, 02:05:23 PM »
Hi Mark welcome to the forum  :thumbup:

The Alpine name brings back memories - I used to divert into their shop in West Bromwich every time I had to go to Manchester - a treasure trove of goodies tempting the weak hearted !

Sadly I don't think they are still in business

600 x 800 is a good resolution for pictures on the forum, conveying very adequate detail without gobbling up too much of Erics hard drives.



Andrew Mawson
East Sussex

Offline John Rudd

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Re: Repurposing mill power feed
« Reply #2 on: June 18, 2018, 02:46:44 PM »

I see that there are other units for sale on eBay cheaper than the Align units, but they are still 110v requiring a transformer.

That was the route I went with my 626..... Got my pf from Chester but bought a transformer from elsewhere...saved a packet.....
The transformer I got from a local electrical wholesaler, then bought an enclosure from Louth Transformers....very much cheaper than the £80-odd offerings from elsewhere..
eccentric millionaire financed by 'er indoors
Location:  Backworth Newcastle

Skype: chippiejnr

Offline Markfd

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Re: Repurposing mill power feed
« Reply #3 on: June 19, 2018, 02:43:38 PM »
I would have reduced the size of my pictures as I did have more to post, but I didn’t know how to. I took the pictures on my iPad & couldn’t see a way of altering resolution.

Offline awemawson

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Re: Repurposing mill power feed
« Reply #4 on: June 19, 2018, 03:37:19 PM »
If you have a Windows PC open them in Paint,  select 'Resize' then 'Pixels' and pop in 800 x 600. I then save with a meaningful name, so I have a reasonable size file for the forum, yet retain the full size one for future reference.

Andrew Mawson
East Sussex

Offline Markfd

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Re: Repurposing mill power feed
« Reply #5 on: June 19, 2018, 05:44:21 PM »
Sorry, I only have an iPad. There must be a way to resize pictures but I don’t know it. On a separate note, Graham Engineering closed down many years ago. I drove down from Stockport in 1993, it took less than an hour in those days, I got them to unpack the mill & lift it into my Renault 11TXE & drove home again. I spent many a happy hour browsing their used tooling looking for bargains.

Offline jb3cx

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Re: Repurposing mill power feed
« Reply #6 on: June 19, 2018, 06:43:18 PM »
Hi Mark ,I had the same problem,go to the AppStore and download the app called image size.all I do is take the picture with the I pad .then resize it with image size ,and save it to the iCloud Drive .you can then get it back and send it to where ever when you want as it is already resized,
Works fine for me ,hope this helps
Regards Peter

Offline Markfd

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Re: Repurposing mill power feed
« Reply #7 on: June 20, 2018, 07:54:39 AM »
I have installed image size & I am trying to send the other 2 pictures. Hopefully it will work.

Offline Markfd

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Re: Repurposing mill power feed
« Reply #8 on: June 20, 2018, 07:56:16 AM »
No it didn’t, I’ll try again later.

Offline vtsteam

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Re: Repurposing mill power feed
« Reply #9 on: June 20, 2018, 09:27:30 AM »
There are many online image resizers as well....example:

http://resizeimage.net/
I love it when a Plan B comes together!
Steve
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sDubB0-REg