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Repurposing mill power feed

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Markfd:
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.

awemawson:
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.

John Rudd:

--- Quote from: Markfd on June 18, 2018, 12:59:06 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.

--- End quote ---

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..

Markfd:
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.

awemawson:
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.

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