Drum Sander Made from a Treadmill | I built a DIY thickness sander from treadmill parts
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- čas přidán 10. 09. 2024
- I built a drum sander to handle the work that my thickness planer can't. Basically, one treadmill, a roll of adhesive backed sandpaper and a few electronic components are all you need. With a 3hp motor and steel roller, this thing is unstoppable! ...which isn't the most safety-minded concept. If you build one, PLEASE make it more safe than mine!
If you make your own woodworking equipment please leave me a comment.
As for the DC Motor control circuit, I'm using an SCR (silicon-controlled rectifier) which clips off part of the AC waveform, reducing the amount of power to the output depending on the position of the potentiometer. The bridge rectifier switches the waveform to DC that's needed by your motor.
Other components are -
The direction switch which reverses the polarity to the DC motor causing it to run in the other direction
Fuse to make it not burn (my projects often burn)
Two contact momentary switch for Lift motor control
Kill switch (fairly useless with so much inertia)
Power switch (or possibly the maime switch, if we're being honest)
this was totally different than what I thought you were going to use the treadmill for. but this gives me ideas on making one using two. one to feed the material and one to do the sanding, neat little set up you made.
A couple pulleys could be used to draw power from the same shaft and then two gears to reverse direction if you wanted a single motor solution. This would of course be driven mechanically, so you would lose speed variability (you could just swap pulley sizes to do so), but would be cheaper. A cross belt design would further simplify this to just two pulleys, although belt wear mean you need to replace the cross belt periodically as it rubs itself.
Great idea using a treadmill! Thanks a lot for that! 👍
Looks nice. Definitely needs dust collection, which should be easy to add. I was watching the build and wondered how useful the walking belt would be to use for pulling the wood through the sander. My thought is it would not be grippy enough, but I'm sure it can be overcome. Wouldn't need another treadmill size motor, but a smaller motor would be good for moving the belt. This video certainly gave me a lot to think about.
Thanks, I was thinking the same thing on the belt. I have a heavy stainless plate to use as a bed for a feed belt. Was even thinking of using a conveyer motor controlled by an Arduino that adjusts according to the feed motor amperage so it would automatically slow the feed on high spots. Guess I'll just enjoy the smooth wood for now and rebuild when I get a chance.
This will work! Well done sir.
GREAT idea for repurposed components! Love it.
Great build, many thanks for the effort you put into making the video. Have you made any updates to this machine?
nice work....ive built a few and the last one had a 12 inch drum and its incredible...small drum is good for smaller projects but the larger drum just shines with anything you throw at it!
Thanks! Not sure if I can fit a 12 inch pipe in my lathe but I can see where a bigger drum would be nice. What did you use for a drum?
@@JordanWorkshop the last one i had a buddy make it in his big machine shop....i own 2 commercial drumsanders a Jet and supermax whatever but i still find the 12inch so much more efficient....i have to push the wood thrugh the big one though!!!one day ill make a power feed!
This exactly what I was thinking except to use a treadmill motor and potentiometer to create a belt feed. So, I would need to two treadmills. How did you attach the sand paper strips? i considered using a spring clamp similar to the Performax drums. Just cut a slot to accept the tapered paper. I had a Performax sander at one point, and the biggest drag was the underpowered torque of the conveyor gear motor. I just looked up how to use cold vulcanizing cement to seam a treadmill belt, before I found your video. I'll probably enclose my control panel underneath. One thing I remember is they throw a ton of sawdust. I'll probably move my motor further in the middle, it's nice having an out feed that doesn't abruptly drop the piece on the floor. Thanks for the great video. I'm not too savvy when it comes to the wiring, I'd probably need a diagram. thanks again Stefan
Great job. I would have kept the full length of the base and installed all workings in the middle. You may want to install a brake on the cylinder.
Great Build, just what I was looking for at this moment. I am in the process of using the carcass of what looks to be the same chassis and motor to convert an old 1946 Emrick, Inc 5 in One Lathe. And I kept looking at that bed and the rollers and thinking 'thickness sander, so in taking a break and looking at few more videos, lookie what I found...
Will have to come back after I finish todays adventure and study your video for all the details, you got my sub on this one. I am picking up another treadmill tommorrow, this is gonna be alot of fun.
Nice build. I would add an outfeed table when you add the drive belt. Did you hang on to the treadmill belt. That seems like it would made a good feed belt. Will need another variable speed fractional HP motor and controller.
This is entertaining but also educational. As I watched it I came to the realization that at my age and situation I now have more money than time. I’ll probably buy one.
I also need to come up with a way to value my time so that these projects can be weighted accurately for return on investment. When I work long and hard and find that my wife is committing too many of my weekends to family and friends I start to resent my friends and her.
How do you attach the sandpaper I got a treadmill roller and hooked it to my radial arm saw with a homade pully but the sand paper doesn’t stay on well
There's a bee checking out the cutting at 6:57 ... I get them doing that a lot to sparky outdoor operations during the summer too. Wonder what's up with that.
Nice job. One thing I'm wondering about is the lack of support on the outfeed side. Have you found that to be a problem?
Nice job! I have a collection of treadmills/parts for looming shop tool builds. A drum sander being a possible one as well. You might check out Dazecars channel. His is the go to channel for treadmill motor controlling. You benefit from a motor breaking resistor on your machine.
Overall, I'm very pressed with this build. And it sounds like you are interested in adding more features. I'll check out more videos to see if you've done so. Thanks for sharing this!
that's a nice build, that roller supported on both ends gives stability to the sander. being heavy it won't vibrate which also helps. I buy controllers on amazon, but need to find the right potentiometer so that the range of control is wider on the motor. Any idea what the value of your pot is on your controller? I wondered about the direction of material feed into the drum. it would be better to have table support on both sides of the drum. Well not bad for the build so far!
Thanks! I used a 200k ohm.
Very nice build video I am very shocked there's only three comments very well done. I am getting things gathered up to build my version of one, anything you would do different thanks.
Thanks Dennis, As far as things I'd do differently, I'd leave the belt drive in place but probably shorten it and order a planer feed belt. Maybe when I'm ready to update it. Good luck with your build! Let me know how it goes.
Looks great but I found it really weird that your outfeed part is so short. It makes it a lot less precise. If you don't keep your piece perfectly parallel when pulling it out of the sander you'll get an uneven surface.
Yeah, that's exactly what's happening when I pull a piece through. Leaving the mount point where it was on the treadmill was just laziness. I've since found a heavy stainless plate that will be added with a drive belt so that there's more outfeed past the drum. It's on my project list. I'll upload an update once it's done.
I would guess that's cast iron not steel