Some projects in a more detailed way!
Drill Press upgrade:
I love my over 50-year-old drill press, but I decided, it needed some upgrades, so I combined an old tool with some new technology!
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I defiently wanted to have a digital deph gadge, and that´s why I bought an inexpensive DRO kit and wired everything up in a way that it automaticly turns on when I plunge down.
The automatic turning on feauture, I achived, by mounting a micro swith in a case, so it triggers when I plunge down. Unfortuantly it is a bit hard to demonstrate when open.
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I also made some prettty useless but cool upgrades, like a ligt that tells you when one of the feutures is still turned on or a warning lamp for when the belt guard is open.
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Another upgrade that didn´t really make sense, because I don´t have a VFD installed, is a rpm meter that functions by picking up the signal of a magnet passing by.
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Most of the other upgrades, I got inspirated to somwhere but this one I designed fully by myself, a protection shield that automaticly comes down when you plunge. It workes with a variety of strings and springs and I really like it.
I tore apart an old desk lamp, painted it and mounted it on the site of the maschine and it is really useful.
Finally, I painted everything and mounted it on the site of the maschine and it workes great!
April 2023, 14 years old.
Update, September 2023:
I wanted to get all of the cable connections out of the housing of the maschiene, as it was really hard to see which cable belonged to what. Thats why I labeled all cabels and mouted this box to the site of the maschine, to house all the switches and connections
I finally managed to remove the old keyed chuck, and replaced it with a brand new, keyless, high quality chuck.
Some small clamps:
I saw some small clamps that I could use very good online,but they were really expensive. That´s why I decided to build my own ones.
I wanted to make them from steel, so they wouldn´t deflect under load and That´s why I first got some steel offcuts from Ebay.
First I started with a prototype, which was a good idea, as I already noticed some problems while making this prototype, and these problems I am going to list down below:
1st problem:
The ends of the brass handle weren´t consistent, which just didn´t look and feel right.
2nd problem:
The clamp didnt have the look I´d liked, it had a bit to sharp corners for my taste.
3rd problem:
The small tap I used to hold a srew for the squwil pad, already broke on the second try.
And here the solutions I came up with to solve these problems:
1st:
I welded up a jaw attachment for my vise, which makes it easy to constintenly crimp the end of the handles.
2nd:
I just rounded over the corners with my homemade disk sander.
3rd:
Instead of tapping every hole, I just drill a slightly undersized on , to then just press the small srews in.