Thanks Erich!
After the last post I thought there was little more to do but odds and ends have kept me out of mischief for another few days.
I bought a magnetic reed switch from the bay- the sort that are used to alarm doors and windows. The idea is to slow the motor right down when the machine is within the last cm or so of travel. I wanted to minimise the inertia so that it does not run on at the top of its travel.
The white piece is the magnet which attached to the carriage and the blue piece is the reed switch which closes when the magnet is nearby.
This video shows it in action. The extra noise from the motor is because it is being switched on and off rapidly. I'm quite pleased with the result.
[youtube]IemoatIHmHM[/youtube]
The next job was to tidy up the top ends of the jackscrews. Due to a small design change after I had ordered the screws, they were about 5mm too long.
A good tip for trimming metal in situ is the use a small angle grinder with one of the very fine kerf cutting discs. These are around 1mm thick to only the minimum amount of metal is turned to dust and so a lot less heat is generated and the surrounding metal is largely unaffected compared to a standard 3-4mm disc.
I wrapped rags around the screw to keep the abrasive off the rest of the threads.
The next few shots are of the bearing caps. Each has a needle roller bearing fitted into an aluminium bracket and a cap fitted on with an oil nipple in the top. The oil will go via the bearing onto the screw, run down the thread and onto the sprocket and hence onto the roller chain and lubricate the idlers and hopefully some will even run into the motor gearbox. well that is the plan anyway.
The next thing to sort out was the supply voltage. The motor is designed for 60Hz operation being a US machine and so the operating voltage which is 240v at 60Hz needs to be reduced in proportion to the frequency. Ideally 200v. I'm using a transformer which will drop it to between 210 and 205v which is near enough and the motor runs much cooler.
I only had some normal mains cable but needed three cores Live, neutral and 210v so the green and yellow wire normally intended for earth gets used for power instead and so I've added a warning label!
The original machine only had an on/off switch, no NVR or motor protection so that was soon put right.
Next I needed an adaptor to 100mm dust collection hose.
A few pieces of mdf and ply glued together, shaped with the band saw and bored to a honeymoon fit on a stub of 100mm pipe.
And fitted to the machine
I had a few mechanical issues to sort out. The gearbox had a slight oil leak and in the process of draining the gearbox, a lot of metal came out. This clearly needed further attention. Inside to my horror I found a gear with most of its teeth worn away. What had clearly been happening was that in use the drive was slipping out of gear and the previous own had been re-engaging the gears under load.
Fortunately, I found one US dealer still holding stock of this gear and who unlike the others, was prepared to send one to UK. total cost $30 including post and took about a week.
I was able to find the fault. A tiny spring loaded ball in a shaft should hold the gear shift in one speed or other or in neutral. The spring was weak so I popped in another one from the scrap spring box and the job was a good-un. A new oil seal, ordered Friday arrived Monday morning together with a litre of EP gear oil. Application of a smear of silicone sealant on the gasket faces and the gearbox is now perfectly sealed.
The lesson from this is don't just put up with something jumping out of gear, investigate and sort it out. I'm feeling exceptionally lucky to have been able to buy a spare gear for a machine that is out of production. You might not be so lucky. So sort out little problems before they become major disasters - like a planer with no power feed!
I did not take any photos of the gearbox work as I had oily hands most of the time but here is the abused part.
overall
close up - Not a pretty sight.
Now to make some shavings and set the planing function up.
Hopefully soon my DW 733 will be up for sale including my tip over storage stand.
Thanks for reading this far!
Bob