has anyone powered there bead roller using a foot pedal?what motor,pedal speed controler did you use maybe you could post pics and wher to buy the motor ect
Haven't built one, there's a thread or two on the subject already with links to posher versions and a beefed up cheapnese type powered by a hand drill and bits of a sewing machine or something- mechanical speed control via a cable, geared down via pulley and belt. To do it with a gear reduction motor and VFD ain't likely to be cheap unless the bits are already kicking around. I'm pretty sure the one at work has a 1/2hp motor
Speed... pretty damn slow. If you're doing something intricate then ideally you may want less than 1rpm... assuming 2" dia dies then 1rpm = about 6" of travel. Commercial stuff tends to be along the lines of 0 - around 15rpm
I just resurrected an old bead roller to do some floor pans. I didn't have a handle[or a steering wheel] for it, so I welded a ra-ro flex plate on it. I am very tempted to make a worm to match the flex plate, I would stick an old golf
bag trolley thingie motor on it.
Assuming the motor is ~1400 rpm then that'll give you a touch over 14rpm. That translates to a no load speed of about 7 feet/just over 2m in one minute using 2" dia dies. Straight runs using a fence will be okay but too fast for freehand stuff
maybe slow it down with a speed controler and different sprockets.
but maybe i could just get a geared motor and sprockets that slow it down without the speed controler.
what ratio would the gearbox need to be to slow enough for detail work?
Variable speed gives the best of both worlds, the youtube link in post #14 demonstrates that well- slow for the curve and then speeding up for the straight run. In the comments the guy that made the vid said the drill is geared down 14:1, obviously the trigger on the drill can further slow things.
How slow is a tougher one as everyone's different. If you've already got the machine then experiment i.e. roll some beads of a set length that corresponds to the circumference of the dies. 3" diameter is probably closer to the mark in real life (but measure yours) so one revolution will give a 9" long bead near as damn it (Pi x D). Count the seconds and do the sums to get rpm. Dunno if this Lazze vid is linked to in the above thread but you can guestimate things and count the turns using one of the set screws on the shaft (it takes just over one revolution to make those beads, about 8 secs which is roughly 7.5rpm)... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XBxVtocDqc&feature=related While he's going pretty slowly for a simple straight bead note that he's hitting set stop points unlike the other vid
Compound gearing it down using sprockets/pulleys after the gearbox i'm thinking halve the speed (2:1) for a medium/med fast speed set giving about 7rpm. A 4:1 set would get you down to around 3.5rpm if you need it
its a1/2 horse 870rpm reversible motor with a approx 45to1 reduction gearbox so its about 20 rpm, the formers are 130mm dia ,still alot of work to do on it
I have had a bit of a play with my cheapaneese roller after reading this thread, i have had a parvalux geared motor on the shelf in the shed for about twenty years or so waiting for the, "that will come in handy one day",day to arrive so cobbled it up with a few pulleys I had ready to try it out, then Hotrodder posted that 7rpm could be a suggested speed so I further geared mine down. the little geared motor revs at 58rpm, the dies now turn at 6rpm thereabouts, which if I'm honest would prefer to just be a few revs quicker as its too slow when trying it by going along a 2ft piece of shop shelving I had. The little parvalux is only about 1/6 - 1/5hp but its so geared down it doesn't sound to be laboring much at all, but if I was to up the revs that might change, I will have to keep my eye out for a few more handy pulleys to have a play with. I have it clamped up in my "Tony BMW open source bender" as I haven't enough scrap to make a base for it yet.