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Simple homemade setworks

Started by hackberry jake, January 16, 2013, 02:24:32 PM

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hackberry jake

I have been pondering about setworks. There are dozens of different approaches one could take. I would like accuracy to at least 1/8" if not 1/16". 1.) You could put a prox sensor reading a gear. It would count the gear teeth and you would know how far it has traveled.
2.) use a stepper or servo motor for precise movement. This would require a pc or interface of some sort.
3.) they have linear actuators with sensors built into them.
4.) maybe just a dc gear motor with a nanny cam pointing at the scale so you can adjust it manually but from the control area.

Any thoughts or other reccomendations?
https://www.facebook.com/TripleTreeWoodworks

EZ Boardwalk Jr. With 20hp Honda, 25' of track, and homemade setworks. 32x18 sawshed. 24x40 insulated shop. 30hp kubota with fel. 1978 Massey ferguson 230.

Magicman

My '98 WM SetWorks uses a gear driven sending unit traveling on the up/down chain.  As the head moves down it turns and sends it's signal to the console unit.
Knothole Sawmill, LLC     '98 Wood-Mizer LT40SuperHydraulic   WM Million BF Club Member   WM Pro Sawyer Network

It's Weird being the Same Age as Old People

Never allow your "need" to make money to exceed your "desire" to provide quality service.....The Magicman

pri0ritize

I've actually put a good deal of thought into how to build a setworks. I think it would be fairly trivial. You could buy a servo and drive for $200ish and then pickup a microcontroller development kit to perform the control functionality as well as the interface. That might set you back $100ish. This would give you as much flexibility as you wanted and could store hundreds of measurements. With the right programming you could even have a level off of the bed like the Accuset 2 has. You'd then need a power supply or some way of getting the required voltage to the motors but they run pretty cheap. If you're interested in a few good websites for automation parts let me know and I can PM them to you. I've built a couple of CNC machines as a hobby. Wish I could get back to it but building my house has been taking all my time!
2012 LT40HD
Random Stihl Chainsaws and more woodworking equipment than I care to inventory!

hackberry jake

Mm, is the "sending unit" a potentiometer? And I am assuming it uses a 12 or 24 volt dc motor to raise and lower?
https://www.facebook.com/TripleTreeWoodworks

EZ Boardwalk Jr. With 20hp Honda, 25' of track, and homemade setworks. 32x18 sawshed. 24x40 insulated shop. 30hp kubota with fel. 1978 Massey ferguson 230.

Magicman

WM calls it an "encoder" assembly part #016060.  (probably MD and unavailable)  There is no schematic, so I have no idea what the electrical symbol would look like.  One of the WM guys probably would know.
Knothole Sawmill, LLC     '98 Wood-Mizer LT40SuperHydraulic   WM Million BF Club Member   WM Pro Sawyer Network

It's Weird being the Same Age as Old People

Never allow your "need" to make money to exceed your "desire" to provide quality service.....The Magicman

pineywoods

Jake, I have done more than a little "engineering analysis" on the subject. Some time back, member shaworth did a bunch of development work and started a thread on the subject. Haven't heard from him in quite a while. His would be adaptable to just about any bandmill that uses a 12 DC motor for head up/down. I really need it, as my mill has a remote console but no setworks. Member slysam,who is just a few miles from me, just bought an lt40 manual with the wm simple setworks package. It's quite different from the accuset option. Looks like it could be adapted to my mill fairly easily. Building setworks from scratch.... Servo motors or stepper motors big enough to handle a 300 lb sawhead ain't gonna be cheap. Most logical solution to me would be an older laptop pc with a couple of hall effect pickups next to something that rotates, driving the input lines on the serial port. There's 8 output pins on the old parallel printer port. Use a couple of them to drive some big mosfets between the control head and the up/down motor. I'm thinking all the software could be done in the basic language that's already there on most old laptops.  That, I think I could do, BUT, there's just too many other projects..and not enough days. That don't mean I' not still interested.. ;D
1995 Wood Mizer LT 40, Liquid cooled kawasaki,homebuilt hydraulics. Homebuilt solar dry kiln.  Woodmaster 718 planner, Kubota M4700 with homemade forks and winch, stihl  028, 029, Ms390
100k bd ft club.Charter member of The Grumpy old Men

Hilltop366

Seems to me there was a thread about this a while back, if I recall someone suggested using a digital measuring tape to get a digital readout if that is what you are looking for and not something that controls the head height.

I did a search wondering if a measuring wheel could be adapted but the ones I looked at displayed in larger increments, my idea was that the wheel size could be changed to fool the display and use the read out to count fractions, however this might get confusing, ( there are mini measuring wheels for blue prints)

So i looked some more for something ready made and found a table saw digital fence readout for $99.00, not sure if it would work for you but I will pass it along.

http://www.wixey.com/fence/index.html

Hilltop366

Also noticed that the Wixey readouts can be switched back and forth between Incremental measuring mode and Absolute measuring mode which I think would be very handy for going from distance from log deck to distance from last cut.

I sure there has to be a down fall to this it seems too easy.

hamish

Looks that easy and can easily be re-calibrated also.............

Thanks for the link!
Norwood ML26, Jonsered 2152, Husqvarna 353, 346,555,372,576

pri0ritize

Pineywoods has the right idea, but I think he's going much too low level. I just looked up the prices and a more than adequate servo motor can had for $149 brand new and the drive costs $111. Rotary encoders are about $5-$15 dollars. Hall effect sensors would do the job but it wouldn't offer you near the resolution if you were only going to use two of them. A microcontroller development kit that would have enough GPIO's to control the drive would run you around $29 or so from Atmel. You'd need a pulley or two and a power supply for the servo still. If you had an old PC and wanted to forgo the MCU you can interface directly with the servo drive through a parallel port and you can get a free software package to control all of it (EMC2).
2012 LT40HD
Random Stihl Chainsaws and more woodworking equipment than I care to inventory!

Al_Smith

The most simple set woods I ever saw was one JWoods had on a small bandsaw that uses a ratchet pawl on a link chain .Each click was 1/4".

hackberry jake

I thought about the ratchet idea too. Cept I was thinking about using a solenoid for it and I don't know how I would switch between ratchet up and ratchet down. I would probably want 1/8" clicks
https://www.facebook.com/TripleTreeWoodworks

EZ Boardwalk Jr. With 20hp Honda, 25' of track, and homemade setworks. 32x18 sawshed. 24x40 insulated shop. 30hp kubota with fel. 1978 Massey ferguson 230.

shelbycharger400

Ever thought bout using a newer car wheel bearing/hub and the wheel speed sensor  in the drive assembly?    Could pick one up at the bone yard fairly cheap I imagine. 

hackberry jake

I am leaning toward the camera on the scale idea. You can get a cheap survelence camera system for around $100. I have seen em in action and once you get about 20 yards away you can't make out a ford from a Chevy, but right next to the scale you should be able to see it just fine. And they also usually come with 4 or so cameras. I could put the other 3 around the mill just to keep honest people honest. Probably get a dc motor with plenty of gear reduction (actually think I have one already) so that it doesn't want to overshoot the mark all the time. I would already have hydraulic feed on my mill if it weren't for having to raise the head to bring it back. Maybe I should just suck it up and run the dang thing instead of trying to engineer more laziness into it.   ;D
https://www.facebook.com/TripleTreeWoodworks

EZ Boardwalk Jr. With 20hp Honda, 25' of track, and homemade setworks. 32x18 sawshed. 24x40 insulated shop. 30hp kubota with fel. 1978 Massey ferguson 230.

Al_Smith

You could make it as complex as your imagination could take you .A simple gear with a prox switch coupled to a little PC like micro 984 Modicon coupled to a relay output could drive a DC motor if you wanted to go that extreme .

You program a register in the PC to count teeth from the prox switch .

The possibilties are unlimited .You could use a ratcheting relay from an old sports score board if you could find one .Set the amount of clicks you want and it stops ,saw away .

If a person had about a 20 acre junk yard this stuff would be simple .

hackberry jake

Quote from: Al_Smith on January 16, 2013, 09:41:41 PM

If a person had about a 20 acre junk yard this stuff would be simple .
r

20 acres of old industrial junk and retired so I had all the time in the world to tinker. Sounds like heaven to me. I think that should be your new tag line Al.
https://www.facebook.com/TripleTreeWoodworks

EZ Boardwalk Jr. With 20hp Honda, 25' of track, and homemade setworks. 32x18 sawshed. 24x40 insulated shop. 30hp kubota with fel. 1978 Massey ferguson 230.

Al_Smith

It boils down to you know what could work if you could just find it .

I kind of share your concern but in my case it's most likely going to be 700 pounds of saw head to raise with a Wisconsin 4 .Mine is still in the brain storming  mode .

There must be a zillion methods .Like with rods it's so many turns like 8 threads per inch or what ever .With a link chain it's so many links or using a gear reduction so many turns .

I'm toying with the idea of using hydraulics just haven't figured out yet how to make it semi automatic .You could lift the saw head with a valve and use a bleed down with a needle valve but you 'd be hard pressed to get it right on the money every time .Might be close enough though for rough sawn .Finished lumber you run though a planer any way .

What rough sawn stuff I have right now was all done on a Woodmizer and it's pretty close but it's not all exact like within 25 thou but it's lumber not finished tool steel .The time I run it through the planer it's about as exact as it's ever going to be .

hackberry jake

The boardwalk jr has a garage door spring that lifts most of the weight of the saw head. With a gear reduction it wouldn't take much torque to raise and lower the head. I am convinced that a stepper could easily raise and lower it, but my sawmill isn't exactly the best environment for delicate electronics and pc's.
https://www.facebook.com/TripleTreeWoodworks

EZ Boardwalk Jr. With 20hp Honda, 25' of track, and homemade setworks. 32x18 sawshed. 24x40 insulated shop. 30hp kubota with fel. 1978 Massey ferguson 230.

hackberry jake

An air cylinder hooked to the handle of a craftsman ratchet. Cycle the air cylinder back and forth and whalla! Have a little electronic solenoid hooked to the switch on the ratchet for up or down. I may be related to rube Goldberg.

Edit: I guess if you had little baby hydraulic cylinders, they would probably be more responsive and predictable.
https://www.facebook.com/TripleTreeWoodworks

EZ Boardwalk Jr. With 20hp Honda, 25' of track, and homemade setworks. 32x18 sawshed. 24x40 insulated shop. 30hp kubota with fel. 1978 Massey ferguson 230.

bandmiller2

Curse me if you'd like Jake, but your building problems into your mill with that electronic crapola, and over complicating a simple operation.What would be nice is a simple mechanical ratchet to drop a inch and power to lift the sawhead. Frank C.
A man armed with common sense is packing a big piece

Hilltop366

Quote from: hackberry jake on January 16, 2013, 09:10:12 PM
I would already have hydraulic feed on my mill if it weren't for having to raise the head to bring it back. Maybe I should just suck it up and run the dang thing instead of trying to engineer more laziness into it.   ;D

Perhaps that would be a good place to start, a feed and way to raise the saw head for the return, that way the saw head lift would not have to be very accurate, after the saw has returned you could lower the blade and fine adjust with the hand wheel.

Speaking of junk yards, what about power steering?

Al_Smith

A power steering pump would have enough pressure if the cylinder were large enough .It wouldn't be very fast though .

It would just boil down to what a person could find as to what you could come up with .Hydraulics if you could find a decell valve from a machine tool you could make it fast as lightning  .You'd just have to figure a way to index it .

Thinking out loud a person could probabley finnagle a way to use a link chain with tabs or reduced by ratio using a secondary loop with tabs to operate the decell .Say one to one ratio maybe 1/4" per index and with 2 to 1 it would be 1/8" per index .

I don't know but those ratchet set works they use on old circle saws did a pretty good job without all the big ado .

Technoligy might be good if a person were production minded but a simple old flat land farmer type like myself just wants to cut fairly accurate with out all the fuss and ado .KISS --Keep -It Simple --Stupid . ;D

rs1626

My mill is hydraulic  with a hyd. motor turning chains to raise and lower head that is controlled by a 12v valve I bought a plc and a 12v encoder but have not had time to
figure out the ladder logic for the plc   I have put a flow control with another sol. valve that makes a hi and lo speed for the head travel hope to get some time soon to figure it all out not enough hours in the day

Jay C. White Cloud

Hi Jake,

This has been a great read, I love all the ideas. I'm not as "engineer minded," I believe, as many of you folks, and as fare as the electrical components, well most of you have left me in the dust.  Frank C. probably has a good point, about keeping it as simple as possible.  I loved all the ideas, don't get me wrong but it's begging to be asked, with the kind of work I have put all my mills through over the years, it seems the more there is to them, the more to break.  Calibrating is a real serious part of most of these systems, or em I missing something there?  I also wonder about vibration/temperature extremes effecting the electronics?  I am enjoying everyone's creativity on this, something good will come of it I'm sure.

Regards,  jay
"To posses an open mind, is to hold a key to many doors, and the ability to created doors where there were none before."

"When it is all said and done, they will have said they did it themselves."-teams response under a good leader.

Al_Smith

I make my living working on industrial high speed CNC metal working machinery and robotics .The stuff can cut tollerences in the microns .When it works it's great but when if falters it can take hours to get to the cause of the failure .

Now a sawmill by it's very nature is a hostile environment for any electronic type of control .You've got the elements of nature not to mention the dust etc .to deal with .

Certainly perhaps on a big multi millon dollar west cost mill this method has made them millions in just speed and salvaging the most product from rough stock .How practical would it be though for 95 percent of the posters on this forum  is the question .

Hilltop366

Quote from: hamish on January 16, 2013, 06:46:49 PM
Looks that easy and can easily be re-calibrated also.............

Thanks for the link!

Looking back at the link for the digital readout, one of the problems would be setting zero on a sawmill because the blade would have to go to the log deck but the readout for the planer is made to be set to a planed thickness which I think would work much better, a longer sensor strip than the one that would come with it would be required. Not sure if the system would hold up to a sawmill environment.

Quote from: Al_Smith on January 17, 2013, 08:54:06 AM
A power steering pump would have enough pressure if the cylinder were large enough .It wouldn't be very fast though .


I was thinking that using the existing lift system and using a hyd motor to turn it would not require a lot of power, after watching a youtube of the Ez Jr mill it looks like little effort is required to turn the lift because of the spring pre-load. However if going through the trouble to add a pump it would make sense that it could run the feed as well.

hackberry jake

I already have a pump for the turner/clamp and backstops. I also have a hydraulic motor and enough chain to build the hydraulic feed. I just don't know about hydraulic for precise positioning. Electric would seem to be easier in the sensor/switch regard.
https://www.facebook.com/TripleTreeWoodworks

EZ Boardwalk Jr. With 20hp Honda, 25' of track, and homemade setworks. 32x18 sawshed. 24x40 insulated shop. 30hp kubota with fel. 1978 Massey ferguson 230.

rs1626

Jake if you build it with a hi- lo speed hyd. you can get close in hi speed switch to lo  Cooks do it that way there set works is a plc that gets close in hi speed than switchs to lo to creep up on setting

bandmiller2

Jake,I described this somewhere in the past.I have used my homebuilt bandmill for 12 yrs. with complete satisfaction using hydraulics.My sawhead up and down uses a good hyd. cylinder and wire cable,a pointer on a yardstick.You can feather a spool valve easily lowering it to your desired mark with 1/16" accuracy.Finish the cut and it raises the head quick and easy,engine weight is no problem.Cables are 3/8"and easily adjustable with a nut on the end of an eyebolt,use a new cylinder and settling is no problem.For feed I used a hyd. motor and needle valve to control speed plus it has full speed gigback.You want a pump a little bigger than a power steering pump,although one out of a large truck would be fine. Frank C.
A man armed with common sense is packing a big piece

pyrocasto

My mill is gas powered with electric drive and head raise/lower, homemade. I will be doing an arduino enterface on it soon where it will cut through the log, raise up, and come back. That way while it's working you can dealing with the last board or scraps. I dont care to have vertical measuring just yet, as I vary how thick I cut a lot depending on species, width, and end use. Staying away from steppers and just using some sensors makes things easier, and cheaper. But steppers are definitely ideal.

pri0ritize

Steppers have the inherent downside of having no feedback. If for some reason you lose a step you'll have no way of knowing if it happened. Servos are ideal, but slightly more difficult and expensive to implement. Woodmizers setworks seems to use an optical encoder on a DC motor. The pulley on my WM has quite a few holes and I'm fairly certain their scheme is to count those to determine the amount the pulley has turned.

2012 LT40HD
Random Stihl Chainsaws and more woodworking equipment than I care to inventory!

Al_Smith

There have been some great ideas but in just general conversation it appears most or a majority of the bandsaw crowd run commercially built high quality machines on this site 

Now a little tip of which I will not provide a link simpley because it would get deleted more than likely .However if a person where to do a Google on the subject of home built  bandsaws there are several souces of information .

One site for example is totally about do it yourself machines with a few members who frequent this site as a matter of fact .

A little trip around the net can yield a zillion methods of makng setworks ,power travel and just about anything you can imagine concerning methods ,what "junk parts " to use .Including commercialy available parts from some sponsers on this very site .

Although not mentioned by the OP one of the neatest methods of power feed I ever heard of was using the travel motors from a power wheel chair which can be found on flea bay often rather inexpensively including the controls for same .

Al_Smith

 :D I get intigued over making stuff from recycled junk and a thought occured to me on this little project .

What if a person used a double set of recoil tension springs from a big roll up door ? They'd have to be wound the same direction and chained with roller chain beause you would not have enough room on a saw carriage to hang the duel springs of a 16 foot roll up door 12-14 feet high on a common shaft like a door .

Unlike the actual usage as in effect "balancers "on a door the springs would gain more tension the closer they were to the saws bed plate level .If they were set up correctly instead of lifting  the saw head you would effectively be pulling it down through the progression of sawing a log for thickness .

There's possibilites here .For example even  the smaller springs on a common 9 foot garage door might work if the lift mechanism used a two to one reduction .Spring wound for 7 foot but effectively only lifting about 4 feet .

No hydraulics ,no super duper encoder with a PLC .Just plain physics with springs ,roller chain and a rachet pawl .Might work !

bandmiller2

Almost anything can be made to work to raise and lower the saw head.Some just use a pipe with a crank handle and wire cables with a sprocket and pawl to hold position and gauge say each tooth 1/4"Its nice to have power lift.I do think some down weight makes for a more stable sawhead. A small hydraulic winch with a spool valve would work well. I would run a cable through an overhead door spring to cage it in case of breakage if they twang their violent. Frank C.
A man armed with common sense is packing a big piece

Al_Smith

Well yeah on a extension  spring that pot licker could knock your head off .A wind up spring  on a shaft won't go anywhere if it breaks .

My shop has 3 16 wide 14 feet high doors that have double springs about 4-5 feet long and 6 inches in diameter .They rate the things as per load per coil figuring in the diameter and what size the spring wire is as well as the drum size on a cable lift .Exactly how it's figured I have no clue ,yet .

Most use a one size drum but some get rather complex using concentric drums which can change the mechanical advantage as the door climbs .It compensates for the spring loosing tension at higher elevations on a straight vertical lift type door .
On a standard vertical lift to horizintal transition as the door goes up the weight actually becomes less as it transitions to the horizontal portion of the track .

snafu3636

Just food for thought.. What about a digital ruler with a  magnetic remote readout (dro). Just for the accurate measuring part ?

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