Budget Power Drawbar

[needleworks]

Hi guys, just a small look at a power drawbar myself and a friend knocked up at the weekend. After using a (home built) manual drawbar release for a few months, I decided I needed something that worked with a flick of a switch. I didn`t want to go down the "air operated" route because quite frankly I just hate it when a compressor fires up unanounced! So this is what we came up with.


The motor, I got from another friend, (which originally came out of his mothers threadbare recliner chair), the frame is an old fireplace lintel (from back in the day when everyone had a brick/stone fireplace in their living room) which I cut and welded to suit, the base is an offcut from a plastic fence post and the switch I had lying around. Total cost for the whole lot ----------- zero.


I have been trying it out over the past two or three days, and it has been faultless ! I never expected it to work as well as it does, it takes just less than two seconds to release the tool, and the same to pull it back in. And the huge bonus is ---- it`s silent.


This power drawbar has been fitted to my RF45 mill, which again myself and my friend converted to cnc about a year ago. Anyone thinking about a power drawbar may want to look into using one of these motors, as the power they have is unreal !! my friend actually took away the other motor to make himself a power broaching press.


Anyway, hopefully these pics will show up, apologies for the black border in a couple of the pics, I had to do that to prevent them from being rotated.

These were just after we tacked the frame together, to give it a few trial runs.









And now a few more after final welding and a coat of good old hammerite.