Swing Mill Mods

[getoverit]

I have been working on this mod for my Peterson ATS for some time, but have been hesitant to post it for various reasons. Since I know there are several others that have expressed an interest in this, I'm posting it so that others can have an idea on things that can be done to "help" with swingmills.

This all came about when I had a contract to produce dunnage, and was going through small hardwood logs in a rapid-fire manner. By the end of the day, I was worn out from having to crank the rails up and down repeatedly, mainly because they were over my head.

To solve this problem, I got the idea to add a 12 volt winch to the existing winch on each of the uprights of the Peterson ATS mill.

I started with a $50 winch rated for 2000 pounds that I bought from Harbor freight. (one winch for each head, for a total of 2 winches). I removed the spool and cable from the winches.




next, I took the splined shaft from the winch and welded one side of a lovejoy couling to it. It took a 7/8" lovejoy couling to fit the shaft, and was a little "sloppy", but I centered it as best I could before welding with a MIG welder.



This shaft fit into the splined gear on the winch head




next, I took the crank handle off of the Peterson winch and ground a small groove into it so that a loejoy coupling could be anchored to it. This took a 5/8" lovejoy coupling




I then put the cable spool holder back on to the winch and mounted it onto the Peterson winch by drilling two 1/4" holes in the end of the spool piece and also the Peterson winch head. Next I used two 1/4" bolts to hold it in place. The end of the spool piece had a hole in it that very closely matched the built up bearing on the shaft of the Peterson crank shaft. I used a dremel tool to grind out the hole in the spool piece to match the size of the bearing so that it is firmly held in place on the head of the Peterson Winch.





The 12v winch is powered by a $39 "jump starter" black and decker rechargable battery I got from Wally world. It will last all day long and then some running the winch up and down with a push of a button.





By the way, the locking mechanisim on the Peterson winch is still in place in the event I want to go back to the hand crank at any point. One of the bolts that holds the 12v winch in place is holding it out of the way so that it doesnt lock the shaft. Because the 12v winch has its own locking mechanisim, I dont need it. The 12v winch is some 460 to 1 ratio, so the movement of the head is slow enough that I can easily measure the rail up/down movement, and then locks the rail in place when the button is released. It is pin point accuate on setting the rail height and stays where I put it. I dont use the circular measuring rule decal on the head of the Peterson, but the dial hand is not impaired from moving around in a circle like it always has. For those of you that use this method for adjusting your rail height, you can still use it with this setup.

I hope this helps those of you who have expressed an interest in this project

[Corley5]

That's  8) 8) Ken.

[getoverit]

Thanks Greg!

ya know, the FUNNY thing is.....

when I bought the winches from harbor frieght, they told me they would guarantee the winches with full replacement and "no questions asked" for a full 2 years for only $9 more. I took them up on this because they have no idea what I'm doing with them :D

[Part_Timer]

Nice, very nice. 8) 8)

[jpgreen]

................HA!

THat's awesome Ken.....!  8)

[woodbowl]

Good job Ken, now that you've got the up/down at finger tip control, how are you going to modify for the:

1- Power feed
2- Power return/dragback
3- Auto swing
4- powered left/right setting ?? ?? ?? ??

Someone is going to do it ......... it may as well be you.  ;)

[getoverit]

actually, I've had my eye on a 1/2 hp garage door opener for the power feed/dragback mechanisim. The only reason I havent tried it yet is that I'm not sure if the uprights will support that much horizontal drag on them.

I do have a 6" throw pneumatic cylinder that would work on the auto swing, but then again youre talking about adding an air compressor also. I dont think I could remain too portable if I had to drag all of that along. The things I have done so far still let me be just as portable as I always have been.

[Burlkraft]

Nice work ;D

[HARLEYRIDER]

looks good.

work smart, not hard

[Snag]

Getoverit,  when I bought my WPF I opted for the electric winch at Captain recommendation.  I have only run the mill with one, so I imagine running it with the manual method would drive me nuts.  My point, or question (if I can organize a thought this morning), I would be interested to know if you sawed a couple logs of equal size, what the percentage of time saved is using the elec winch?  Anybody run a comparison?

[jpgreen]

Ken what model peterson do you have?

2 cranks or one?

[Part_Timer]

JP

GOI has an ATS and it has 2 cranks

[jpgreen]

Do you have a control for each winch?

I've got to go back and read his post closer.  Whar's the rascal anyways?..  ;D

[getoverit]

I have 2 winches... one on each side of the mill. I havent done a time comparasin yet, but I can tell you that the physical labor saved is tremendous.  There is a searate control for each of the 2 winches, but the leads on the control buttons are long enough that you can stand in one place and raise both winches at the same time.

It isnt that raising the head in the manual mode is slow or that it takes THAT much labor. The issue is that when I saw, I'm usually alone and end up tailing my own boards. Between tailing and then raising the head with the manual winch too, it can be an exhausting labor intensive project wen you are alone. By eliminating the labor needed to raise and lower the head, I have cut my labor spent on a saw day to over half.

The mill is still just as portable as it always has been and can be used in any remote area as it was before. The only power needed are small 12v bateries which are light weight and easy to tote.

[Snag]

I dont know much about the ATS, so bear with me.  The way I understand it is you have (had) 2 manual winches that when adjusted move in increments or "clicks".  With the increments it would be easy to adjust both winches exactly the same by turning each the same number of clicks.  With 2 independent elec winches, isnt there a good chance of adjusting each, even if it is ever so slight, to a different height?  I would think that if this is the case, the error could be compounded as each vertical adjustment is made.  Again, I dont know exactly how the mill operates so I am just throwing thoughts out there.  I'm sure it works great.

[getoverit]

your theory would be true if you started from the bottom of the log and sawed your way up. This isnt the case at all, and in order to lower the rails, you have to manually release the locking mechanisim (the clicker) and lower the rails. There is no clicking when you lower the rails while cutting a log, they only click on the way up, so you have to "wing" it and guess how much to lower them (individually).

when sawing a log with the ATS, it is a good idea to hae the head of the mill somewhere near level, but this isnt  a necessity. I still like to hae the rails somewhere near level, and generally you can eyeball that.  You dont have to ut a leel on it is what I'm saying... close enough is good enough.

When *I* lower the rails to make my cuts, I do it by placing a plastic cable strap around each upright... one on each side. Before I lower the rails, I move the cable tie down so it is touching the red rail support on each side. Then, I measure (with a ruler) the distance I have lowered the rails. As long as you lower the rails an equal distance on each side, the boards will remain true and accurate throughout the log.

Keep in mind that Peterson has circular calibrated scales on each of the winch heads with a pointer that moves (in a circle) with the moement of the rails. Because I am short, the scale is high on the uprights and there is a gap between the pointer and the scale, I found that I wasnt getting accurate cuts using this scale. This is why I choose to measure the rail movement with a ruler and the cable straps. By the way, the cable straps are loose enough to push up and down on the uprights, but not loose enough that they move on their own.

I gotta get a new keyboard... the letter "V" and the letter "P" doesnt always type out... if you see a typo... insert one of these letters to see what I am trying to say :D

[Snag]

I knew you would have an explanation.  I have never used the manual crank on my WPF.  I was under the impression that when you released the lock on the winch you still only lower it a set number of "clicks" or increments on the winch and the scale would tell you when you went down enough.  While discussing a couple issues with Jake he recommended that I put some washers in behind the circular scale to reduce the gap.  My scale is eye level, but reducing the gap cant hurt. 

You are welcome to come up north and design that powerfeed system on my WPF in your free time.  ;)