Hi Roger ,

You could just fit a fine feed cluster gear in the primary drive to the QC gear box – like the one used for myfords own QC box ??

If its truly independent drive for fine feed you want then neither motor is ideal but wiper motor will be much easier to experiment with .

Quickest solution if you don’t mind spending a few pennies would be a stepper motor and very simple electronics .

Regards ,

MikeW

Hello again ,

A very simple stepper drive unit can be built based on a 555 timer chip .

Google ‘ STEPPER MOTOR DRIVER 555 ‘ and have a read through .

MikeW

Hello Roger, good evening.

Please see here **LINK** . It's a simple feeding system for a small milling machine but perhaps it has all you need for your lathe. It's made with a simple and cheap stepper driver **LINK**, a stepper motor bought from ArcEuroTrade **LINK** (ref. 160-010-00400) and some adequate power supply.

I'm just a satisfied customer from the companys referred.

Hope this helps
Dias Costa

Edited By dcosta on 02/09/2013 22:23:12

Roger,

I think 1/50th HP might risk being underpowered for the job; and, as Mike says, low voltage [*] is much safer for this sort of application.

… It's probably best to follow the earlier advice, and use either your 12volt Wiper Unit, or preferably a Stepper Motor.

Save the Bodine unit for some more appropriate project.

MichaelG.

.

[*]

Forgive me if I am stating the obvious but … Although we use 110volt AC for "safety" power tools; these use an isolating transformer, and a centre tap is taken to Earth, so the exposure risk is only 55volt AC.

By comparison 115volt DC is dangerous [especially if derived the way that Mike mentioned].

A wiper motor is quite powerful, I use one to power the table on my vertical milling machine. Its an old Lucas with wound fields. I extended the shaft that goes through the worm wheel, and fitted a sproket to fit a bit of bike chain. It's quite happy running on 17 volts, and could possibly go as high as 20 volts, or you might be able to find a 24 volt motor from a truck. Ian S C

Just for interest, I found a worm drive g/box that might well do for a power feed conversion. It's off a grass cutter, this has a clutch to drive rear wheels. The gear box is worm and wheel, about 8 to 1 and has a neat multi-plate clutch built in. The whole thing is a cast ally box about 3" cube. I think the mower was Aus. made.