Tapping with electric motor ! (short video)

As many of you know I used to manufacture pneumatic tapping machines....always wanted an electric but could never find one light weight enough with enough torque....but now at last... Radial tap demo on Vimeo

Aren't lots of taps driven by electric motors?

This must be a specialty machine you are referring to as electric motors in general are 'torque kings'. Maybe it's the dedicated, compactness that makes it unique.

Milacron said:

As many of you know I used to manufacture pneumatic tapping machines....always wanted an electric but could never find one light weight enough with enough torque....but now at last... Radial tap demo on Vimeo

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Soo. what are we to really think?

That some guys... will do ANYTHING....... to brag about a lovely wife?

Yeah, we need to add a new rule about posting. Even worse than meaningless threads titles or home shop equipment posts, is showing off your tool technician.

thermite said:

Soo. what are we to really think?

That some guys... will do ANYTHING....... to brag about a lovely wife?

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LOL.. the tapping “technician” is a teenager ... perhaps new glasses are in order ?

Milacron said:

LOL.. the tapping “technician” is a teenager ... perhaps new glasses are in order ?

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So is my 23 year old Wife of 31 years. She'd be 25 save that her best friend is 2 years older and a too well known retired IBM White Plains VP, the other wedding officiators a retired Exxon VP and a retired SFO Lawster. Hong Kong's super-achiever gals do tend to get around.

ME? 20/15 bionic "fighter pilot vision" thanks to a brillant Dr. Dylan Chan.

Pity I hadn't sent ahead the other bits to either refurb or prepare for disappointment that it was only looking OUT as was like being all-new after years of near-as-dammit blindness.

Looking IN is more like seeing Dorian Gray or God's batchelor Merchant-marine Uncle in the mirror?

"A very extinguished looking gentleman!"


Now .. if she had new glasses?

She might have outrun older industrialists as would chain her to a machine bench?
Guess it is more interesting than sewing Levi's for J C Penney anyway.
High tech thing?

Sure wouldn't want to hand an "air motor" powered spindle to a teenager given their ears have ordinarily grown shut just before they reach puberty!

You could have used any 1/2 USA made Skill drill from the sixties.If you remove the gearing and the chuck and regear it to around 200 rpm ,this thing will easily break a 1/2 inch tap.These drill had welded in copper wires attached to the commutator. I still have mine. In my younger and poorer days ,I had this thing so hot many times that I could not hold on.

I tap with a Bridgeport a lot...it has an electric motor. Does that count? If it were allowed I'd get a video of one of the numerous "easy on the eye" employees tapping with it.

I liked the video, and I would assume that is your daughter...but I see the other videos and don't quite understand, as I though you liquidated all you machinery and basically retired. It looks like you're back in the game, or never totally left.

Stuart

edwin dirnbeck said:

You could have used any 1/2 USA made Skill drill from the sixties.If you remove the gearing and the chuck and regear it to around 200 rpm ,this thing will easily break a 1/2 inch tap.These drill had welded in copper wires attached to the commutator. I still have mine. In my younger and poorer days ,I had this thing so hot many times that I could not hold on.

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Heat was an issue, even the 3/8" variable-speed & torque driver/hammer/drill model.

Brilliant Red & silver body, heavy as sin, but small for its power, worth two new sets of gears until I could no longer GET them. Wrist still hurts of a weather change where driving a #14 screw into a rawl plug damaged the wrist before it snapped the screw. Best corded hand drill motor ever built!

You can tell my powered hand tools ever since.

The locking button as can get trapped under yer flesh is ripped out by the roots first time, right out of the box!

Many years ago I owned a tapper made by Ettco. It resembled a corded 3/8" pistol grip electric drill. Ir ran forward when pushed and reverse when pulled.
The idea of an electric tapper is definitely not new.

It might overheat eventually, but a modern starter motor off just about any V8 would drive a tap plenty good.

edwin dirnbeck said:

You could have used any 1/2 USA made Skill drill from the sixties.If you remove the gearing and the chuck and regear it to around 200 rpm ,this thing will easily break a 1/2 inch tap.These drill had welded in copper wires attached to the commutator. I still have mine. In my younger and poorer days ,I had this thing so hot many times that I could not hold on.

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Your NOT understanding the market, nor the application ....yet again.

Illinoyance said:

Many years ago I owned a tapper made by Ettco. It resembled a corded 3/8" pistol grip electric drill. Ir ran forward when pushed and reverse when pulled.
The idea of an electric tapper is definitely not new.

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I have limited exposure, but, the commn solutions being Procunier and Tapmatic, even down to tiny number-drill sizes common to hearing aids, and up to 2"-plus used for mining machines (driven by 5 or 8-foot ATW radials..) it has ever and always been easier to produce low-inertial mass, "instant" reversing mechanical tappers than higher mass electrical reversing.

Air actually makes more sense to me. Low rotating inertia is its middle-name.

atomarc said:

I liked the video, and I would assume that is your daughter...but I see the other videos and don't quite understand, as I though you liquidated all you machinery and basically retired. It looks like you're back in the game, or never totally left.

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I sold my building (flex spaces really) so the machinery had to go...had an auction and sold nearly everything.... But I ended up keeping one flex space (previously had 5 of them all connected) of 1,300 sq ft....just an empty space...no electricity, no office, no restroom.. nothing. A month later, wife decides she wants to quit her job...and she actually enjoys cleaning machinery (well ok, not the super grungy stuff)....so I pay $$ to "upfit" the empty space with office, restroom, power, etc and selling a few machines enough to pay what she would have earned. Can't do much in 1,300 sq ft...but working out ok so far.

(As an aside I bought a pneumatic tire diesel forklift mostly so I could keep it outside without too much rust worries...keep it outside to maximize space in the little flex space)

Illinoyance said:

The idea of an electric tapper is definitely not new.

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I guess I should have clarified I'm referring specifically to articulating arm tapping machines, which until recently have pneumatic or sometimes hydraulic in nature. The problem to solve with electric motors on that design of tapper is the physical size and weight. The Spanish company Roscamat was probably the first to introduce an electric articulating tapper a few years ago.

Milacron said:

I guess I should have clarified I'm referring specifically to articulating arm tapping machines, which until recently have pneumatic or sometimes hydraulic in nature. The problem to solve with electric motors on that design of tapper is the physical size and weight. The Spanish company Roscamat was probably the first to introduce an electric articulating tapper a few years ago.

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"It was never that hard". The mass of the motor is easily divorced.

All that was missing was better application of "cross-fertilization."

Under my hands have passed prolly STILL classified machinery for processing the output of spooky stuff, "TD" transmitter-distributors, "quarter speed" TTY commutator/distributors, most telegraph and teletype goods, the KSR and ASR TTY machines of US and UK makers, Marchant and Monroematic early daze mechanical digital "clack-you-later" noise-makers, "ADF" and high-speed film and paper printer paper-movement systems of many makes.

Plus my own design work on the first two generations of the powered paper feed for the original "Autopen" signature machine. Teletype, Skokie spares built the first generation. Kidder-Press, Division of Moore Business forms parts-bin goods built gen two.

In ALL cases, easily a hundred years before servos and steppers, the key was tiny friction clutch or pawl & dog clutches of rather astonishing reaction speed, lovely repeatability, and grand flexibility as to powering forward, braking, holding, and reversing.

Really FAST. Really CHEAP. Really DURABLE and low/no maintenace, even.

So long as the designers of those goods knew THEIR stuff - and they assuredly DID know it - I never once had to build those parts. Just FIND them, vet them, and incorporate them into the overall design.

The rest was anything from Thompson pre-keyed or Grob spline stock shafting goods, Bronze or Stainless braided cable, tensioned Bronze or Stainless ribbon-band, stock Boston Gear brass gears, or tiny Gilmer belts ordered from the likes of W.F. Berg or PIC design.

Heavy-arse motor - I was overly fond of Bodine "torque" motors, usually in a matched pair to control tension as well as movement - sat where they had to be sat.

Powertrain did the rest.

Film or paper got moved, scanned, signed, or printed. The invoices were paid.

Same s**t, different project, no real "inventing" to it.

Mechanical kingdom counterpart to software industry "systems integration".
Which, as happens at the time, paid much better, so that was next!

As said... it was never "new" nor hard, either one.
See "player piano", "gross motion" telco switch, or "music-box" programmable electrical switchgear.

"The usual suspects" are very rarely technological barriers.
"Money" rather.

Somebody just had to "want-to" badly enough to fund it and soon done.

Humans can invent the damndest of gadgets if they MUST do .. so they can return to the prime directives of eating, drinking, sleeping, engaging in "head games" with their fellow man.

And creative shagging. Real, imaginary, or all twelve in various combinations, probabilities, and pervutations..