Cable Pedal For Enduro Drives

[GerryR]

I put this together for a project I started for a Chinese patcher.  Probably nothing new, but it makes for a nice portable unit not having to have to setup on a bench and use the provided rods.  I used a bicycle handbrake and cable and made the adapters for the Enduro side and fabricated the foot pedal.  Works pretty well.  I thought it might give others some ideas.

[dikman]

That's a very clever design. A neat way of converting the hand lever to foot operated.

[kgg]

16 hours ago, GerryR said:

Works pretty well.  I thought it might give others some ideas.

Nicely done. Neat and tidy.

kgg

[GerryR]

It turned out that the stroke of the hand grip was perfect for the stroke of the Enduro drive speed control arm.

[chuck123wapati]

that is cool as he**!!!! where and how much was the drive unit?

[GerryR]

1 hour ago, chuck123wapati said:

that is cool as he**!!!! where and how much was the drive unit?

It is an Enduro Pro SM645B-2P drive I bought off of ebay a couple of years ago.  I bought two of them.  I have another patcher, the cast iron version,  bench mounted, using the other unit.  I recently bought this patcher off of ebay for short money and was surprised when I received it that it had an aluminum alloy frame, and the control arms were chrome plated, sort-of.  Because of its weight, I thought it would be a good candidate for a portable unit, hence another project was born.

Edited November 26, 2023 by GerryR
Added picture

[Dave9111]

 

I have an Enduro drive as well, and saw this after my table was found missing the pedal.

I welded a base bracket for a brake lever similar to the one shown in the picture.  (Mine doesn't look as nice)  I didn't add a cross bar to the end of the lever.  It works fine as is.  

If you look at the picture of side of the Enduro motor/drive unit you will see the nicely milled bracket that holds the cable.   Just to the left of that is a plastic boss.

I drilled a hole up through the plastic boss from the bottom and threaded the cable into it.   Just above that is a hole in the plastic arm.  I threaded the cable into the hole from the backside and used a screw clamp cable stop to prevent the cable from slipping back out of the hole.   Zero machining was required.   It works fine.   I have the Enduro drive on a Pfaff two thread chainstitch machine and it works great.   The brake cable/lever was a genius idea.   And the machining while nice, is not required.

I used a chunk of steel and piece of handlebar to attach the brake lever to the plate for the foot pedal.   It weighs several pounds so it tends to stay in place.

What is really great about this idea is that the pedal is moveable.  When I am sewing large panels of cloth for covers (3 - 40ft x 5ft panels in a recent project) I can sit at an angle to the machine to feed the machine and I can move the pedal to suit, which means great pedal control in just about any seat position!   How nice!  

The brake pedal idea is truly genius.  Thanks!  

 

[GerryR]

2 hours ago, Dave9111 said:

 

I have an Enduro drive as well, and saw this after my table was found missing the pedal.

I welded a base bracket for a brake lever similar to the one shown in the picture.  (Mine doesn't look as nice)  I didn't add a cross bar to the end of the lever.  It works fine as is.  

If you look at the picture of side of the Enduro motor/drive unit you will see the nicely milled bracket that holds the cable.   Just to the left of that is a plastic boss.

I drilled a hole up through the plastic boss from the bottom and threaded the cable into it.   Just above that is a hole in the plastic arm.  I threaded the cable into the hole from the backside and used a screw clamp cable stop to prevent the cable from slipping back out of the hole.   Zero machining was required.   It works fine.   I have the Enduro drive on a Pfaff two thread chainstitch machine and it works great.   The brake cable/lever was a genius idea.   And the machining while nice, is not required.

I used a chunk of steel and piece of handlebar to attach the brake lever to the plate for the foot pedal.   It weighs several pounds so it tends to stay in place.

What is really great about this idea is that the pedal is moveable.  When I am sewing large panels of cloth for covers (3 - 40ft x 5ft panels in a recent project) I can sit at an angle to the machine to feed the machine and I can move the pedal to suit, which means great pedal control in just about any seat position!   How nice!  

The brake pedal idea is truly genius.  Thanks!  

 

Could you post some pictures of your pedal and the attachment to the drive.  No machining sounds great to me!  Sometimes I can overly complicate things.  Thank you.

[Dave9111]

Here are some pictures.

The cable goes up through a small hole, slightly larger than 1/16", which was drilled up into the plastic boss.   The cable housing (black vinyl covered) simply sits up against the plastic boss.  The cable then goes into the backside of the left most hole, comes out the front and then goes into the rightmost hole. 

A screw and nut was used to clamp the cable to the plastic arm.  The screw is smaller than the hole, so both the cable and the screw fit through the hole.  I ran the loose end of the cable around to the front and tie wrapped the loose end to the arm so it wouldn't get in the way.   I think that is a 10-24 flat head screw.  

The base of the brake lever was a chunk of scrap steel I had laying around.  It wasn't heavy enough, so it skittered around the floor when my foot touched it.   I welded a chunk of 3/4" steel to the bottom plate to give it some weight.   The tape wrapped around the base was used to create some friction so it stays in place.   That is white Gorilla tape (thick duct tape).  

I did have to lubricate the cable in the cable housing at the brake lever end due to intermittent sticking.  I sprayed it with some chain and cable lubricant.  The lube got rid of the sticking issue.  

The servo motor is an Enduro unit I bought off of Ebay.  It has a needle positioner.   It says on the unit that it is setup for 220 volts, but it runs like a champ on 120 volts with no changes, other than a different plug on the cord.   It has more than sufficient power.

I have run hundreds of feet of fabric through this machine.

 

 

  

[GerryR]

Very nicely done.  I'll have to rethink my approach to maybe simplify it somewhat.  Thanks for the pictures!

[Dave9111]

This has worked very well.  When I move the machine, I hook the "pedal" brake lever on the back frame crossmember and roll it around.  I have my machines on casters.

I thought I might need to weld a cross bar on the brake lever as you did, but just using the brake pedal as is, works fine.