Changing pulley on a Family Sew motor

[mcdoug]

I have a Family Sew 550 that came with a 75mm pulley, and I need to change it to a 50mm. I have a pulley that should fit, but it's really very tight and won't easily slide on. I don't want to force it for fear of breaking. Is there some trick to getting these pulleys on the motor shaft?

Thanks,

Doug M

[kgg]

9 minutes ago, mcdoug said:

have a pulley that should fit, but it's really very tight and won't easily slide on. I don't want to force it for fear of breaking. Is there some trick to getting these pulleys on the motor shaft?

Mic the size of the shaft and the size of the hole in the pulley. Could be that the shaft is metric and the pulley is english. Like your 50mm pulley is .8mm smaller then 2 " but most would consider the 50mm to be a 2 " pulley. Maybe try dremel tooling the hole in the pulley a little larger.

kgg

[JJN]

I bought four 50mm pulleys on ebay that were shipped from China. The total was $9.28 for all four including shipping. I didn't expect much, but they were decent quality and very usable. The problem was they were too tight on the motor shaft like you are describing with yours. The hole was cast on these pulleys, not finished with a drill. We chucked the pulleys in a lathe and ran a boring bar through them to clean them up. They work perfect now. I think a drill on a drill press would work good too. Measure your motor shaft with a caliper and get a drill bit to match.

[mcdoug]

Thanks guys! I don't have a lathe or a drill press, but I do have a dremel and a sanding drum. I'll give the dremel a try. When I mic the shaft and the pulley, the pulley is about .5mm too small. Shouldn't take much to work.

Doug M

[Wizcrafts]

Bore out the hole in the pulley with a bit that is the closest good fit. You will need to use a caliper to figure out if you need SAE or Metric to get it to fit. That's what our dealers do when they sell you a Family Sew motor with the 50mm pulley already on it. Of course, they have special drill bits that bore an exact diameter to fit on the motor shaft.

You could have saved all this running around if you bought the motor with the 50mm pulley installed from our dealers.

[Pintodeluxe]

The 45mm pulleys I got off eBay were about 2 bucks each, and fit the Rex / Family servo just right.

If it's not easy to modify, just order another pulley.

Good luck.

[DrmCa]

If you fit pulleys to shafts often, look for a set of adjustable reamers, but stay away from the soft made in China or India fakes.

I bought one of those fakes from KBC Tools in Mississauga, Canada, to compliment an incomplete Made in the UK set I had, and the the square shank twisted as soon as I started rimming. Returned it and the salesman said yes, we know... Why sell them then?

[CowboyBob]

22 hours ago, Wizcrafts said:

Bore out the hole in the pulley with a bit that is the closest good fit. You will need to use a caliper to figure out if you need SAE or Metric to get it to fit. That's what our dealers do when they sell you a Family Sew motor with the 50mm pulley already on it. Of course, they have special drill bits that bore an exact diameter to fit on the motor shaft.

You could have saved all this running around if you bought the motor with the 50mm pulley installed from our dealers.

We don't have any problems with the pulleys fitting,we order them with the small pulley.

[jrjr2u]

What is the shaft size on the Familysew motors?

 

[CowboyBob]

19 hours ago, jrjr2u said:

What is the shaft size on the Familysew motors?

 

14mm

[kgg]

23 minutes ago, CowboyBob said:

14mm

For those who are not metric 14mm is .2875 mm smaller then 9/16 inch.

kgg

[mikesc]

Or..14MM = 35/64 ths of an inch...metric is so simple compared to fractions.

[kgg]

not really but close enough:

35/64 ths =.546875 inches while 14mm=.551181 inches

[SARK9]

The decimal inch, divided into a million parts, was so simple before the political expedience of the metric overlords. No really, decimal is decimal. This is the penalty we all must endure as a concession for preferring Greenwich for the location of the Prime Meridian. 

The real fun begins when we start trying to get us peasants to relate to SI time, and reveal the rubbish one must endure when attempting to name these new *units of time* something which can successfully describe a naturally variable seasonal cycle. 10 month year vs. lunar cycle, etc. Nature is so inconvenient. I find myself armed with the numbers .03937 and 25.4 in the calculator memory and go on down the road.

*ON TOPIC NOTE:*  The Consew motors have a shaft diameter of 15mm., or 0.59055",  which 19/32nds (0.59375")approximates for all practical sewing needs. Pedants can take full advantage of the "decimal sized" reamers offered by most industrial supply houses. I make all my own pulleys to suit, and lathe bore them with miniature boring bars. Concentricity, you know.

 

-DC

Edited June 9, 2019 by SARK9

[mikesc]

The decimal inch was indeed simple enough, but it comes with that attached "baggage" of the 12 inches to a foot , 3 feet to a yard..and 660 feet, 220 yards, 40 rods, or 10 chains to a furlong..and 8 furlongs to a mile..

I learned ( and had to calculate in both at school..long division and algebra ( all kinds ) in "imperial measures" ) can think and work in both..but prefer metric..for all the sensible logical reasons..

For people on the right hand side of the pond..the "Jack" servo motors sold by College Sewing..also had 13mm shafts..which can make getting pulleys "off the shelf" that fit a bit awkward..I say had, because nowadays I get mine from china and they come with 15mm, maybe the later, more recent Jack ones do too, or not ?

Old thread ( one of many ) on the subject of Servo motors..There are many many, more on pulley speed reducer systems ( bought and self made ) ..and "tuning" Servo motors..

https://leatherworker.net/forum/topic/67110-will-the-150-chinese-servo-motors-from-ebay-work-on-an-old-adler-68/

note..I'm jealous of people who have lathes..I must build a bigger atelier ..I sorely miss my old one, which was big enough to fit all the 9 houses in my cul-de sac lane here in..

Edited June 9, 2019 by Wizcrafts
Fixed link by editing the source code

[kgg]

The accuracy of either Imperial or Metric are equal. It only becomes a problem when trying to go from one system to another as it is near impossible. I like the Imperial system and to this day hate, hate, hate the Metric system. When Canada "seen the light" and went Metric all the construction designs were done in Imperial and then just converted to Metric. It was bad enough having to contend with US Gallon (3.8 litres) being less by about 20 percent then the Imperial Gallon (4.54litres). To this day I have to convert in my head what things are in Imperial to get a sense of size/speed/distance/weight particularly at the supermarket where say meat is priced by the pound and sold in Kilo's. Confusing, maybe just me.

kgg

[mikesc]

The problem with Imperial,is that it is inconsistent, it changes it's base multiplier or divider depending on "the size"..or "the thing"..

1000 thou' per inch..or 8 eighths or ( "this many" "whatevers" per inch ) ... and then it changes again when going from (12 )inches to a foot ,and again when it goes from feet ( 3 ) to a yard ( 220 ) yards to a furlong, not to mention (40 ) rods per furlong..( which means that a rod is 5 and half yards..or 16 and half feet , or 198 inches ).. and 1760 yards per mile..No logical progression at all, measurements that do not relate to each other by any common denominator..apart from that of one inch ( which used* to be based upon an "average" man's thumb from the joint to the tip..Mine ( because I'm big..is one and one half inches ), someone else's measurement there is different again..

Btw..Both the USA and Canada use currencies which ( no-one living in those "non metric" countries has any problem with :) ) are divided by 100..and neither has 12 dollar bills, or 36 dollar bills etc..The attachment to "imperial" is just that, an attachment to a measuring system imposed by the British Empire..and even the British currency went metric ( I grew up with their old guineas, pounds, crowns , half-crowns, two shilling pieces, shillings, sixpence, three penny bits, pennies, halfpennies, farthings etc ...nightmare for most people to "make change" without a piece of paper and a pencil to calculate it, and even then getting "short changed" was an every day occurrence, which many did not do deliberately, nor notice if they were on the receiving end, unless their mental arithmetic ability was above that of the average person ) ..The weights and volumes were on different bases again..and as you note, the gallon varies depending on where you are..

Metric base 10 ) is consistent , easy to calculate, and the same base is used for currency, weight, volume, everything, only one thing for children to learn..how to divide or multiply by 10..

*People are getting bigger with each generation , in all countries, due to better overall nutrition, more food, imperial is even less relevant to current humans than it was before, where not all people in all countries were of equal size, they still are not..

Europe is entirely metric..and is a bigger market than North America, so change to being supplied in metric will happen..even if as a result of Brexit the UK were to revert to imperial, the numbers are in favour of metric worldwide..even India is moving steadily towards metric, they currently use both, what they manufacture marked in inches and metric sizes, like plumbing supplies is primarily for the USA market..China and Russia are already using metric , again they manufacture and mark some things in imperial "equivalents" for the USA ..

You'd avoid all these "shims" and "reaming out to fit" and "adjusting" if everyone went metric..your money already is.. :)

Edited June 9, 2019 by mikesc

[dikman]

Mike, that link goes to "example domain". Your French keyboard giving you problems again?

[mikesc]

After I posted it..Tom fixed it..( apparently it wasn't working when I initially posted it..I hadn't noticed ) I haven't touched, nor tried it since, Tom's edit..
But ..here it is again..working and tested ..


https://leatherworker.net/forum/topic/67110-will-the-150-chinese-servo-motors-from-ebay-work-on-an-old-adler-68/


It's not the keyboard* that gives me problems with links and other HTML code :) ..it is that I have to add the HTML link code and any other HTML code like quotes manually,..You, if you are logged in can do it by clicking.. But if I log in , the site here crashes my browser FF after a short time because it uses "push scripts" that my tweaked browser rejects..when it does the scripts repeat until I get a crash..I could fix it at my end, but I'd have to recode some add ons that I use ( in particular some that I wrote ) , and it isn't a priority ATM..My add ons ( and those of many other devs, some of which I also use ) won't work on new Firefox ( which uses the same system as Chrome and Edge ) ..I ( and many others ) prefer to keep my ( our ) system(s) secure and "tweakable" than to have it ( them ) running the new "locked down" Googly tainted Firefox..It makes FF as vulnerable as Chrome or Edge to the same exploits written to attack their now shared add on system..

* The keyboard , and running a hybrid French English Linux system which thinks some words are incorrectly spelled gives me more typos that I have to correct..as you have noticed :)

I noticed Wiz posted whilst I was typing ..thanks Wiz :)..my edit window on my original post was long past when I read dikman's post..

Edited June 9, 2019 by mikesc

[Wizcrafts]

I edited the actual source code and fixed the link. It's an HTML thang.

[mikesc]

Just a test ..

https://leatherworker.net/forum/topic/67110-will-the-150-chinese-servo-motors-from-ebay-work-on-an-old-adler-68/

OK tested..it seems happier if I leave out the "external nofollow"..which normally , when I link on my own sites , I would never use nofollows, I only include them here because most of the links in source code that I've seen here have had them nofollowed ..( apparently the IPS board software rewrites them that way ) ..so..I thought when adding HTML tags by hand.."when in Rome"..But checking your edit to the source code..and my link in my last post..the external nofollow is not present, even though I included it..So possibly on links within the same site it gets stripped, or maybe there has been a "silent upgrade" that strips it..

Either way I'll leave it off in future..and try to remember to test my posted links..

The "nested and re-nested quote" divs that the board software puts in each time I edit a post are the ones that catch me out unless I anticipate and strip them.. :)

Now..back to pulleys and speed reducers ( I make my own speed reducers with combinations of bearings , shafts and "bought" pulleys at 5:1 ) ..making pulleys I'd need a lathe, and space for a lathe for.. :(

Edited June 9, 2019 by mikesc

[SolarLeatherMachines]

On 6/9/2019 at 11:42 AM, mikesc said:

The problem with Imperial,is that it is inconsistent, it changes it's base multiplier or divider depending on "the size"..or "the thing"..

1000 thou' per inch..or 8 eighths or ( "this many" "whatevers" per inch ) ... and then it changes again when going from (12 )inches to a foot ,and again when it goes from feet ( 3 ) to a yard ( 220 ) yards to a furlong, not to mention (40 ) rods per furlong..( which means that a rod is 5 and half yards..or 16 and half feet , or 198 inches ).. and 1760 yards per mile..No logical progression at all, measurements that do not relate to each other by any common denominator..apart from that of one inch ( which used* to be based upon an "average" man's thumb from the joint to the tip..Mine ( because I'm big..is one and one half inches ), someone else's measurement there is different again..

Btw..Both the USA and Canada use currencies which ( no-one living in those "non metric" countries has any problem with ) are divided by 100..and neither has 12 dollar bills, or 36 dollar bills etc..The attachment to "imperial" is just that, an attachment to a measuring system imposed by the British Empire..and even the British currency went metric ( I grew up with their old guineas, pounds, crowns , half-crowns, two shilling pieces, shillings, sixpence, three penny bits, pennies, halfpennies, farthings etc ...nightmare for most people to "make change" without a piece of paper and a pencil to calculate it, and even then getting "short changed" was an every day occurrence, which many did not do deliberately, nor notice if they were on the receiving end, unless their mental arithmetic ability was above that of the average person ) ..The weights and volumes were on different bases again..and as you note, the gallon varies depending on where you are..

Metric base 10 ) is consistent , easy to calculate, and the same base is used for currency, weight, volume, everything, only one thing for children to learn..how to divide or multiply by 10..

*People are getting bigger with each generation , in all countries, due to better overall nutrition, more food, imperial is even less relevant to current humans than it was before, where not all people in all countries were of equal size, they still are not..

Europe is entirely metric..and is a bigger market than North America, so change to being supplied in metric will happen..even if as a result of Brexit the UK were to revert to imperial, the numbers are in favour of metric worldwide..even India is moving steadily towards metric, they currently use both, what they manufacture marked in inches and metric sizes, like plumbing supplies is primarily for the USA market..China and Russia are already using metric , again they manufacture and mark some things in imperial "equivalents" for the USA ..

You'd avoid all these "shims" and "reaming out to fit" and "adjusting" if everyone went metric..your money already is..

Yah.  I've worked for over a dozen years as an aerospace design engineer for Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon, Triumph, etc.  I'm fluent in both systems, and can attest that the metric system is easier in all calculations.  Americans don't like it because we generally have no point of reference, i.e. we don't know what 30 centimeters look like, but we know what a foot length is.   Especially when working on machines, I prefer metric.  The metric system for fasteners is vastly easier, provided you have the tools.  most people don't have a full set of metric tools and that causes issues.  The USA will change over to the metric. It's already happening.  The most important industries (robotics, medical, automotive) are now mostly metric.  Another generation, and it will be full adopted.  

[DrmCa]

Imperial or metric really makes no difference for CNC but if you have a manual lathe, it does one or another but not both.

Imperial fractional wrenches and socket heads are very straightforward: they either do not fit over the bolt head, or spin freely. With metric sockets it might feel like you got an 11mm bolt, but in reality it is 10mm and you have to test 2 sockets, or you are rounding it. I hate metric bolt heads even though I was born and received my engineering degree in Europe.

Standard metric M threads are finer than standard fractional imperial threads. Each has its own uses. Imperial thread as fine as the standard metric thread requires a non-standard hard to obtain tap or die.

US and Canada should stay with imperial and Europe should stay with metric. Says a European expatriot.

[mikesc]

Europe being a bigger market, the Chinese and the Indians ( who Europe, the USA, Canada? Australia , New Zealand, Africa, South America, Russia, Polynesia etc etc * ) get most of their manufactured goods from, will eventually make all metric..The reason an 11mm will fit over a 10 mm and "confuse" is because metric nuts and bolts "increment" in smaller "jumps" ( millimetres ) than imperial nuts and bolts..which tend to go up in "eighths"..which are each around three times bigger than a millimetre..I have tools for all kinds of systems ( comes from owning old classic and vintage motorcycles and cars )..one can never have too many tools :)

Could be worse..

Singer threads, nuts, bolts and screws..

* Some states, regions and countries left out for brevity..

Edited June 10, 2019 by mikesc

[Northmount]

3 minutes ago, mikesc said:

Singer threads, nuts, bolts and screws

Off the main topic:

I worked in a electric utility plant.  We had 2 steam turbine generators built by Parsons (UK).  One was purchased and installed before WWII.  The other was purchased and installed post war.  Both were the same capacity, but the threads were different for each unit.  So had to have 2 sets of common parts, and 2 sets of wrenches.  Couldn't even have common British/Imperial units!

I inherited a set of taps and dies.  Didn't notice at first that they were Witworth threads instead of our common NC of NF Imperial measures.  Messed up a number of bolts and threaded rod!

Tom