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Unimat Soft Start

 

My wife was telling me about her Kitchen Aid mixer having the ¡°Soft Start¡± feature.
Then a thought occurred to me! After re-motoring my Unimats. I now have the¡° Soft Start¡± feature on both my Unimats. Now that is a very nice feature to have.
Dick
 

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Hello Dick:

I took a Kitchen Aid mixer apart and thought the speed control very cool! The lever on the side sets a governor that turns full voltage on and off as the motor reaches full speed, much like a switching power supply. That way the motor has full motor torque until it reaches the set speed, and the governor shuts it off. Then as the speed drops the governor turns power back on.

I think it could be a perfect motor for a Unimat.

Carl.

On 1/10/2023 11:59 AM, OldToolmaker via groups.io wrote:

My wife was telling me about her Kitchen Aid mixer having the ¡°Soft Start¡± feature.
Then a thought occurred to me! After re-motoring my Unimats. I now have the¡° Soft Start¡± feature on both my Unimats. Now that is a very nice feature to have.
Dick

 

Not that it really matters, but is the ramp time from 0 to full speed fixed, or adjustable?

Don
 

How did almost every lathe owner in history get by without this?
 

Poorly. :)

It's not really necessary. It's just really nice!

I first ran into soft-start motors in industrial laundry equipment. It's very nearly essential there if you want the equipment to last a long time. One of the washing machines I worked on was rated for 450lbs of dry laundry. When that laundry (food service towels) was wet, the load could easily weigh 1100lbs. It was loaded into a stainless steel drum 4' deep and nearly 6' in diameter. Took a 10HP motor to spin it, and without the soft-start those motors wore out pretty quickly. My home washing machine uses soft-start, as well. Works nicely.

Bill in OKC?

William R. Meyers, MSgt, USAF(Ret.)

Aphorisms to live by:
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.?
SEMPER GUMBY!
Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome.
Physics doesn't care about your schedule.
The only reason I know anything is because I've done it wrong enough times to START to know better



On Tuesday, January 10, 2023 at 12:35:39 PM CST, John Hutnick <johnhutnick@...> wrote:


How did almost every lathe owner in history get by without this?

 

For all of us here, I have never heard of any typical home use lathe with anything other than a regular(non-soft?)start motor.
In any case, the suggestion is too find a mixer and take it apart.? Now checking Ebay, if you are lucky you can get a used Kitchenaid for under $100(and shipping, tax).? For those who are curious, you can find everything you want to know, with photos and videos on Kitchenaid mixers disassembly.? Figure out what you have to do to mount it.
Now what is wrong with using my power supply to just start my $35 scooter motor at a slower speed?? I never would, but isn't this easier?? I can start a Sherline with the built-in speed control knob.
 

Many of the cheap speed controllers have the facility to use a 0 - 5 V input rather than the pot. Therefore a bit of electronics, maybe nothing more than a resistor and a capacitor will give a short (or long) acceleration. Using an integrator would give a linear acceleration, and a comparator would stop the ramp when it is equal to the speed demand from the pot. What might also be useful is a mild braking action when stopping - not too much or the chuck will spin off. The simplest way to do this is to switch off with a relay, which drops out and short a resistor across the motor, providing a braking load. Integrating the two together would be possible.?
.

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