Automating My Woodland Mills HM130 Max with the EpicSaw Power Lift

[Music] hello everyone and welcome to my channel and welcome to my property located in the Pacific Northwest it is late fall uh winter is going to be coming soon and the uh Tamaracks are in their full golden display which is kind of nice it's uh something that people like to see in the Pacific Northwest and the uh makes it easy to tell how many Tamaracks you actually have the tamarak make good Lumber so um I do have some of those to cut up later this winter so anyway and then uh this is my hm my will Mills hm130 Max uh and it's a temporary location I hope next year to be able to uh build a sawmill shed and put this in there but for now this will have to do for this winter and um today we're going to be installing epic Saw's powerlift powerheads I received this in the mail a couple of days ago U I'm not sponsored by epic saw or didn't receive it for free I paid for it just like everybody else would um but comparing this saw head to um the one that Woodland Mills provide I think uh this one um provides a lot more functionality and the ability to help me automate The Mill versus just uh lifting and lowering the saw blade um and for the price it's the same price as Woodland Mills sells uh their P their power head for at least at the time of this video so I think that makes this having more functionality makes this a good buy so anyway today we're going to install this power lift onto my Sawmill and I'm going to bring you guys along for that installation process and um see how well that goes I have high hopes for this uh Power Lift head and uh for epic Saw's products I've also uh purchased their power feed which is on the way so that will help me to automate my Sawmill so let's get started with the installation so the first step in installing the powerhead is to remove the uh old crank handle so we're going to do that now and uh as you see I've got all my tools laid out and everything we're supposed to need so um hopefully I won't need anything else and um so let's lower this down first step is to lower it down um so there's a little bit of slack in the handle so hopefully this is the last time I'm using this crank handle all right we've got a little bit of slack in the cable that's what the instructions call for but not so much that it comes off the pulley so let's go ahead so the first step is to remove this spring so let's get started with that success success this is the wrong tool for the job it's supposed to be a 5mm punch but I didn't have one I tried a nail it was the wrong size so I improvised the next step is to remove these two bolts and remove this index plate okay so the disassembly is complete so the next step is to remove this bracket from the uh Power Lift and then install that on the uh the shaft so I'll do that now one of the important things that the uh instructions uh remind you of is to make sure that this flat part of the plate is is on the upside and not the downside right for for next step is to install this power shaft adapter onto the shaft so we'll do that now I'm getting some resistance trying to slide the uh the shaft on there um the adapter onto the shaft so I'm just going to take a little bit of sandpaper and smooth it out a little bit and see if that helps [Music] okay e is all right so the next step is to move the uh Power Lift head onto the shaft the adapter shaft and uh to align the uh the key with the uh keyhole in the uh in the adapter head so we'll try to do that now there we go that wasn't too difficult so now we'll Bolt the power lift on with the four screws that we took out earlier when we remove the bracket for okay next step is to uh hook up the power so we'll uh run these wires over to the battery and hook up the [Music] power okay at this point the power head is ready to be used but uh we still have this yellow wire here and this wire is optional um if you're going to if you want to have this emergency button work on your lift then you need the wire in that um yellow wire into the white wire that goes to the starter but um it's that it is optional but if you're going to use the power feed and um I am getting the power feed it's being assembled in the factory now so if if you want to use the power feed you have to hook that up so I'm going to go ahead and hook that up now oh [Applause] all right that's it that completes the installation so if I wi start it ight if this is um in the Pressed in position it won't start so I have to always release this now to start the mill so let's see if we can start it and power up the lift and as soon as I uh release that the lift did come on SO and it says it's in the lift mode so maybe I don't need to start the motor to be able to run operate [Music] this all right so it seems to me that once it gets under load it's not working um it's slipping or something so right now um the cable's loose I go the up mode and the cable tightens up and it's tight right now but the saw thinks is 2.7 in up and up and it hasn't moved so if I go down I think it says down to 2.1 in but there's already slack in the cable so um it seems to me that something's slipping inside maybe the key is the wrong size or something I mean it sounds like it's doing something it's definitely putting pressure on it so I'm going to reach out to Tony and see what he says and then we'll take it from there all right everyone well obviously there's an issue we got the install done and um when I try to lift the head or I try to use the power lift to lift the saw the uh cable gets tight but then it stops lifting that point so I don't know if something's slipping or um the key is not properly engaged um I took I took the head off and I put it back back on just to make sure that it was in there you know um and it's up against the bracket so I got to assume the key if it's large enough it's the right size key that it's actually engaged um because there's no way I could push the head farther on and I shouldn't be able to push it on if it's not in the slot so so I don't know if it's got the wrong size key or there's something wrong with the motor um but I did lift the head manually um using the Allen wrench and the and the screw that was in the adapter just to turn it I mean and that's not a lot of force and I'm able to actually move the head up and down so um so so I'm not sure so I'm going to I took a little video explaining the problem and I'm going to send it to Tony at Epic saws and we'll see how he does afternoon everyone it's been 24 hours since I last filmed and as you can see winter is uh is quickly approaching we got about a half an inch of snow last night but uh it was such a uh it turned out to be such a quick fix on the power lift unit that I thought I'd give you guys an update uh in this video so what happened was um I uh I thought with the adapter and the key that the key wasn't being engag and the motor was kind of scraping the key and spinning around that's that was why we were hearing the grinding noise but uh so I went upstairs and uh went inside and I emailed Tony at Epic saw and uh explained the problem to him you know and I'm telling you guys within like 1 minute to two minutes I got an email back and Tony said uh 99% I know what's going on he said I'll call you in five minutes and sure enough he called me we talked for a little while and he had to go into the lift and change um one of the settings the lift rate and lower that number down and uh so sure enough I did that and the unit started working and then I called them back and told him what happened and uh that it was working and he explained to me what's going on what what's what's What's Happening Here is that my my uh unit isn't exactly squared up with the two post and so it's binding a little bit as it as it starts to go up and so uh what I need to do is loosen up all these bolts and give the unit a shake and um check to make sure that it's square and that they're lined up and then that that'll just help speed things up and I can lift the lift right back up you know but anyway so I'll start the unit so you guys can see that it's working so you can see the unit's going [Music] up and back down so um yeah what I need to do is uh take and square this up a little bit better and then I can uh change that lift rate setting um back up so that I can get some uh faster speeds but um I was impressed with uh Tony's response and his uh quick action to help me resolve this issue you know and I'm glad there was nothing wrong with the unit or anything so uh anyway that's the update and uh in future vide videos uh I'm going to go over the uh different modes and the different settings you can use for this unit and the different ways you can use it and then uh I'll also do a future video where I I'll cut up some wood and give you guys uh first cuts and first impressions of the unit so like And subscribe and uh so you get those updates so you know what's uh going on and uh join me on my journey to automate my Sawmill so talk to you later

Channel: MyLifeDeliberately

Views: 10,439

Keywords: sawmill, power lift, portable sawmill, epic saw, EpicSaw

Id: ShoecRobe4g

Length: 23min 25sec (1405 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 07 2023