World's Best Drill Press Upgrades

yes I'm gonna show you nine drill press upgrades you may haven't seen before like a magnetic Vice automatic compressed air a motorized table with automatic clamping and more let's start with the motorized table the concept is simple remove the hand crank replace it with a motor this has a warm gear reduction for low RPM and high torque and I got this for about 60 bucks because I knew that I shouldn't get the smallest cheapest one from watching similar videos I'll put you a link to that in the video description then I got a speed controller because I don't know how fast I want to run the motor yet and it also has a direction switch that I need a power supply and a shaft coupling which already has a problem the inner diameter of the coupling is 14.0 something and the shaft is 14.1 something and it doesn't fit I mounted it in the lathe and enlarged the hole by one tenth of a millimeter that's a good fit now then I needed a threaded hole for a set screw against the flat spot so hole chamfer threads and done the other coupling part needs a slot for the motor shaft key which I had to file by hand what a joy oh yeah this is nice let's try faster full speed now that's pretty nice now I need a rigid connection between a motor housing and a drill press I'm thinking of some kind of round steel housing which also covers the coupling but unfortunately the whole of this shaft is neither machined straight nor centered in this part so my housing needs some kind of adjustability I faced and turned a chunk of Steel to size from both sides drilled a hole and turned it to fit the hand crank shaft then I super glued a 3D printed template on to Mark six evenly spaced holes with drill bits that's the most accurate way I have for such a whole layout three of them are through holes for M5 socket head bolts and the other three get threaded M6 the part looks good for now but I kind of screwed up the idea is to mount this part with bolts on here so I need threaded holes here and I could have used these three holes as perfect drill guides for that and later enlarge them for the bolt through hole but as you can see I started with the through hole and now the drill guide part is pretty much useless not the end of the world I just had to remake the drill guide part clamps make sure the guide doesn't rotate and I can drill and tap the holes into the casting with that done I turned the piece to final diameter between centers and allows the hole to clear the coupling the last step for this part are some counter bars for the bolt heads which just barely didn't come through the outer edge in the threaded holes I put some set screws which press against the casting and let me adjust the position now it's mounted crooked to this part but in line with the shaft and that's important next I need another piece to connect the two the only stock big enough I have on hand is some aluminum which will work great for this purpose it also starts with facing both sides turning to final diameter and turning the hole to clear the coupling with another template I again Mark hole positions but this time they are all for M6 socket head bolts then I turned it to final thickness and large the hole a bit more and turned it oh the camera got tired so after a quick camera nap I turned a recess which fits together nicely with the Steel part and aligns them to each other this part gets bolted to the motor everything gets assembled and the threaded holds in the steel now also double function for bolting the two housings together and there it works I think full speed is the right speed this motor position may seem awkward but all the other possible orientations were even worse and I don't think this is too bad I also want to add some limits which is so I can't crash the table into the base or the Chuck but I'll do that and the wiring later because now I want to tackle a much more difficult feature because the motorized table Now is awesome but I still have to do the clamping in the back manually why not automate this as well so I need some device that quickly applies the clamping force with the push of a button and I can only think of one kind of system that's suitable here and that's pneumatics and then I think I have two options either a small cylinder with some mechanical advantage or a big cylinder which I think is easier and more reliable my gut instinct tells me that an 80 millimeter cylinder at about 6 bar pressure should be enough for the task but let's see if we can measure what kind of force we are dealing with I loosen the table so it can move then I set a small torque wrench to about 4 newton meters and tighten the lock screw the goal is to clamp the table hard enough for it not to move any longer and that obviously is not the case yet I went to five newton meters which seems promising also when I tighten my hands the handle ends up at the same position then with a couple formulas I can calculate the clamping force and the required cylinder diameter which is the start of my design since I only need about two millimeters of travel and also want to include a manual clamping option I'll make this myself no manufacturer would have this on stock considering my available manufacturing capabilities add material on hand I make the first prototype from plastic sheets which is big enough for a hundred millimeter cylinder and if that already works I save time and money wait a second such a big cylinder at six power can be quite dangerous look at this small one and using plastic turns out to require pretty thick walls more than I expected so I'm glad about the engineering precautions I did now let's build this thing I made whole patterns and similar with the CNC router drill press and by hand the round work is then all done on the lathe I first made a little jig with my new threading die holder to mount The Hub part I turned this to final diameter and mounted it in the chuck Dara faced it with a light pass put an O-ring seal in screwed the housing on and checked the CNC cut Edge to make sure it runs reasonably true then also screw the lid on and turned the outer diameter of both pieces at the same time and turning plastic is a lot of fun once I met my target diameter I chamfered the outer edge drill a through hole and make an alignment Mark for the assembly later then without a lid I drill and turn the through hole in the housing to a precise diameter of 12.2 millimeters for the shaft next I turned the main cylinder housing to depth and exactly 100 millimeters it's the first time I'm using these telescopic gauges and they are awesome flipped around in the Chuck I turned a big chamfer to the hub and this part is finished checking the through hole with a test shaft and a seal gives me good hopes for everything being airtight the lid also gets some material removed to clear the piston and speaking of the Piston I cut an oversized Circle drilled and reamed a through hole and turned some internal features for mounting on the shaft the shaft is an M12 bolt where I first turned a Groove for the O-ring then with the live Center I turned the end down and cut some M8 threads with the thread die holder this really is an awesome tool now comes a thick and precise washer I turned acting as a flange then an O-ring seal then the Piston disc another washer and a nut to clamp it down mount it like this I turned this to final diameter and cut the groove for the big seal oh yeah what are the chances that this works the first try like so the Piston goes in no problem and now when I seal the intake with my finger it doesn't go in oh this seems promising now I've ripped it up with a spring washer and a chunk of Steel where it can push against and a tiny pressure regulator where you start at one bar oh yeah let's slowly increase the pressure and that's still airtight at 5 bar pressure this is pretty cool there's a lot of force going on now for the installation now there's a washer a spring washer that pushes the cylinder back to neutral when there's no pressure a custom thin washer and this gets threaded in and the other end then also gets a custom small washer and the nuts to tighten it down the table is now loose and again slowly increase the pressure until it's locked starting at one bar oh it's already tight I did not expect this but that's excellent having it work at low pressure I don't have to worry about it being airtight that like four bar it is but cool although it's not Totally Secure at one bar let's increase that to two bar yeah no chance now now a closer look at what's going on so the Piston is static and with the bolt connected with the threads of this part of the clamp and when I apply the pressure it presses the housing into here clamping them together when I release the pressure the spring washer presses the housing back and opens the clamp then comes to it with the same alignment as before and I can leave a clamp this is the manual backup for clamping the table when I for whatever reason don't have air pressure in the shop and it works the same way as the cylinder the cam is also mounted to the static part of the assembly and presses the housing forward with the lid to control the cylinder with a button I got a Pneumatic valve actually a whole manifold for monomeric features but first I need to Branch off the airline to the drill press but I forgot to order a part so hold please [Music] at this point I realized that I have to mount and wire up all this stuff somewhere on the machine and protect it from chips and dust which isn't gonna happen so I put everything into a case mounted it to the wall next to the machine and run all the hoses and wires through a tube much more organized now I've wired up two dip switches to test the functions this one for the table nice and this one for the clamp now it's locked unlocked foreign nothing is stopping me from trying to move the table when it's locked which would stall the motor or break something or just crashing it into the workbench none of this must happen so I built this limit switch box and this long arm touches on the cylinder and triggers when it opens and closes and the short arm touches the workbench and triggers when the table is all the way down inside are two standard micro switches the plungers are spring-loaded and have little ramps to trigger them I drill two threaded holes for mounting adjusted the plungers to the right length and also Incorporated some cable management in the lid part so wired Us in and now with the table locked I can't move it nothing happens as it should and the table is unlocked now it moves but now even cooler I could wire a solenoid for the cylinder into the same switch as the motor in both directions so no matter if I want to go up or down it will first open the cylinder until the micro switch steers and then a motor kicks in let's see if that works oh yes it does I release it and the table is locked isn't this amazing everything with a single switch it's exactly what I had in mind when I had the idea for the auto clamp cylinder combining these two features into a single switch and seeing it working is just perfect and the workbench crash detection also works alright these were two ultimate Comfort upgrades now let's do the next one a digital depth gauge my old rule press had this feature integrated I used it a lot and want it back so I bought an inexpensive Dro kit that comes with everything you need the machine casting has a big hole behind the quill which is the perfect mounting spot the reading head gets fixed inside and the rail slides up and down with the quill for that to work I need a solid mounting piece on the quill which I machine from aluminum on the CNC router cutting that mostly went as planned and I'm happy with the result especially with the chamfer making the threaded holes in the edge is a perfect first use for the auto clamp in total four holes for mounting on the quill one for clamping the rail and one for a camera are similar this part needs to be mounted here on the quill and I want to use a piece of shim stock as kind of a hose clamp drilling accurate holes into this thin and hard spring steel is a nightmare so this time I try some solid carbide deburring bits for a Dremel tool and would you look at that this works great and this can also create slots in case you screwed up the whole locations like I did I imagine that installing this won't be easy and I was right but with a helping set of hands it eventually works now like this I can just barely move it into place and by tightening the second screws I bend the shim a bit putting more tension on it and that securely holds the piece in place now then I cut it to length and round it over the sharp Corners now doesn't this look nice and like it always belonged there for the rest I needed more access to the top so some disassembly required the Reed head needs to be mounted somewhere in the casting and it seems I have four threaded holes to work with I took the original cover from that hole transferred the shape onto a piece of aluminum cut it out and drilled the holes from below I tightened some bolts which act as threaded studs inside and put some nuts on them where the plate can rest on by turning the individual nuts I can then adjust that square to the rail but there needs to be a section cut out from the plate to clear the rail and the Reed head I love a giant file for such work and this seems to work fine now I want to mount the Reed head to the plate with some angled aluminum unfortunately this piece is not square and before trying to machine the square some way I tried a barbarian method and whack it with a hammer and that actually worked the middle is still a bit kept but both ends are touching the angle this could work and here's how it should be mounted to determine the right mounting height of the Reed head I first made a mark on the rail right here when it's all the way up and flush with the casting that's where I have to cut it later and I slide the Reed head up to that Mark plunge the quill all the way down and lock it and now that's the height that needs to be mounted at I took some measurements for the whole locations and drilled them with the emergency drill press then for some reason I wanted to improve on the squareness so I tried facing it with the CNC router and would you look at that what a nice finish and it actually did improve the squareness I got the Reed head mounted and dropped it into the casting to transfer the whole locations that took a rather creative approach but still left good enough marks for drilling at the right location then I cut the rail verified that it's still working and started assembling the rail needs to be parallel to the quill and I checked this with a dial indicator the needle must not move when I plunge down and after some adjusting I was happy with the result getting the rest assembled and adjusted was tedious and took me a good two hours of which I didn't record much at least I only had to do it once now let's see if it's accurate I plunged to the first zero on a dial indicator 0-0 and plunge the remaining nine millimeters range of the indicator now the dro should also show me nine millimeters and oh yeah it does that's perfect not so perfect this this thing runs on batteries and I don't want to change them regularly so I saw that some wires directly to the contacts and this is working the permanent power source is a little stepped on converter that makes 3 Volts for my available 24 volts and like this I will never run out of battery before I can install the display and for the next upgrades I need to make some changes to the Box up here and that's easiest with the easy access now all the additional switches needed a bigger front plate and that also requires every piece around the front plate to be replaced this didn't take too long and then the machine can also go back to its home the next upgrade is a lot simpler a work light my old role press had this flexible gooseneck work light that you could adjust anywhere but in reality I adjusted it to one place where it was good and then never touched it again so I don't really need the super flexibility and until now on here I was just using this battery powered light with a magnet attached to here and that really is all I need so for a permanent solution I got this 24 volt LED that I can mount to the same spot this only requires a hole for a mounting screw and a hole for the cable this will work nicely the next upgrade is a quite intuitive one because when you drilled a hole in wood you always blow away the chips to see a result obviously why doesn't that happen automatically of course the solution is compressed air I got a flex hose a throttle valve to regulate the airflow and a fitting to connect with a tube to the pneumatic valve on a manifold it gets mounted to the side wired up to the switch and there it works this is all nice but I don't need a constant blast of air I only need it when I'm actively drilling so it should turn on when I plunged down and turn off when it retracts to do that I made this two-part 3D print this has an o-ring in it and they fit together now this can rotate with a little bit of friction and it has a notch cut out this mounts to the main handle shaft with a third piece and with another micro switch you can see how this is working the switch is fixed in another 3D print that double functions as I cover now you unfortunately can't see it but still hear it clicking I got it wired up to the switch and it's working awesome all right this will take care of the wood chips now for metal work I always apply some cutting oil with a little squirt bottle and this gets old pretty fast and since I now have compressed AR and pneumatic valves and switches everything available it's time to upgrade to a Mist cooling system so I got one this has an air and an oil intake and works just with compressed air because as you blow air through here this creates a little bit of suction here and sucks up some cutting oil through a tube into here and then the air oil mixture gets blasted out as a constant mist it mounts next to the compressed air and a bottle of cutting oil just sits in a corner with the hose through the cap then came the incredibly tedious task of feeding all the hoses and cables from the control cabinet to the machine through that hose and connecting everything all this took a good four hours but I had a satisfying moment when assembling and testing the switches on the front plate ah nice the wiring then was very tight with lots of wires coming together in this little box but the lid went on without issues and that's all that counts now it's a lot simpler to demonstrate the functions so when I turn on the main switch the dro comes on as well the light switch is obvious the table is now locked with the pneumatic cylinder I want to move it up it's just a button this will never get old release it and it's locked again and now if I want to move it at this height I can unlock it move it to where needed and lock it back in place the compressed here I can turn on continuously and adjust the amount with this or turn it into auto mode and it only comes on when I Plunge the Mist cooling works the same but as I used it the first time I got these cool shots of the oil being sucked up the tube and this works pretty well this is all super cool and almost finishes up this section here but I'm not done next I want to install a shield so I don't get chips thrown into my face constantly most new drill presses come with a shield installed marketed as a safety feature but it's always such a terrible design that nobody wants to use it go figure a safety feature has to be a perfect design so you don't even notice using it let me show you my Approach I got a gooseneck a sheet of polycarbonate made a 3D printed Mount reinforced with a wire and an aluminum mounting bracket the 3D print fits one end of the gooseneck the bracket goes on the side of the switch box and the other end of the gooseneck bolts on there with a piece of paper I figured out the right size and shape of the Shields and cut the polycarbonate to that size before I attempted the bands I wanted to test it yeah this is terrible the opposite of my statement way too heavy for this little gooseneck I also got some thinner acrylic and that's better quick to adjust quick to remove now for the bends I've never done this before but my instincts told me make it soft with heat and just bend it somehow and look at that somehow worked that was way easier than I expected so with it in place it doesn't interfere with anything else and when it's not used it just hangs out where no one cares great oh and it also works I finally can do this unfortunately though the shield stays in place but not very good and overall feels cheap I chose four millimeter polycarbonate for a reason and I want to try to do better so I got a bigger gooseneck that should hold the weight of the thicker shield and this time I turned amount from aluminum I cleaned some stock and prepared the end to turn the 3 8 inch threads then I set the gearbox up for the right thread pitch and single point cut the threads after powering it off I could test a fit now let me present you my new Mill I put the mount in a tool holder to cut the flat for the screw holes my trust in the setup was only medium and I took very light passes but you can't argue with the result then I marked the whole locations and drilled the M4 threads with the parts assembled I could then test the gooseneck which still looks promising I can reuse the mounting bracket and this now feels nice and solid and stays wherever I put it can support the weight but unfortunately it's too stiff and when I put it in front of the drill chuck it doesn't want to stay there what a fail so I think I'll stick with the first one because it is super quick to adjust and does the job of protecting me from chips I mean that's what I wanted I'm not going to spend time and money on building another one the next upgrade covering the t-slots was on my list for a long time I never use them especially now with the magnet Vise and they only collect chips annoying to clean so I made this cover that solves the issue but watch What it Took fitting this to the cast table shape I clamped paper on the table scribble over the slots with a soft pencil and the shape slowly comes through a bit hard to see on camera but I had well visible Contours I glued this to thin MDF to cut a template from that and this still required a good amount of sanding and shaping before it fit finally but this was only half the work I taped the template to thicker material cut it out roughly and flush trimmed it to the template a bit risky at some spots with the part almost breaking and then came another four hours of shaping with hand tools to make it fit the casting great fun to get it level and just shy below the table surface I installed screws for it to rest on a lot of work for this satisfying moment ah finally this took ages getting it just shy below the surface but I'm sure this will save so much cleaning time in the future that it will well compensate but I'm so glad that this is done now okay and now the magnet Vice incredibly useful put it on the table turn the handle and it's secure the commercial versions cost upwards of 300 bucks so I spend 90 bucks on an inexpensive magnetic Chuck that's usually used on Surface grinder and the idea is straightforward turn the magnet upside down and mount device so I marked the whole locations spot drilled drilled for M10 threads chamfered and cut the threads and already here the magnet is holding down itself I also made some slot covers to prevent chips from accumulating and like this device is done but I wanted to go one step further and mount a little hand crank to the handle so I 3D printed a solid shape inspired by the old style machine handles it got a through hole to transfer the torque with a set screw and a nice spinning knob and here I really went over the edge I made a special drawing of the shape that allowed me to play CNC lathe the time lapse looks pretty sweet it mounts to the handle with a bolt and a bushing the bushing is slightly longer than the handlebore which lets it spin freely with a little play few things you need to know about it it is pretty heavy but the motor can still lift it the holding power is not unlimited but enough for almost anything on a drill press you need to keep it clean and will also smooth out the drill press table with a grinding stone this will take about 15 minutes and greatly improves the holding power I can't tell you enough how useful this is all the other upgrades I did are awesome but this one is the best unfortunately I ran out of time for more upgrades if you watch closely you may have seen the fourth unused solenoid and the two hoses let's keep that for a future project I love the new capabilities of this tool and hopefully you could get some inspiration don't forget the video description for the parts I used if you want to replicate any of this and consider patreon if you want to support me directly I will host another live stream going into more details on some of the upgrades and also show you one more thanks for listening and goodbye

Channel: Marius Hornberger

Views: 933,340

Keywords: woodworking, workshop, DIY, homemade, How to, selfmade, machinery, make, tbalesaw, bandsaw, drillpress, tools, woodshop, interesting, awesome, thinking, smart, video, great, good, crazy, drill press upgrade, drill press VFD, drill press stand powerful diy, replace spindle bearings, marius hornberger, How To Properly Restore a Drill Press, motorized table, motorized table lift, Worlds best drill press upgrades, worlds best drill press, magnetic vise, diy magnetic vise, automatic clamping system

Id: rxNrA16yZsU

Length: 29min 27sec (1767 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 24 2023