Uploaded November 2016 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
We finally decided to go ahead with the idea of retrofittimg the 85 year old Alba 1A metal shaper with some 21st century technology.....
Please bear with me, time is tight so progress will be delayed for a while but it will happen, already done a bit more but not enough for a full episode ...
Anyway, I am almost certain that there will be someone who is going to tell me that this is a stupid idea and/or i should preserve this piece of history as it was designed around 1930.
Well, in my opinion a tool should be useful and if i can improve it, i will do so as i want to use it efficiently, because my time is limited and it's far too bulky for being just a quirky door stop.
The machine works fairly ok as it is, but it needs too much attention so i cannot really do other jobs while it is working on a part.
Further, the feed rate adjustment is very coarse and somewhat unreliable. Also there are no dials on the handles, so precision moves/repeats will need a dial indicator.
Therefore i started thinking abot some sort of feed stop/reverse/repeat but shortly came to the conclusion that if i fit CNC controlled steppers to all axes i would be able to shape complex parts with very little manual input, which for my shop, hugely increases the value of this machine.
The concept is quite simple, i use steppers with tooth belt pulley gearing as speed is not much required, but quite high torque to get things moving. The brain will be a micro controller running bespoke software which syncs the feeds and speed with the ram position. It also controls the VFD of the main motor which thne allows to stop the ram at a defined position.
If the motors turned off, the manual controls do still work as they did before, so nothing lost.
I am almost certain that some more ideas will pop up as we go along.
Please watch my other shaper videos, playlist is here
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ5sckhk3nill-UFoqnPA7YObe51P_D6A
The G code sender software is here
winder.github.io/ugs_website
Thanks for interest.
(c) 2016
dynoguy.co.uk
We finally decided to go ahead with the idea of retrofittimg the 85 year old Alba 1A metal shaper with some 21st century technology.....
Please bear with me, time is tight so progress will be delayed for a while but it will happen, already done a bit more but not enough for a full episode ...
Anyway, I am almost certain that there will be someone who is going to tell me that this is a stupid idea and/or i should preserve this piece of history as it was designed around 1930.
Well, in my opinion a tool should be useful and if i can improve it, i will do so as i want to use it efficiently, because my time is limited and it's far too bulky for being just a quirky door stop.
The machine works fairly ok as it is, but it needs too much attention so i cannot really do other jobs while it is working on a part.
Further, the feed rate adjustment is very coarse and somewhat unreliable. Also there are no dials on the handles, so precision moves/repeats will need a dial indicator.
Therefore i started thinking abot some sort of feed stop/reverse/repeat but shortly came to the conclusion that if i fit CNC controlled steppers to all axes i would be able to shape complex parts with very little manual input, which for my shop, hugely increases the value of this machine.
The concept is quite simple, i use steppers with tooth belt pulley gearing as speed is not much required, but quite high torque to get things moving. The brain will be a micro controller running bespoke software which syncs the feeds and speed with the ram position. It also controls the VFD of the main motor which thne allows to stop the ram at a defined position.
If the motors turned off, the manual controls do still work as they did before, so nothing lost.
I am almost certain that some more ideas will pop up as we go along.
Please watch my other shaper videos, playlist is here
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ5sckhk3nill-UFoqnPA7YObe51P_D6A
The G code sender software is here
winder.github.io/ugs_website
Thanks for interest.
(c) 2016
dynoguy.co.uk
