- Joined
- Jun 11, 2006
- Messages
- 8,651
So with the new shop coming along (posting update pics tonight) I have been thinking heavily about adding a power hammer. My first thought was to find a cheep little giant hammer but then I relized my error in that thought "cheep lol". So my mind moved to building something. I have seen quite a few designes from foot powered to air operated. Hammers seam simple in principle and I just need a way to move a ram up and down and build in a way to get some whip to it.
I have acquired a rather heavy duty gear reducer that is on a motor mount frame with a love joy. My thought was 3phase and vfd. The ratio is 15:1 so a 3450rpm motor would give about 230bpm at 100%. Am I completely off base thinking this will work?
For the whip I'm wondering and this is kinda out of the box so you might want to sit down. I'm wondering if I used an air cylinder and "corked" each air port I would have a spring of sorts. Now it would have a lot of whip at zero pressure (one atmosphere 14psi). But if I connected both ports togather with a pipe and a valve between the ports and a way to add air to the system I should be able to adjust piston location and whip strength. You would open the valve connecting both ports and then pressurise the system. With the valve open you should be able move the piston up or down and the high pressure air will just move from one side to the other. Once you shut the valve the piston will lock in that position and you will essentially have a spring holding the ram up and pushing it down at the same time. The higher the pressure the stronger the push pull force needed to move the the piston up and down.
If I bolt the air ram to a fly wheel with a bearing and the piston of the air ram to the hammer with a pivot and bearing I should have a linkage of sorts. This could all be mounted on top of a hammer frame. Your foot peddle would just be a VFD speed control. When you turned the hammer on the motor would rotate at its slowest set speed and would slowly go up and down but not reach the anvil. You would have the air ram set so once you picked up the speed the force of the hammer would over come the air ram and whip the hammer down to the anvil. The faster you go the harder it hits.
I could be way off base but you know how I love thinking out of the box. What do you guys think, any ideas to add?
I have acquired a rather heavy duty gear reducer that is on a motor mount frame with a love joy. My thought was 3phase and vfd. The ratio is 15:1 so a 3450rpm motor would give about 230bpm at 100%. Am I completely off base thinking this will work?
For the whip I'm wondering and this is kinda out of the box so you might want to sit down. I'm wondering if I used an air cylinder and "corked" each air port I would have a spring of sorts. Now it would have a lot of whip at zero pressure (one atmosphere 14psi). But if I connected both ports togather with a pipe and a valve between the ports and a way to add air to the system I should be able to adjust piston location and whip strength. You would open the valve connecting both ports and then pressurise the system. With the valve open you should be able move the piston up or down and the high pressure air will just move from one side to the other. Once you shut the valve the piston will lock in that position and you will essentially have a spring holding the ram up and pushing it down at the same time. The higher the pressure the stronger the push pull force needed to move the the piston up and down.
If I bolt the air ram to a fly wheel with a bearing and the piston of the air ram to the hammer with a pivot and bearing I should have a linkage of sorts. This could all be mounted on top of a hammer frame. Your foot peddle would just be a VFD speed control. When you turned the hammer on the motor would rotate at its slowest set speed and would slowly go up and down but not reach the anvil. You would have the air ram set so once you picked up the speed the force of the hammer would over come the air ram and whip the hammer down to the anvil. The faster you go the harder it hits.
I could be way off base but you know how I love thinking out of the box. What do you guys think, any ideas to add?
