Another HF Motorized Bead Roller

[e015475]

I'm wanting to make some door cards for a '49 GMC truck out of some 5052 aluminum sheet. I'd like to bead roll some details into the panels.

The last panels I put through the bead roller, my brother came down and was the power to manually crank the roller. It worked well, but this time I wanted to be self sufficient and be able to bead roll panels myself.

To motorize the bead roller, I used a HF ATV winch and some Lovejoy couplings to connect the winch to the bead roller. Here's the bead roller drive system I used.



I disassembled the HT winch and separated the winch and the planetary gearbox from the cast aluminum cable spool. The output of the planetary gearbox goes through a 12 spline sun gear. I tried welding the HF sun gear to .75" diameter shaft so I could use a Lovejoy coupling, but it seems like it is made of some sort of sintered metal, and so soaked with oil it just smoked and hissed when I tried to TIG it. With a little filing of the flats of a hex head bolt, it would replace the HF sun gear. I took a 3/4" dia piece of bar stock and drilled it to accept the shank of a 3/8" bolt and TIG'd it together with two weld passes and a generous fillet.




The HF sun gear looks a lot longer than the bolt head, but it is only half engaged in the planetary and half in the aluminum spool. From the specs on the winch, it looks like it will generate about 1000 in lbs of torque. I'll need less than half of that to run the bead roller. I'll be running six points of contact instead of twelve on the sun gear, so the stress levels on the winch planetary should be about the same.

Here's the 1" ID Lovejoy coupling on the bead roller side of the drive. The winch's mounting plate was cut in half and welded to a .25" plate bolted to the bead roller. You can see where I had to grind off a little of the winch's mounting plate to get the motor to align correctly to the bead roller.



Here's the winch side assembled and ready to mount to the bead roller



I wanted to be able to control the speed of the bead roller with a foot pedal so I could jog for detail work or progress at a fair amount of speed for straight beads/steps.

The power supply and control consists of three elements-

- A 20A DC power supply adjustable between 12 and 24VDC for gross speed adjustments

- Pulse width modulator (PWM) capable of about 400W to control the winch speed and direction

- A foot pedal to control the PWM output to the winch motor

Here's the power supply and control for the bead roller



The power supply is an ebay item that's commonly used in LED lighting system and is pretty straight forward - about $30 for a 20A unit.

The PWM module is less than $10 on ebay and has a potentiometer of about 0 to 84K ohms that's used to modulate the output. I clipped this pot off and used the pot in a Crybaby whawha pedal that's pretty much a industry standard for electric guitars. I bought a used one on ebay for less than $20

The Crybaby pedal is available in various pot ranges, so I tried to match the pot range of the PWM. A 0-100K ohm pot seemed to turn the trick.

Next step will be to build some sort of enclosure for the electronics so it will survive ok in a the shop environment. The forward and reverse switch on the PWM isn't very robust so I'll find a nice DPDT switch for it next.

It is working really well so far and the range of control is excellent. I'm into the motorized part about $150

Will post pics of the finished door panels when I'm done

 

[nine4gmc]

Awesome!

 

[gte718p]

That is by far the cleanest bead roller conversion I've seen.

 

[e015475]

Been using the winch-motored bead-roller for the last week or so with good results. With the power supply voltage set at 12VDC, it will go from very, very slow to maybe a couple inches per second.

I made the first door panel closeout with it yesterday - still have to master the hand-eye coordination thing a little better, but the tool worked perfectly. Here's the prototype door card for my 49 GMC truck

The panel was a perfect fit in the aperture before I beaded it - will have to experiment a little with bending it afterwards instead of before. Here it is before I put a step in it

 

[doorfx]

How many amps does that winch motor draw? My warn says 15A with no load.

 

[rsanter]

The issue you are having is that often when using a bead roller or raise a section, the metal,has to come from somewhere.
You have two options.
Get a planishing hammer and planishnthe area you will be raising the bead or panel. When planishing you will create a slight dome or warp to the panel as you stretch the area plannished. This will come out as you roll the bead.

Or,you can make the blank 1/4" bigger and the trim to,final size after you raise the area you want

Bob

 

[e015475]

Doorfx - the manual that came with it says 10 amps at no load which would only be about 120 watts. The power supply is only 20 amps and I've never stalled it - that'd be about 240 watts or a little more than a quarter of a horse. HF says it is one HP winch at a 5 percent duty cycle. I'm thinking it should live ok at less than 25 percent of the max rated power.

Rsanter - Will try your suggestion. It was also suggested I put a slight crown in the panel with a english wheel before I bead roll it - I have access to one and will give that a try too. A YouTube video suggests that the panel will come out much straighter if you reverse bead it slightly from the other side, which must stretch the metal a little like planishing would. Just having fun with it and learning a little about how metal behaves when you try to form it

I did drill the holes for the screws before I beaded it and noticed they didn't line up as well . Will take your suggestion and drill the holes after I roll.

 

[ducksface]

Yours is the first web page I've ever downloaded.
Thanks for the part info.

I kind of remember having a bin of 12 point seat belt bolts here somewhere. This isn't even a suggestion, it came to mind when you mentioned trimming that bolt head....

 

[e015475]

You're very welcome. Always enjoy feedback on my projects and getting other ideas.

I thought about a 12pt nut or bolt too. It would have cut my contact stresses in half.

The problem was that the HF winch is all metric, and even though the distance across the flats of the sun gear is about 3/4" I had to 'kiss' the flats of the bolt head to fit the HF winch. I didn't know how I'd do that with a 12 pt, and no metric ones laying around to experiment on. It looked like I'd be well under the capacity of the winch, so I took the easy way out and used the hex bolt head.

Thought there might be spline stock available too, but a not-to-exhaustive search didn't show anything with 12 splines

 

[32chevy]

Can you give us an update on the motorized bead roller? It’s been 5 yrs

 

[BORING HOP YARD]

Great work, thank you for sharing!

 

[Walkers]

Can you give us an update on the motorized bead roller? It’s been 5 yrs

I converted mine more than 5 years ago, and can tell you it works well. It is easy to flex the arms apart, so more stiffening is required for steel. 18 gauge is about the max it will do. I have done 16 gauge in multiple passes.

 

[e015475]

I built it for making some panels for the truck in my avatar.

I haven't used it in several years and it is sitting in a corner of my shop

Walker's assessment of flexing while doing steel is spot on - I was doing mostly 5051 aluminum with it.

 

[32chevy]

I converted mine more than 5 years ago, and can tell you it works well. It is easy to flex the arms apart, so more stiffening is required for steel. 18 gauge is about the max it will do. I have done 16 gauge in multiple passes.

Thanks! I bought the generic Woodward fab roller and I stiffened it up with 3/8 thick plate and plan on buying a motor kit for 400 but if I can do this for under 150 with similar control then I’m gonna have a go at it while I still work at a machine shop

 

[Walkers]

Thanks! I bought the generic Woodward fab roller and I stiffened it up with 3/8 thick plate and plan on buying a motor kit for 400 but if I can do this for under 150 with similar control then I’m gonna have a go at it while I still work at a machine shop

I did mine with an a/c motor, and a chain reduction drive down to about 10 IPM. Instead of throttling down I can just let the switch off and on, but 10” is pretty manageable in all but the tightest of corners. This winch motor and a pot seems like it is even better.
Also, the legs don’t spread apart the hard way, they just walk away from each other side to side (the easy way), so that is the direction you need to brace for.

 

[dffay]

I built it for making some panels for the truck in my avatar.

I haven't used it in several years and it is sitting in a corner of my shop

Walker's assessment of flexing while doing steel is spot on - I was doing mostly 5051 aluminum with it.

What is the downside of using the wired or wireless remotes that can be purchased at HF for the Badlands winches? There’s got to be a reason since I don’t see anyone using them rather, they seem to install control systems like you.

Nice work by the way.

 

[e015475]

I wanted to have a wide-range of variable speeds. A

What is the downside of using the wired or wireless remotes that can be purchased at HF for the Badlands winches? There’s got to be a reason since I don’t see anyone using them rather, they seem to install control systems like you.

Nice work by the way.

I wanted to have a wide-range of variable speeds and control it with my foot. I have this same small Badlands winch on my four-post lift to move cars with a wired control and it is either on or off

 

[Modern Garage]

Don't know if it's universal but the wireless control on my friend's winch has so much delay that I get nervous watching him use it. I think I'd stick with wires if it gains more control.
Joe

 

[dffay]

Thx. Great feedback. I’m going the speed control and pedal route.

 

[Monza Harry]

Don't know if it's universal but the wireless control on my friend's winch has so much delay that I get nervous watching him use it. I think I'd stick with wires if it gains more control.
Joe

My Badlands remote on my Superwinch is the same, very sluggish control, but sometimes it is necessary to be remote. Also note the wiring isn't the same from remote to remote! I only needed the second diagram to make mine work, all told I think I found 4 wiring diagrams (colour codes). Lucky I guess I only needed 2 shots at it. Harry

 

[csp]

What is the downside of using the wired or wireless remotes that can be purchased at HF for the Badlands winches? There’s got to be a reason since I don’t see anyone using them rather, they seem to install control systems like you.

Nice work by the way.

With the wireless remote there's a delay between you pushing the buttons and the motor reacting the way you want it to react.

Seems like the same thing that's kept me from using a powered pipe threading head to motorize a bead roller. I want it to stop immediately when I let go of the button or take my foot off the pedal.

 

[PugetDude]

Yours is the first web page I've ever downloaded.
Thanks for the part info.

I kind of remember having a bin of 12 point seat belt bolts here somewhere. This isn't even a suggestion, it came to mind when you mentioned trimming that bolt head....

Anyone else miss this guy? I do.

 

[e015475]

I met Bill a few years ago in an Az members meet up in a casino near Scottsdale. He'd told me he'd grown up in the same neighborhood in Tucson as I had and his family owned a bar on Flowing Wells Road. We tried the "did you know so and so" dialog for a while but nothing clicked, but he knew my old stomping grounds well. Interesting guy.

When I first started reading his Haiku-like posts they annoyed me, but I got to the point where I enjoyed reading them, and now I miss seeing them. Always a well thought out and sometimes contrarian perspective

It always strikes me as strange how someone can be such a prolific contributor, then ****, they're gone. Someone with the same name and writing style still posts on other forums/

 

[PugetDude]

I think he got hit with the banned hammer.

 

[LeeG]

I met Bill a few years ago in an Az members meet up in a casino near Scottsdale. He'd told me he'd grown up in the same neighborhood in Tucson as I had and his family owned a bar on Flowing Wells Road. We tried the "did you know so and so" dialog for a while but nothing clicked, but he knew my old stomping grounds well. Interesting guy.

When I first started reading his Haiku-like posts they annoyed me, but I got to the point where I enjoyed reading them, and now I miss seeing them. Always a well thought out and sometimes contrarian perspective

It always strikes me as strange how someone can be such a prolific contributor, then ****, they're gone. Someone with the same name and writing style still posts on other forums/

I was there as well. I went up to Bill’s place once and he loaded me up with stuff. Pretty interesting guy.

Lee