Motorizing your loading Machine

S

Slugs

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The Pondness Warren Auto Load is a great machine but it cost $950.00. I wanted to make one myself but could not find the plans or parts list.

I did it the hard way. A lot of research. I built one for a little over $300.00 and I will send anyone the material list and parts list for FREE. Just contact me through this forum and I can send the information to you by e mail.
 
Slugs said:
The Pondness Warren Auto Load is a great machine but it cost $950.00. I wanted to make one myself but could not find the plans or parts list.

I did it the hard way. A lot of research. I built one for a little over $300.00 and I will send anyone the material list and parts list for FREE. Just contact me through this forum and I can send the information to you by e mail.
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I have a PW drive, and while not 'Perfect' by a long shot, it works OK.
Mr. J Morris has a VERY slick (almost elegant) PLC system that works beyond all expectations.
That might work for your system.
 
Pneumatic?

I don't know how it will work, however I will try.

I plan on adding an air cylinder and controls to my old MEC grabber. I got the components darn near free, and have been thinkin on it for a while.

I'll let ya'll know how it goes......or doesn't go depending......I do have a lot of experience with Pneumatic components.

Stay tuned...
 
I built air systems for a while, and have been doing air suspension for hot rods for the past 20 years or so.
I used air on a couple of reloading machines, for slow work it takes the leaning on the ram out of the picture. Gave my last air ram system away to a disabled guy that likes to load & shoot, just found it too slow for production, and other than not pulling a handle, not a real benefit to common reloading.

Air cylinders are dirt cheap and used in every part of large scale manufacturing, but for me it was a speed thing, takes time to charge, then bleed off an air ram, although you can get quite precise control of pressure/compression.

A ton of case sorting & handling equipment is air powered in large ammo manufacturing plants, and air does a great & efficient job for that work.
 
We use air actuator for our slow moving diverts (shift freight from one belt to another0

For actually getting a package off the belt as it goes by the electrics win hands down. I think the first one went in 1989, I have no idea how many million operations they went through, still working with minimal maint. '

I converted room air boxes to a hybrid electronic system using the old air and its better by far than the electric actuators.

New stuff is all electric. Impossible to trouble shoot, or repair, just throw $300 a away when they die.

All it is great stuff in the right application.
 
For home reloaders, air isn't a bad choice,
Sizing the ram & pressure to NOT kill press or dies when something goes wrong, you can't say that with hydraulics!
No risk of electrical fire around open powder.
Air compressors are cheap & everywhere, no big mess if a line or fitting ruptures like with hydraulic.

I just do too high a volume to wait on air to do the job, but for someone with nerve damage or inflammatory disease, it keeps them in the game.
I got all the components for free on other projects, laid around here for years, so cost was limited to time and a few brackets so I wasn't out anything when I gave them away to people that needed them.

The source for the cheapest ram was a tailgate release cylinder for big truck dump trailers, both new & rebuilt were very reasonable priced and strong enough to do the job.
 
Air is "springy" when compared to hydraulic or direct mechanical connections. It also requires an air compressor.

Hydraulics can be limited in power by cylinders and/or operating pressure, pretty much the same as air but unlike air hydraulic fluids do not compress and the compression of the air is what causes the "spring" action.

I used pneumatics for sizing presses though and they work fine because you are just pushing the bullet through a die.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eANEMBS_V_0

With reloading there are forces required in both directions though. So let's say you are bringing the ram back down and it takes 30 psi before the case comes off the expander, when it does that compressed volume of air now free to move the piston "jerks" everything.

The other methods don't do this.

It's not that it hasn't been tried before though.
https://drc.libraries.uc.edu/bitstream/handle/2374.UC/701558/MET2013_Hanschke_Corey.pdf?sequence=1

If it were successful and cost effective there would be some for sale out there as well.
 
I won't say air presses cannot be made to work well...
But I used to run an air actuated Arburg C4B injection molding machine and other pneumatic press type equiptment.
Arburg bought all those presses back.
I'll tell you an operator,who WAS being unsafe,managed to clamp his hand in the press.
Someone mentioned air is springy. That's a problem. It stores energy.Like a spring.If you want to look for potential industrial accidents,look for stored energy.
You hit the red button and power down a hydraulic system,its dead.
Not so with pneumatics.Until all pressure is bled off,they are like an armed bear trap.
Sometimes a pneumatic system gets stuck on something. Its a trap. You nudge loose the "Stuck" and the press cycles. Toggles become shear blades and fingers hit the floor.

Sure,it can be done. Sure,if there are tested/proven lockout/tagout procedures that are followed,indusrial pneumatic equiptment CAN be safe.
But 50 % of engineers are below average. Not everyone can install "drop in 1911 parts" and a fair percentage of home built aircraft crash.A few Space Shuttles blew up.

Think your pneumatic home built press through very carefully
 
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