treadle questions

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nstewart

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Registered:1647140606
Posts: 321

Posted 1647571743	Reply with quote #1

Hopefully I can get the Necchi finished before I get banned, but.. I'm look for a treadle for another project. I actually built a stand for manual grain mill, and designed a mechanism built around a bicycle freewheel and pedal lever rather than a treadles fixed linkage. And quickly found it sucked. Too small, not heavy enough, and bad ergos. I needed to grind some flour before I got the foot return spring figured out, and now I'm ready to redesign the whole thing. So I'm trying to design one, and internet is coming up blank. It occurs to me there are some differences. It's to be used standing on one foot, there's a continuous load, and the standing operation means the pedal has to live outside the footprint or you'll bang your knees. Has anyone run across anything that'd be helpful in designing a foot powered device with perhaps some different design criteria than a sewing machine treadle (which seems to be the most common foot powered device since people had time for the luxury of writing about such things instead of just getting it done). Or I could hack up an old sewing machine..
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alwen

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Posts: 4,156

Posted 1647602998	Reply with quote #2

How about an exercise bike? https://web.archive.org/web/20160421163310/http://providentliving.org.nz/make-a-pedal-powered-grain-mill/
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nstewart

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Registered:1647140606
Posts: 321

Posted 1647605332	Reply with quote #3

I've seen those, and it makes for a huge setup. My wife already hates the very existence of this thing that threatens her safety bubble. Even a few weeks back when everyone was saying the shelves at the store were bare and there was no bread.. I think it made it worse. Besides it's not that much power. It's just a tad repetitive for a hand operation. Feet are much more used to repetitive motion.
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Heresolong

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Registered:1628614142
Posts: 4,280

Posted 1647606552	Reply with quote #4

There have been treadle machines that were designed to be operated standing and on one foot. Old industrial. I've seen pictures and I think it was here. I'm sure someone will chime in. Also, you can often find treadle assemblies that have already been divorced from their cabinets and heads so you wouldn't have to do it yourself and get banned. __________________ Calvin "Bother" said Pooh, as he connected at 14.4K bps.
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OurWorkbench

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Registered:1454729885
Posts: 4,222

Posted 1647606681 · Edited	Reply with quote #5

Evidently someone has figured out "How To Adapt a Grain Mill To a Treadle Base" After re-reading your opening post, I see you want to do it standing. Why? I'm thinking that if you extended the right side out and turned the mill around then you could have a cut out over the treadle. I'm picturing it in my head that it would be kind of like the table as seen at https://www.amazon.com/Studio-Designs-Sewing-Machine-Stitches/dp/B071VTQZHW but with out the drop down.section. Or something like this one and again turning the mill around so the wheels line up and the "output" is on the right. Janey __________________ Janey
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nstewart

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Registered:1647140606
Posts: 321

Posted 1647657029	Reply with quote #6

My initial desire to do it standing was to keep the table as small as possible. It turns out it's possible to make it too small. But I still want it as small as practical, so I can shove it in the nook between a bookcase and the wall. Im starting to think maybe just sticking a 100w motor in the base and keeping the ability to hand crank is a better solution. I'd like to be able to grind more in one sitting, as cleaning the mill is kind of a hassle. There's a couple points of usability I've discovered since using the stand I built with a hand crank. Some sort of cam release to be able to tilt the mill itself over for cleaning at the end of a batch would be nice.
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Guy Montana

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Registered:1523201267
Posts: 281

Posted 1647893037	Reply with quote #7

They made scroll saws and other kinds of treadle operated devices. Maybe look into other device designs to complete you modification? Below is a link to an old type of treadle scroll saw on an auction website. Its sold but you can look at the pictures.... https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/foot-powered-new-rogers-scroll-saw-2637-c-19b4dd7a1a
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nstewart

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Registered:1647140606
Posts: 321

Posted 1648924637	Reply with quote #8

I've been banging my head against this for a few weeks. And since I have a history of finding myself on internet asking the same question twenty years later, I figured I'd put this here for posterity's sake: I came up with an idea using two arm cranks on a common axle like an elliptical machine might have. (I actually did think about trying to use a sewing machine motor - figuring I'm putting out far less than the 60w shaft power I estimated for the 150w motors available for VSM's. Even gearing down from 10krpm it's still woefully lacking on starting torque.) The problem I was having is that I could come up with something that goes round in a circle, but I couldn't figure out the limitations of the input angles, and - it's gotta work in the constraints of the body. Apparently a treadle is a four bar linkage, specifically it's a crank-rocker mechanism (insert musician joke here). There are closed form solutions for this, so that you can set your input angles - so if you're trying to design a linkage to say turn 360 degrees given a 35" lever an 18" swing at the top - if not an app, there's a paper for that. From here out it diverges from the sewing machine forum, so I'll leave it be - but if you're interested, that should be enough to find more.
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pgf

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Registered:1510100178
Posts: 6,780

Posted 1648925828	Reply with quote #9

If I'm picturing what you're describing correctly, then Steve (our illustrious leader and all-around nice guy) has a couple of these: https://www.victoriansweatshop.com/post/deneglect-of-howe-2foot-treadle-10354030 https://www.victoriansweatshop.com/post/1873-singer-new-family-pre12-mop-2-foot-treadle-7966980 __________________ My machines: http://projects.foxharp.net/sewing_machines/by-age
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nstewart

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Registered:1647140606
Posts: 321

Posted 1649087425	Reply with quote #10

What I built was this: What I'm trying to build now doesn't use a foot pedal but rather two arm cranks like an elliptical machine. It took some doing to figure out the necessary math and in the end I wound up solving it graphically in CAD. It's easy to make a crank go round and round. It's another matter to design a rocker input with only so much travel such that the crank can go round. Since a fixed linkage can back drive, if you get that wrong, you can end up with a 3ft metal arm striking with a surprising amount of force and speed. I've finally arrived at a set of parameters that I believe will work, and I'm redesigning the cabinet for it this week.
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