Source for power adjustment hand cranks.

[Bill Dufour]

People ask how to power the planner adjustment, saw rise and fall, drill press table, etc. I just found out today about truck tarp gearmotors.
twelve volts dc, 50-100 rpms, 1/2 hp or so, 3/4" output shaft. Not a windshield wiper motor. cost 100-150 plus power supply
Bill D

https://tarpingusa.com/products/apache-tarp-motor
https://www.amazon.com/Tarp-Motor-Dump-Truck-APACHE/dp/B0CL1RZ4LC

[Alan Lightstone]

Interesting, Bill. I know nothing about motors, but that motor at 0.5HP at 12V should draw roughly 35ish amps / 420W. What would power that? A car battery? Are there 120VAC - 12VDC power supplies that can produce that much? Seems like quite a lot of power required.

[Richard Coers]

The rest of the drive system will be a task. That 3/4" shaft will make finding a small pulley a little challenging. You'll want a drive with very nearly zero backlash and a controller that will allow a jogging the motor for small adjustments to the planer bed. I'd head more towards a stepper motor so you could have a controller with a programmed rotation amount. There have always been gear motors like that. You need to look no further than the Performax feed belt drives.

[Jimmy Harris]

Those motors seem too big for what you're looking for. You don't need, or probably even want, that much HP on a planer or TS adjustment wheel. You'll likely damage them if you go past their end point, because that's a LOT of power. Plus, the size of the power supply needed to operate those is pretty ridiculous. With a reducing gearbox like that, you can get away with something much, much smaller. That way you don't damage your saw or plane if you adjust it too far, but rather risk damaging the cheap adjustment motor.

Something like this might even be fine, though I can't see how much torque it produces at its normal setting, so it's hard to know for sure.
https://www.amazon.com/Greartisan-Electric-Reduction-Eccentric-Diameter/dp/B071XCX1LH/ref=asc_df_B071XCX1LH/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=198064502357&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11262816288519873556&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9026288&hvtargid=pla-350566183361&psc=1&mcid=363af8af00df3f9b97533054ce2c7e2f&gclid=Cj0KCQjwwMqvBhCtARIsAIXsZpYYjSdVCnMQA2C8CmBM gjLcgwfRBowh47jTtiVY0xo_fl5wwubb2C4aAoM9EALw_wcB

[Edward Weber]

Those motors seem too big for what you're looking for. You don't need, or probably even want, that much HP on a planer or TS adjustment wheel. You'll likely damage them if you go past their end point, because that's a LOT of power. Plus, the size of the power supply needed to operate those is pretty ridiculous. With a reducing gearbox like that, you can get away with something much, much smaller. That way you don't damage your saw or plane if you adjust it too far, but rather risk damaging the cheap adjustment motor.

Something like this might even be fine, though I can't see how much torque it produces at its normal setting, so it's hard to know for sure.
https://www.amazon.com/Greartisan-Electric-Reduction-Eccentric-Diameter/dp/B071XCX1LH/ref=asc_df_B071XCX1LH/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=198064502357&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11262816288519873556&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9026288&hvtargid=pla-350566183361&psc=1&mcid=363af8af00df3f9b97533054ce2c7e2f&gclid=Cj0KCQjwwMqvBhCtARIsAIXsZpYYjSdVCnMQA2C8CmBM gjLcgwfRBowh47jTtiVY0xo_fl5wwubb2C4aAoM9EALw_wcB
Add to that a a dc speed controller, about $20 on amazon

[Bert McMahan]

Interesting, Bill. I know nothing about motors, but that motor at 0.5HP at 12V should draw roughly 35ish amps / 420W. What would power that? A car battery? Are there 120VAC - 12VDC power supplies that can produce that much? Seems like quite a lot of power required.

That's not a problem- one of these would do it fine:

https://www.jameco.com/z/LRS-450-12-MEAN-WELL-450W-Single-Output-12V-37-5A-Enclosed-Switching-Power-Supply_2337431.html

Less than $50, from a very reputable brand, and a reputable supplier. You'll need some pretty big wires of course, but you won't be running at full tilt much (if ever at all) so you shouldn't need anything super beefy. I'd bet something half as powerful would do it just fine as well, though I'd worry a bit about startup current draw browning things out.

[Jimmy Harris]

That's not a problem- one of these would do it fine:

https://www.jameco.com/z/LRS-450-12-MEAN-WELL-450W-Single-Output-12V-37-5A-Enclosed-Switching-Power-Supply_2337431.html

Less than $50, from a very reputable brand, and a reputable supplier. You'll need some pretty big wires of course, but you won't be running at full tilt much (if ever at all) so you shouldn't need anything super beefy. I'd bet something half as powerful would do it just fine as well, though I'd worry a bit about startup current draw browning things out.

Mean Well makes great power supplies. But I've had issues in the past with power supplies that just barely cover the current requirements. They tend to last about a year or two tops on me, and then fail. I guess with an adjustment motor, it won't be running often or for long when it does, so that might not be a problem. But I tend to like my power supplies and PWM speed controllers to be rated around twice what the motor is expected to draw. So if the motor pulls 35 amps, I'd be looking around the 50-60 amp range for longer term durability.

[Bert McMahan]

Yeah, and I'd guess in this case you'd literally never hit the max current draw (startup transients aside). I'm not sure how much energy I put into cranking an adjustment lever, but it's nowhere near 1/2 HP. I suppose perhaps the OP wants to raise his planer table REALLY FAST :)

[Edward Weber]

Look at something like a small fractional hp dc motor on a feed belt for a sander.
They provide plenty of power enough to push wood against a spinning sanding drum.
Fractional hp dc motors also come in worm drive configurations for about the same price, $15 on up
I think you might be looking far too large for a small solution, JMHO

[Larry Edgerton]

Yeah, and I'd guess in this case you'd literally never hit the max current draw (startup transients aside). I'm not sure how much energy I put into cranking an adjustment lever, but it's nowhere near 1/2 HP. I suppose perhaps the OP wants to raise his planer table REALLY FAST :)

To give you an idea, Lance Armstrong's legs developed 1/4 hp, so 1/2 is a bunch.

[Warren Lake]

with roids or without?

[Alan Lightstone]

To give you an idea, Lance Armstrong's legs developed 1/4 hp, so 1/2 is a bunch.
Lance may be free to rent now. As is the bike he rode that a friend of mine bought during his Tour de France days, and now is pretty worthless.

[Carl Beckett]

Might be something here that is useful in terms of motor controls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCCG3KFvJ3k

[Jimmy Harris]

Might be something here that is useful in terms of motor controls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCCG3KFvJ3k
Yeah, to prevent running over and damaging your tools or motor, an Arduino controller with a stepper motor would be a good solution. But it would also require a good bit of skill, both soldering and programming.

I've got an old photographic enlarger that has a motorized head and raises and lowers on a track. It has a pair of steel bolts at the ends that work as stops to engage a pair of large, momentary DPDT switch that reverses the motor temporarily while pushed. So instead of bottoming out and ruining something, the motor just bounces back and forth as the switch get turned on and off. It wouldn't be effective with something like a table saw that has a hard stop at 0°, but it might work for something like planer.

The Arduino and stepper motor would be great for something like a table saw, because you could program it to automatically go to 0°, 45° or anything else and not have to stop and take measurements (unless you need a higher precision and don't trust the motor) or hold the button in for a long time. Or you could go crazy and install those coded strips and discs that inkjet printers (and scanners) use to relay the precise location of the printer head to the computer to know exactly where every dot is going on the page. And while that sounds a lot more difficult, costly, and complex, there are a ton of DIY videos of people dismantling old and sometimes broken printers and using those parts to build their own 3D printers.

I'm actually kind of surprised we haven't seen this stuff already in power tools. Sure it would up the cost a little bit, but on a large scale, it wouldn't be that much. I guess maybe reliability? Saw dust does tend to get everywhere and might not jive with optical sensors. So you'd have to seal the whole thing up good.

[Edward Weber]

I'm actually kind of surprised we haven't seen this stuff already in power tools. Sure it would up the cost a little bit, but on a large scale, it wouldn't be that much. I guess maybe reliability? Saw dust does tend to get everywhere and might not jive with optical sensors. So you'd have to seal the whole thing up good.

I've often thought the same.
If it's doable for a hobby/diy small budget, at scale, it would add very little to the overall price of a machine.
They already include some electronic "features" on some machines that the user never has any interface with. Adding one that they could actually use would be nice.

[Chris Parks]

I used a stepper motor but a cheap manual idea would be motors out of powered seats in cars. 12V DC and a bit of wire going to a rocker switch, add a cheap digital read out for about $50 and job done.