A sewing machine motor speed control - Making the box
Drilling, sawing, and filing.
A sewing machine motor speed control - Table of Contents
I’ve spent a couple of Saturday afternoons working on the box for the new electronic motor speed control I’m making for my Adler class 8 sewing machine. It should have been done in one, but things don’t always go as planned.
I bought a black powder coated aluminum box to hold the electronics for the motor speed control. I’m not extremely picky about appearances, but I did want it to at least somewhat match the sewing machine itself.
As usual, I drew templates in Inkscape to use as guides.
| Box and templates |
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I covered the whole box in masking tape then taped the templates on before starting to work. I covered the box in tape to keep from scuffing the finish when the box was clamped in a vice while drilling, sawing, and filing.
| Ready to cut |
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I marked the center of all the holes with the punch, then drilled and cut all the holes.
| Drilled |
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 |
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Once it was all done, I trial fit all the parts. It looks like it’ll all work out, even though the box is bigger than I like.
| Trial fitting |
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I’ll be making some brass mounting tabs to hold the box on the sewing machine motor. I finished the drawings today and I’ll see about making the tabs tomorrow.
Something I wanted to mention was that this wasn’t a quick and simple process. I’ve noticed that a lot of the projects on Hackaday.io, and a lot of my own projects, give the impression that things always work out right the first time through.
In this case, I messed up. I bought a box I thought would fit, then cut and drilled all the holes before discovering that the connectors and the circuit board wouldn’t all fit in at the same time.
| Oops |
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The socket for the AC power cord doesn’t fit in beside the circuit board. I’d have had to cut a hole in the lid of the box to let the socket sit above the board - then the socket would have protruded above the lid. Ugly.
The second time around had its share of mistakes, too.
| More oops |
|---|
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I had to redraw the templates several times before I got all of the holes on them and all in the right places. I lost track of how many times I printed them out, cut them out, then discovered that I’d forgotten a hole or managed to get it a couple of millimeters out of place.
Mistakes are more common than a “got right the first time.” Any time you make things, you are going to make mistakes. Get used to it. The only way not to make mistakes is to never do anything.