But many of those steppers are advertised as CNC milling steppers. Wouldn't that mean they can deliver the torque and speed required?

Those steppers are used for moving the machine table and head, not the actual spindle. And it's not just the torque, but the speed and . Plus when a stepper is stopped by too much torque being called for the driver gets out of sync, and the motor stalls, that would be disastrous for a spindle, the table still moving and the cutter stopped, instant broken cutter.

 

Fair enough.
I was thinking of attaching a drill chuck directly to the motor shaft, since I've seen it in so many videos and I'll only be using about 3-4mm drill bits. I'm really confused on which kind of motor should I get, geared, no geared, high torque, high speed.. I don't want to complicate things too much , just so it works and doesn't burn out after a short time.

You don't list your place of residence in your bio. So I don't know how things are where you live, but around here the second hand stores and pawn shops are full of old cordless drills, most with bad batteries, and for a very cheap price. Getting something like that, a used drill, gets you half way home. Then you just need to get a plug in power supply to use in place of the batteries in the drills.

I still don't understand the need to use batteries when you have mains available? Those same cordless drills could be driven by one mains voltage motor and some small chain and sprockets.

As someone who spent his adult life as a die maker/machinist, and who also does wood working, I would ,for as many of these hive frames your talking about, make a fixture for doing them with a single spindle drill press. Basically a board with a series of holes drilled at the spacing you need for the frames. You put a peg/dowel in the first hole of the fixture, and drill all of the parts you're making at that point. Then you move the peg to the next hole and repeat drilling all of those holes. Then so on and so on, it goes much faster than it sounds. A lot of things that are not full production in a machine shop are done like this, to save the cost of making a dedicated machine for small production runs.

 

What shortbus said. Plus, you can double or triple your through-put by stacking the boards. Just drop a pin through the first hole to maintain spacing alignhment.

Ken

 

That pin/peg thing is also used when making "finger joints" with a table saw. It really is a fairly common thing in wood working, when you need a lot of similar parts that will fit each other.

 

You don't list your place of residence in your bio. So I don't know how things are where you live, but around here the second hand stores and pawn shops are full of old cordless drills, most with bad batteries, and for a very cheap price. Getting something like that, a used drill, gets you half way home. Then you just need to get a plug in power supply to use in place of the batteries in the drills.

I still don't understand the need to use batteries when you have mains available? Those same cordless drills could be driven by one mains voltage motor and some small chain and sprockets.

As someone who spent his adult life as a die maker/machinist, and who also does wood working, I would ,for as many of these hive frames your talking about, make a fixture for doing them with a single spindle drill press. Basically a board with a series of holes drilled at the spacing you need for the frames. You put a peg/dowel in the first hole of the fixture, and drill all of the parts you're making at that point. Then you move the peg to the next hole and repeat drilling all of those holes. Then so on and so on, it goes much faster than it sounds. A lot of things that are not full production in a machine shop are done like this, to save the cost of making a dedicated machine for small production runs.

I specified in one of the post that I decided to power this machine with 220V (wall adapter) instead of batteries, since it won't be needed outside of garage. I'm sorry the post wasn't as clear.
People are seeking this machine for very specific uses. They usually need 6 of drill bits at the same time, considering, you can adjust the spacing between them - I've already got the mechanics design.
I'm from europe btw.

 

I have never kept bees but my father did for many years. As I remember, the frames were made of molding and were designed for an inserted sheet which led the bees to make nice, regular cells. If you can get the molding, wouldn't it be easier to use a drill press and a jig to move the wood piece the proper distance each step and drill the holes one at a time?

If you think you can sell many thousands a specialized tool might make sense, but if you are thinking in the hundreds, a simple drill press is the way to go.

 

If you think you can sell many thousands a specialized tool might make sense, but if you are thinking in the hundreds, a simple drill press is the way to go.

Exactly my thoughts on this project. But many that don't or never have done things like this project seem to think a special machine or tool is needed. 10 minutes to a 1/2 hour to make a simple jig and you're good to go, and if you have to buy a drill press you still have it to do other things later. Instead of having a "special" tool that only does one thing.

 

I was thinking anywhere from 6-8 drills, spaced about 5 centimeters apart. I would like to be able to use smaller aswell as bigger drill bits, like 10 mm.
Maybe batteries are more of a hassle than I thought. After more thinking about this project, the best option would be 220V power supply rather than battery, since this machine would only be needed in garage. In this case, a transformator should be wired before the circuit (motors). Would I need anything else, like voltage regulator? My main goal with this project is being as straightforward and simple as possible, with enough DC motor torque to drill thicker pieces of wood and without motors overheating.

Here's a circuit of what I'm trying to achieve:

Cutting material like drilling, milling is not a simple issue.
Most of the people will take a drill mount a random drill and start drilling with max speed and pressure.
Wrong the drill should do the job and you need an other way of sharping angle for wood , aluminium, steel, stainless steel, fibre glass, grass or stone.
Wood is a nasty thing oak, plywood or timber are all different and wet or dry is playing also a part in the energy needed.
A drill can't take more than 0.xx mm per rotation implies that speed and movement in the material are linked however the heat is also linked to the rotation speed and is therewith limited by the way cooling is done.
( (frozen) air, fluid or non).
The energy needed is depended on the size of the drill, maximum movement and the material to drill.
If you drill in wood you could decide to use butterfly drills ( 5 mm to huge) a spiral drill will try to lift the material and clamping is needed.

If 10mm is you max drill size and wet oak worst material you need power to make one hole.
Take a AC motors 250-300Watt.
(Remember: it should run the whole day week after week ===> multi hole means production!)

Next problem is drill length calibration and the tolerance.

Good luck

Picbuster