12vdc drill powered sewing machine

[bobox]

Selling my brother TZ1-B651 industrial sewing machine but before it goes I thought I’d post the mods I made to it in order to make it usuable on my boat without mains power.

It originally came with a table and mains clutch motor so of course impractical for a boat.

In order to use this machine whilst living on my boat I made the following modifications:

Got rid of the table and the 240v 2800rpm clutch motor and mounted the industrial head in a wood case. The machine was too fast for my purposes and skill level anyway.

Changed the standard pulley mechanism to a xl timing belt pulley driven by a 12v Bosch drill motor / gear head with 2 torque settings.
Handly for when you want to go through extra thick material.
Bought the drill for a few $ and cut the handle off or else it would be in the way (plus I needed the trigger). Mounted the drill to the rear of the machine as pictured.

Took the Bosch variable speed trigger out of the handle and mounted it into an old foot pedal from a domestic machine.

Also Drilled out the needle holder to accept a heavier duty needles for thicker 138 thread.

All worked surprisingly well. Sometimes could do with more speed for long runs but the drill drive gave me similar control to what I get with my home machine with a servo motor.

[senormechanico]

Nice modification.
How does the drill motor do with heat dissipation after a long sewing session with heavy sail material?

[bobox]

No problems with overheating. I think the drill motor must have a pretty good duty cycle. Also I guess drills are designed to take a fair amount of abuse from DIYers.
My longest run has probably been a 10 metre seam on a deck tent. 8mm thick seam of a polyester mesh type material. For a commercial operator the machine runs painfully slow but for my projects the sewing part is only a small time component after design, cutting, preparation, basting etc.

Was thinking of putting batteries in the case as running a long power cable onto the deck was a pain.

[Copacabana]

Cool adaptation for the sewing machine. With a little creativity, things can be re-purposed in clever ways. Another example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGkOK89rY2I

[LoudMusic]

I've often wondered about having a product line with similar design concepts. Along the lines of the battery systems that DeWalt, Ryobi, et al use, there could also be interchangeable motor units. The same motor module could be moved between several tools.