A few yers ago a guy on here was selling kits to make a hand opernated beadroller into a powered unit. Anyone out there selling kits to do this. The shaft on my beadroller is 3/4" and the ones Eastwood sells is differant.
I bought my kit from Jegs. It was a Mittler Bros brand. Was cheaper to get it through Jegs then Mittler. Freight was about 1/2 too! Came with foot pedal, adaptors everything to convert a manual. I built my own bead roller and used the electric conversion kit to power it.
McMaster - Carr has Lovejoy couplings in any size you need and you buy the drive couplings individually so having two different size shafts is not an issue. It's not a hard conversion. If you want variable speed you will need a DC motor. It's easy to wire an AC motor for forward / reverse. Typically you want a 10-20 RPM motor with decent torque. Get a foot control that has an electrical plug so it's easy to disconnect.
I bought this one. It was easy for me to mount and it works great, so far. It has plenty of grunt and will crawl, when needed. I did have to buy a Lovejoy coupling to make the kit adapt to my 3/4" shaft. McMaster Carr has them. You buy the metric half for the motor, the insert and the inch half for the bead roller.....3 pieces. https://www.woodwardfab.com/product/motor-kit-wfbrm/
A check shows that the Eastwood like I have have 22 MM shafts while the Mittler Brothers have 3/4 (at least the Bead Roller, 24" Manual (mittlerbros.com) one ) shafts. I'll probably be hand cranking for a lot longer though.
Why use a kit? Buy the Eastwood bead roller and motor if you want to take the easy route. Or maybe you can do what I did and set up yo your own. See my thread. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/another-bead-roller-beef-up-and-power.756945/
I have friend that a used garage door opener and bicycle gears and chain on his, forward and reverse but no variable speed.
Not really true. Mine works fine with a speed of 2.8 rpm. I wouldn’t want it to move any faster and I’ve done plenty with my setup. Slow and steady and controllable wins the race when bead rolling.
Find a treadmill, pull the motor and control board off it. Just have to wire in a foot pedal. Works great, tons of torque, and variable speed.
I made up a flange to mount a Pontiac flex plate I had. Used a gear off a starter motor. Using a variable speed drill ( just clamped in place in photo) and a foot controller it works pretty good. Have to build a permanent mount for the drill motor. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I really like this idea. Lo-buck and gets the job done, and if you get a bit creative you could have more gearing options.
Use a 12 v electric winch motor and planetary gearbox. https://www.harborfreight.com/autom...ches/2000-lb-utility-trailer-winch-57365.html
Look for Jere Kirkpatrick Vally Forge Welding on You Tube, He has a few good videos on powering a bead roller and other mods. I did mine following his plans, and am happy with the results. He also has good videos on metal shaping,and home made tools.
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