All that's needed to control the motor is a single potentiometer. But
I wanted to be able to set limits on both the highest and lowest
speeds: I didn't want it possible for the saw to appear
to be "off" with the speed control alone, nor did I want it to be
possible to exceed the 1000 RPM limit cautioned by Shopsmith.
I added an extra "trim pot" to each end of my potentiometer. Think
of it as simply a higher valued potentiometer that can't be turned
all the way up or all the way down. It takes a little fiddling to get
the limits set correctly, since changing one limit affects the other.
Using this I was able to restrict the low end to about 180 RPM, and
the high end to about 3000.
I'll use bad ASCII art for a schematic because it amuses me to do so
on an otherwise perfectly nice web page:
to MC60 "high" -------o
|
|
Z
10K Z<-----------o
trimpot Z |
Z |
|
Z
to MC60 "W" ---------------------->Z 10K
Z speed control
Z
|
Z |
Z |
10k Z<-----------o
trimpot Z
|
|
to MC60 "low" --------o
All that's needed to control the motor is a single potentiometer. But I wanted to be able to set limits on both the highest and lowest speeds: I didn't want it possible for the saw to appear to be "off" with the speed control alone, nor did I want it to be possible to exceed the 1000 RPM limit cautioned by Shopsmith.
I added an extra "trim pot" to each end of my potentiometer. Think of it as simply a higher valued potentiometer that can't be turned all the way up or all the way down. It takes a little fiddling to get the limits set correctly, since changing one limit affects the other. Using this I was able to restrict the low end to about 180 RPM, and the high end to about 3000.
I'll use bad ASCII art for a schematic because it amuses me to do so on an otherwise perfectly nice web page: