How to easily make a brake for a budget orbital sander

This is my first orbital sander, with which I have been working for a little more than six months, and I have never held similar sander in my hands before.

When choosing this grinder, I was more guided by the price.

In the descriptions for such machines, I indicate their advantage in that they have a double stroke: vibration and rotation. In expensive cars, the advantage was indicated by the brake.

Why the brake is a plus, I didn't understand right away. Dumb - in a word, but still understood what's what.

I will share my thoughts.

In such a machine, an eccentric with a bearing rotates on the shaft, to which the sole is fixed. Everything is very similar to the structure of a surface grinder, except that the sole of the orbital machine rotates freely.

The sole of the grinder spins up due to the low stroke of the eccentric and at idle spins up to high speeds. This can be clearly seen, for example, when gymnasts rotate the hoop at the waist, or if you spin the keys on your finger. The principle is similar.

And so that the sole of my machine does not unwind much, I decided to make a simple brake for it.

For the brake, I cut off a strip of plastic from a transparent package left over from a toy. In terms of thickness, this plastic is similar to the one in PET bottles, and it probably could have been used.

I installed these strips in the slots of the grinder cover, just below the sole. I put two such strips symmetrically from the eccentric and folded them like an accordion so that they were pressed against the sole from the back side.

As a result, the sole stopped almost completely at idle.

When a small load was given to it, it began to rotate.

Such a simple brake turned out to be quite working. At the moment I have sanded about 20 m * 2 boards, with this revision. The maximum worked without stopping for about 20-25 minutes. During this time, neither the machine nor the sole got warm at all.

You can more clearly see how an eccentric sander works with such a refinement in the video clip below.

Thanks for reading. I would be glad to have your support in the form of a like and a subscription to the channel. And see other publications on the channel.

Alexander.

P.S. I also invite you to your site.