I want to electrically drive this ratchet mechanism to avoid the manual labour of turning it by hand. I found a motor with a 1600:1 gearbox on eBay (shipping from China of course) which looks perfect, however it has a 10mm diameter keyed output shaft which doesn’t nicely couple to my 3/4” square ratchet shaft.
From the photo it is clear that a 1” steel tube fits reasonably well over the shaft. A wooden plug and a little bit of brute force provided a flat surface which was pre-drilled and a flang screwed on.
This worked fairly well except that the grub screw on the flang was insufficent to withstand the forces required. Therefore a keyway was cut into the flang to prevent slipping.
And a key was made to fit.
This worked very well, but unfortunately about two years later things took a nasty turn. One of the screws snapped and others were about to pull out.
Taking the 1” tube and turning it sideways gave a metal surface on to which the flang could be bolted. Cutting a hole in the bottom side of the tube would accomodate the 3/4” ratchet shaft.
And with the flang in place it looks ready for use.
Hopefully this will last a little longer this time.
