precisionworks
Flashaholic
Just for you, Ray :thumbsup:
Glass scale is mounted to the mill table, with reader head mounted underneath.
Glass scale is mounted to stationary base with moving reader head.
Display moves where needed.
just bought an used knee mill ... photos!
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Glass scale is mounted to the mill table, with reader head mounted underneath.
Glass scale is mounted to stationary base with moving reader head.
Display moves where needed.
Looks like Grizzly has re-introduced the same knee mill that Daniel (Gadget_Lover) and I own:
http://www.grizzly.com/products/8-x-30-Variable-Speed-Vertical-Mill/G0678
and it is cheaper than the $4500 or so that mine cost back 10 years ago and comes with variable speed!
http://www.grizzly.com/products/8-x-30-Variable-Speed-Vertical-Mill/G0678
and it is cheaper than the $4500 or so that mine cost back 10 years ago and comes with variable speed!
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gadget_lover
Flashaholic
Amazing that they sell for $4000 new. The built in VFD is nice.
I think I'll put up with belts for a while longer.
Dan
I think I'll put up with belts for a while longer.
Dan
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precisionworks
Flashaholic
The mill comes with a 1.5hp motor & drive, and it would cost little to change your mill to a 3ph 1.5hp motor (about $50-$75 on eBay) and drive to match ($206.25 for the SMVector drive from Wolf Automation).
Personally, for not much more, a 3hp motor and drive will vastly outperform the smaller unit. Roughly $125 for the motor & $283.25 for the drive :thumbsup:
The Yasakawa RM5G-2001 does not appear to be a vector drive (here's the manual, all 8MB:
http://www.rhymebus.com.tw/downloads/documents/rm5g/RM5G_Operation_Manual_English_V1.6.pdf )
That makes it really inexpensive for Griz to install the drive at the factory.
StrikerDown
Enlightened
Daniel/Will, Does the head on your mill tilt?
Looks like it could be a handy feature.
Just ordered an X axis power feed and cheapo quill DRO for my RF-31, and noticed (again) Barry's post above about how he mounted his 2 Axis DRO. I will probably get my mill all fixed up then sell it for a bigger unit! Buy high, sell low as usual!
Look at the last page of the mill section in that grizzly catalog... CNC! 😱
Looks like it could be a handy feature.
Just ordered an X axis power feed and cheapo quill DRO for my RF-31, and noticed (again) Barry's post above about how he mounted his 2 Axis DRO. I will probably get my mill all fixed up then sell it for a bigger unit! Buy high, sell low as usual!
Look at the last page of the mill section in that grizzly catalog... CNC! 😱
Yes, exactly like shown in the Grizzly pages. In fact that is how you do the "X" axis tramming of the milling head.
gadget_lover
Flashaholic
Yes Ray, the head tilts left and right, but does not 'nod' (front to back). I originally thought it would go 90 degrees left and right, but according to the label on the swivel it's much less than that.
Will, have you tried going more than 45 degrees?
Dan
Will, have you tried going more than 45 degrees?
Dan
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No; in fact, I am just having trouble keeping it at "zero" (trammed)
gadget_lover
Flashaholic
Let me know if you try. I'll do the same if I get a chance. I need to make one of those nifty dual dial indicator tramming devices anyway.
If it does go 90 degrees, and the column swivels 90 degrees, I can see it used as a horizontal mill too. 🙂
Daniel
If it does go 90 degrees, and the column swivels 90 degrees, I can see it used as a horizontal mill too. 🙂
Daniel
Mine is marked up to 45 deg, but I don't know how much it will go past that. Like you said, something else to try.
You and I both - definitely something useful to have 😉
precisionworks
Flashaholic
I can't figure why anyone would feel the need for that ... clamp an Indicol to the spindle nose (or collet chuck) and touch the table with the dial test indicator tip. Left & right tram usually takes just a few minutes to correct, as does front & back tram. Since only two points at a time are being compared, it's a fast process.
Would the dual dials be faster or more accurate 😕
For me at least it just sounds like a very neat project. From the descriptions, it would be a little bit faster with the two dials, but I don't see how it would be more accurate.
gadget_lover
Flashaholic
I always worry that the DTI will catch in a T-slot and get ruined. The Dial indiactors are a bit tougher.
But you are right Barry, the time put into making one will probably never be recovered.
Daniel
But you are right Barry, the time put into making one will probably never be recovered.
Daniel
Clark
Newly Enlightened
I am an electrical engineer.
So is my father, so is my wife.
My son is a software engineer, but he showed my how to calculate the transient plus steady state on an AC line.
I am in a state of confusion with every new thing that comes along.
The important thing is to start documenting with schematics and lists, as you did.
Then even a pea brain, like mine, can understand the situation.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I too have a small knee mill, a Rockwell 21-100 circa 1962.
I put this 6 inch wheel on:
http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INSRIT?PARTPG=INLMKD&PMPXNO=4824784&PMAKA=240-0678
With this rotating handle:
http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INSRIT?PMAKA=319-7677
The crank handle on a Bridgeport may be warranted with a very heavy knee, but the 6" wheel is much faster on a little 21-100.
Unless I am wearing gloves, I need the rotating handles on the wheels.
The wheel to be adapted needs a bore with a keyway.
I could cut the keyway with a hacksaw or find a bore with a keyway and use that.
I found a bore with keyway from an old handle with the wings smashed off, and turned it down on the lathe.
I bored out the wheel, and drilled and tapped a set screw into the wheel, and put the old bore inside the wheel and the incremented dial.
What does it all mean?
1) The crank handle for raising the knee needed to be a smaller.
2) The cross feed wheel needed to get larger.
3) They both needed rotating handles.
Cool - it is awesome to have more engineers here to help out with the many projects/questions that come along :thumbsup:
I just went out and looked, and my knee mill already has the larger 6"+ wheels on the X and Y - definitely much larger than the small one in your picture above.
As to the wheel on the Z, that sounds like a good idea. I have heard of somebody else that did the same thing, and he also said it was easier/quicker. Maybe something to try out 😉
Found the "perfect" accessory for my mill - a 10" face mill
http://dallas.craigslist.org/ftw/tls/1587577334.html
http://dallas.craigslist.org/ftw/tls/1587577334.html
bluwolf
Newly Enlightened
I just adapted a bridgeport style powerfeed on the X axis of my 8x30 mill. It's essentially the same mill that Will and Daniel have so I thought this would be a good place for it. I got the idea from an article in HSM magazine written by a gentleman named Rick Kruger. He adapted the same powerfeed to a 6x26 mill. Again, basically the same mill just smaller.
Since I'm very much the newb I contacted him to ask him a few questions. Long story short, I can't thank him enough for the help he gave me. I could not have done it without all his help. He went way beyond what I would have expected. Mine is not as nice as his but it does the job.
It'll be obvious I'm nowhere near as good as Will at this photo documentation thing. This is what you see when you pull off the handwheel. Note the bearing housing and the length of the leadscrew shaft for the next couple of pix.
The first thing I did was make a bracket to clear the bearing housing and provide a flat surface to mount the powerfeed. In this picture you can see the small gap between the bearing housing and the powerfeed mounting bracket. 1/2" worked for mine. I used what I had so I stacked a 1/4" piece of flat bar in front of a 1/4" piece of angle. The top of the angle also serves to cover the void and keep swarf out of the PF mounting bracket casting, created when I cut the top of the bracket off to keep it below the level of the table. The reason for that being that if you ever had to clamp a project longer than the table, the bracket wouldn't stop you from mounting it flat.
At this point I started to backwards engineer it. I had to make a dummy bearing spacer to center the powerfeed on my leadscrew. I mounted the PF mounting bracket (grey piece) to the powerfeed, slid the dummy bearing on my leadscrew, then slid the whole assembly over my leadscrew. This showed me where to tap for the holes for the PF mounting bracket and how much to cut off the top of the bracket to keep it below the top of the table. You can also see how little of the original leadscrew is sticking out of the powerfeed.
This shows my cobbled up bracket to clear the housing. The two cap head bolts you can see are the two holes that hold the bearing housing end cap casting to the mill table. I just bought longer bolts and also used them as the mounting bolts for my aluminum bracket. The two tapped holes above them are the mounting points for the grey powerfeed bracket. You can also see the extension I made to fit over the existing leadscrew.
This is a closeup of the leadscrew extension. What you can't see is hole bored in the fat end to slide over the existing leadscrew. The fat end takes the place of the dummy bearing sleeve, to center and support the powerfeed. The drilled hole is for the roll pin that will secure the extension to the leadscrew. The middle section with the small flat on it is for the powerfeed bevel gear. The flat is for the setscrew I put in the bevel gear after modifying it. The thin part of the shaft is to re-mount the original handwheel.
This is a pic of the bevel gear as it comes. All that threaded part and then some gets cut off. That black at the bottom is just a plastic cover to protect the brass teeth on the gear.
First I tapped it for a setscrew where I knew it would be mounted on the extension shaft. Then I bored it out to fit that section of the extension. I made another dummy shaft to support it in the lathe while parting off the threaded part.
Why go through all that trouble when the hole through the bevel gear is only a couple thousandths smaller than my existing leadscrew? Because what I didn't mention before is that the hole in the extension that slides over the existing leadscrew goes almost all the way through the second step also.
This pic shows the parts that I made/modified except for the dummy bearings and shafts. You can see the extension and the bevel gear. I also had to make a couple rings that mated the original handwheel with the graduated dial to the powerfeed housing. The opening in the powerfeed is bigger than the graduated dial on the handwheel. These rings keep swarf from getting into the powerfeed. Again, I used what I had. This could have been done with one ring if I had a larger diameter piece of rod. As it was, I had a large enough piece of al tubing for the bigger diameter, and piece of solid rod that was big enough for the handwheel diameter. The lips on each ring grab an inside diameter of both the PF and the handwheel to locate them.
Here it is pretty much done for that part. The key slot on the extension is for the handwheel, the same as the key slot on the original leadscrew so no modification to the handwheel assembly was necessary. You still have to mount the microswitch box and stops for the automatic powerfeed stop to work.
This is the bracket to mount the microswitch for the stops. It replaces the solid bracket for the orignal table stops. It's off center because the existing mounting holes in the mill are too close to the same spacing as the screws that mount the microswitch box. The holes had to be oriented like this to put the plunges in line with the stops.
This pic shows where I relieved the back of the bracket so it wouldn't rub on the table as it moves from side to side.
This last pic shows the microswitch box mounted to the bracket and one of the spring loaded stops that come with the powerfeed.
I'm really happy with the way it works. It's very nice not to have to crank the table back and forth and the surface finish on parts is greatly improved.
Mike
Since I'm very much the newb I contacted him to ask him a few questions. Long story short, I can't thank him enough for the help he gave me. I could not have done it without all his help. He went way beyond what I would have expected. Mine is not as nice as his but it does the job.
It'll be obvious I'm nowhere near as good as Will at this photo documentation thing. This is what you see when you pull off the handwheel. Note the bearing housing and the length of the leadscrew shaft for the next couple of pix.
The first thing I did was make a bracket to clear the bearing housing and provide a flat surface to mount the powerfeed. In this picture you can see the small gap between the bearing housing and the powerfeed mounting bracket. 1/2" worked for mine. I used what I had so I stacked a 1/4" piece of flat bar in front of a 1/4" piece of angle. The top of the angle also serves to cover the void and keep swarf out of the PF mounting bracket casting, created when I cut the top of the bracket off to keep it below the level of the table. The reason for that being that if you ever had to clamp a project longer than the table, the bracket wouldn't stop you from mounting it flat.
At this point I started to backwards engineer it. I had to make a dummy bearing spacer to center the powerfeed on my leadscrew. I mounted the PF mounting bracket (grey piece) to the powerfeed, slid the dummy bearing on my leadscrew, then slid the whole assembly over my leadscrew. This showed me where to tap for the holes for the PF mounting bracket and how much to cut off the top of the bracket to keep it below the top of the table. You can also see how little of the original leadscrew is sticking out of the powerfeed.
This shows my cobbled up bracket to clear the housing. The two cap head bolts you can see are the two holes that hold the bearing housing end cap casting to the mill table. I just bought longer bolts and also used them as the mounting bolts for my aluminum bracket. The two tapped holes above them are the mounting points for the grey powerfeed bracket. You can also see the extension I made to fit over the existing leadscrew.
This is a closeup of the leadscrew extension. What you can't see is hole bored in the fat end to slide over the existing leadscrew. The fat end takes the place of the dummy bearing sleeve, to center and support the powerfeed. The drilled hole is for the roll pin that will secure the extension to the leadscrew. The middle section with the small flat on it is for the powerfeed bevel gear. The flat is for the setscrew I put in the bevel gear after modifying it. The thin part of the shaft is to re-mount the original handwheel.
This is a pic of the bevel gear as it comes. All that threaded part and then some gets cut off. That black at the bottom is just a plastic cover to protect the brass teeth on the gear.
First I tapped it for a setscrew where I knew it would be mounted on the extension shaft. Then I bored it out to fit that section of the extension. I made another dummy shaft to support it in the lathe while parting off the threaded part.
Why go through all that trouble when the hole through the bevel gear is only a couple thousandths smaller than my existing leadscrew? Because what I didn't mention before is that the hole in the extension that slides over the existing leadscrew goes almost all the way through the second step also.
This pic shows the parts that I made/modified except for the dummy bearings and shafts. You can see the extension and the bevel gear. I also had to make a couple rings that mated the original handwheel with the graduated dial to the powerfeed housing. The opening in the powerfeed is bigger than the graduated dial on the handwheel. These rings keep swarf from getting into the powerfeed. Again, I used what I had. This could have been done with one ring if I had a larger diameter piece of rod. As it was, I had a large enough piece of al tubing for the bigger diameter, and piece of solid rod that was big enough for the handwheel diameter. The lips on each ring grab an inside diameter of both the PF and the handwheel to locate them.
Here it is pretty much done for that part. The key slot on the extension is for the handwheel, the same as the key slot on the original leadscrew so no modification to the handwheel assembly was necessary. You still have to mount the microswitch box and stops for the automatic powerfeed stop to work.
This is the bracket to mount the microswitch for the stops. It replaces the solid bracket for the orignal table stops. It's off center because the existing mounting holes in the mill are too close to the same spacing as the screws that mount the microswitch box. The holes had to be oriented like this to put the plunges in line with the stops.
This pic shows where I relieved the back of the bracket so it wouldn't rub on the table as it moves from side to side.
This last pic shows the microswitch box mounted to the bracket and one of the spring loaded stops that come with the powerfeed.
I'm really happy with the way it works. It's very nice not to have to crank the table back and forth and the surface finish on parts is greatly improved.
Mike
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Man, very nice post - thanks so much for the detailed instructions :thumbsup:
Question: Which PF kit did you started from?
Question: Which PF kit did you started from?
Mirage_Man
Flashlight Enthusiast
bluwolf, that's awesome. Great job!
bluwolf
Newly Enlightened
I bought the 150 in/lbs PF from CDCO because it was the cheapest at the time. It was only $20 more than the 135 in/lbs model. I was told to go for the extra torque if I could afford it.
But I would check around. I think Shars might be right there in price now too.
Thanks Brian, I appreciate that.
