Mini Mills and such...

NeoMoses · Aug 8, 2003

It's not so much that a cross side is no good for milling, but it's the combination of a cross-slide vise and a drill press aren't suitable for milling. Why? 3 reasons: (1) Drill press bearings aren't designed to absorb radial loads, only axial and (2) the Jacobs taper on drill press chucks will not withstand axial loads at all. They come loose. Trust me, when this happens, you don't want to be around. (3) Cross slide vises are very inaccurate and have a lot of backlash, which can be very dangerous when milling.

The best type of vise for milling is a sturdy, precision ground vise (like a Kurt.) And they work best when used with a machined designed for milling, AKA a milling machine.

TyRex · Aug 8, 2003

NeoMoses said:
Congratulations on you new toy! If you're looking into converting this bad boy to a CNC, you'll want to look at this site. You'll find everything you could ever imagine about CNC conversions there.

Man, I sure do miss my CNC. I'm trying to figure it out exactly how I can fit a CNC in my apartment now! Think the neighbors will notice?

Thanx for the link........I'll be spending a couple hours reading there.

First thing I gotta do is a complete tear down and clean off the reddish oil that is ALL over it........any tips on cleaning it off?

TyRex · Aug 9, 2003

OK.....I just did a complete tear down and cleaned off as much unneccesary grease as I could. Now I've got a few more questions......

What grease and oil do you recommend for the track and screw? I was planning on just using everyday motor oil and auto grease, but if anyone can recommend anything better, please do.

What sort of collet set do you guys recommend?

I've been checking out a couple vises at grizzly.com, and wonder what you all think of this one.......... http://www.grizzly.com/products/ite...D681-61B1-44E1-B93F-61CC0028F7A4&site=grizzly

and one more thing..........Is there any specific brand of cutting oil that is prefered?

JFettig · Aug 10, 2003

hey man, congrats!

I suggest lithium grease that you can get at napa autoparts or wherever else for the dovetails and motor oil for the leadscrews.

http://www.mini-lathe.com/Mini_mill/Versions/versions.htm#HF36739

did you ever take a look there?

http://littlemachineshop.com/
I bought my vice from them, the 3" precision milling vice, its a kurt style vice. pretty decent prices. I was debating getting the screwless vice but I wanted to make softjaws and be able to make angles before I convert to cnc.

Im having someone make me a belt drive setup thatll let me do 0-2500 and 0-9000 rpm thatll be pretty nice

for the cnc conversion, Ill be ordering some ballscrews and ballnuts and be making them pre-loaded and all that jazz. Ill be making the motor mounts, using nema 34 motors, 300oz+

for cutting oil, I use some cheap tapmatic aquacut, its waterbased, It does do a little coroding but I cant have the mess. Ill have a flood system going really soon!

Jon

TyRex · Aug 10, 2003

Thanx for the tip on grease and oil, JFettig

That kurt milling vice is pretty nice........there are a ton of vises to choose from around. Gonna take a while to find the right one for me I guess.

I just started looking around at little machine shop. they've got a good selection of things.

A belt drive sounds really nice now. I've been reading horror storys on broken gear teeth

JFettig · Aug 10, 2003

I havent had any problems with the gears. liquidrules broke his onece taking 9x the cut he should have been taking with a flycutter.... thats about all I knwo of

Jon

Stedeman · Aug 11, 2003

A fly cutter DOSEN'T mean face mill!!! I heard my mill teacher scream that once a week in class

I do on the other hand love the hogging bits

MoFoQ · Aug 11, 2003

building my own milling machine has been on my TO-DO list but...then again...once a procrastinator, always a procrastinator.

TyRex · Aug 11, 2003

JFettig said:
I havent had any problems with the gears. liquidrules broke his onece taking 9x the cut he should have been taking with a flycutter.... thats about all I knwo of

Jon

I'm gonna definitly try and get the cnc conversion up and running before I do a belt drive conversion.........although, 9000 rpm sounds real nice

Stedeman · Aug 12, 2003

TyRex said:
I'm gonna definitly try and get the cnc conversion up and running before I do a belt drive conversion.........although, 9000 rpm sounds real nice

Dose anyone have a good write up on how to do this, step by step with diagrams or pics. I would love to do this but I am a little nervous about it. I have been in many of the yahoo groups about them but never find anything worth it
also what software and hardware do you use to control the CNC

JFettig · Aug 12, 2003

theres not too many step by step writeups, its really hard to come by. try homecnc.com and cnczone.com neither have it. It takes a lot of email exchanges with people who really know

stedeman, do you have a mini mill or another milling machine?

Jon

Stedeman · Aug 12, 2003

I will be picking one up at the end of the next semester if I get my CNC class that is I use Bridgeports at work (it has the proto track by I have yet to program one) all free hand right now

JFettig · Aug 12, 2003

what kind of work do you do on your mill at work? Im curious to find out.

I gotta get me a machinists handbook. Im sure that would answer a lot of my questions

Jon

TyRex · Aug 12, 2003

It is tough to try and find a cnc write up, but with a little research, it can be done. try here for some useful links to pics and some people that could help you

http://www.mini-lathe.com/Links.htm#CNC

JFettig, can you recommend a good way to allign the x-axis brass guide for the x-axis screw? It's not prefectly level, and when it gets close to the ends of the screw, it's incerdibly hard to turn the wheels.

Stedeman · Aug 13, 2003

To be honest I don't spend that much time (about 1%) on a mill, I work on a lathe turning down electrodes 99% of the time. But when I did spend a lot of my time on the mill it was for trimming IBM laptop DVD drives down to fit Dell Laptops. I made a few jigs to make it easier for me as well. I also have made some water blocks and modified some stuff at work to make my life easier there but with a CNC mill I could get to many of the things I want to build.

PS thanks for the links you guys

NeoMoses · Aug 13, 2003

TyRex said:
JFettig, can you recommend a good way to allign the x-axis brass guide for the x-axis screw? It's not prefectly level, and when it gets close to the ends of the screw, it's incerdibly hard to turn the wheels.

You may want to purchase some shim stock, 0.001", 0.005", and maybe some thicker sizes. You should then be able to shim under the acme nut to get it right. You may run into a problem if the left and right sides are at different heights, though. Do you have any way to take accurate measurements to determine exactly where the problem lies?

broken003 · Aug 13, 2003

this should be helpful to some people looking to setup a CNC mini mill, not my site but lots of good info.

http://users.adelphia.net/~wjdupont/my_taig_cnc_mill.htm

JFettig · Aug 13, 2003

nah, neo the nut is set in place by the screw and locked by set screws, I suggest you loosen it up and fiddle with it a little and you should be able to get it set correctly, I had the same problem for a while too, I just re-did it and it solved it.

Jon

TyRex · Aug 13, 2003

Neo.......about the most acurate thing I have right now to measure under the table is a ruler...

I've repositioned the bolt about 8 times, but not in the most accurate way i suppose. I'll spend a couple hours perfecting it tonight........but thanx for the help, both of you

TyRex · Aug 14, 2003

anyone know a good way to compress the x axis screw bearing? The one on mine has come undone by about an 1/8th of an inch!

Mini Mills and such...

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