Another PM-833TV thread!

M.T. Pockets

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I know there's already a number of posts and threads about the 833T and TV but I figured I would start one too. The plan for this thread though is not necessarily to talk about the mill itself, its to talk about getting it moved and setup for homegamers such as myself. From what I've found online most people that buy a mill this size will put it in their garage or pole barn using an engine hoist or something similar. My machine is going in my walkout basement and because of this I was originally put off by the size, weight, and 220v power requirement, and almost went with something smaller. So this thread is about the first steps of my journey with my new PM-833TV and will hopefully be some help to some other hobbyists out there that would like 800lbs of milling machine in their basement.

Day 0
I received my mill on a Friday afternoon from Holland freight. The guy that delivered it was very nice and helpful and I could tell he knew what he was doing because he didn't drive the truck into the powerlines in front of my house like a lot of people do. After unloading it off the truck, and with me pushing, he was kind enough to haul it up my driveway and set it down in my garage. I tipped him $20 for the help and being a good chap. I then uncrated the mill, checked for missing parts, and saw that all was good.

Day 1
I started the day early with a trip to the metal shop to pick up a couple more pieces of steel for the mill stand and a few 2x4s. There's no way I could take this thing down to my basement in one piece, so the plan was to build a makeshift gantry crane out of 2x4's and a tractor supply special chain hoist so I could move it in pieces. I don't necessarily recommend building a gantry crain out of scrap 2x4s unless you know what you're doing. I happen to have a PhD in mechanical engineering and did the calculations to make sure this thing wasn't going to collapse in on itself. I'm also a solid 200lbs and was doing pull-ups on the thing to test it first. Renting, or even buying, an engine hoist is probably a better option but I'm cheap.

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With the gantry crane built I started taking parts off the head to lighten it up and reduce the changes of breaking something. Removing the motor and some other parts made the head a lot lighter and it was fairly easy to remove. And by the way, Matt at Precision Matthews, if you're reading this, change the socket head screws that bolt the motor mount to the spindle casting to hex head cap screws. There's barely any room to get an allen wrench to fit in there without getting it stuck. With most of the things removed I then wrapped the head with a 3000lb tie strap and connected it to the chain hoist. After putting some tension on the chain with the hoist and then undoing all the bolts the head slid right off.

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I didnt get any pics of it but I dropped the head down onto plywood with the column mating face down. I then put some other wood around it that was screwed in place to help support it. After that, I secured and picked it up with my milwaukee hand truck and rolled it down the hill to one of the sliding doors of my walkout basement and in she went. I don't have a good way of weighing the head but if I had to guess I would say it was ~100 - 130lbs with the motor removed. While having a walkout makes this easier, I feel it still wouldn't be too difficult to do this with stairs. I would however want an appliance dolly rather than a generic one like I have. A second hand would also make it a bit easier.

With the head in the basement next up was the column. The column easily unbolts from the base with 4 large, I'm guess M12??? bolts and detaching the line from the one-shot oiler. To lift the column I used two tie straps around the z-axis saddle moved all the way in the top position. I used two 150lb straps for this, one on each side of the lead screw. Ideally I would rather have used much higher rated straps as I'm pretty sure this part weights more than 150lbs but I at least had two of them and wasn't moving it far. Once secured the column lifted up pretty easily and I set it down one some more plywood. I also noticed there was some copper shim stock between the column and base, I assume to do some tramming from the factory. Just as before, I secured it to my hand truck and went down the hill to my backyard and then in the basement. The column is substantially heavier than the head was, if I had to guess I would say 200 - 250lbs. Still movable by one person but if I was moving this thing down a basement stairway I would absolutely want an appliance dolly or a second set of hands.
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And thats as far as I got for Day 1. Tomorrow I'll be moving the table and then hopefully the base. After that, I need to built the stand it will sit on which will also have a few challenges.
 
I like the gantry crane idea. I had to chuckle though when I saw the casters under the crane. Shouldn't they be used under the mill stand? LOL

Congrats on the mill and nice job so far.
 
I had to chuckle though when I saw the casters under the crane. Shouldn't they be used under the mill stand? LOL

Yeah they will be eventually. I ordered specific casters from amazon for this but apparently their delivery has been delayed...
 
Day 3
I started working on the mill again bright and early this morning around 11am and by 2pm I had moved the rest of it into the basement. The first item of the day was to remove the table. I did this by using a 1/2in eye-bolt fastened to the center of the table. I used one of those flanged nuts for the T-slot in the table.

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Then came figuring out how to get the table off... I thought it would easily just slide right out like other mills I've worked on but not this one. The parts that the bearing blocks mount on to hit the lead screw nut when trying to slide the table off. I had to remove the gib first to allow the table to be lifted up a bit first before it would clear the lead screw nut and come out. BTW, my table probably had half a pound of cosmoline on it that I cleaned off first. One off, I tilted it sideways on some wood and on the hand cart it went to the basement.

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Next was the scariest part of this entire process, lifting the base. PM gives you 4 eye-bolts to lift the base with which are grade 8 which is nice. Whats not nice is that they fasten from the sides and not the top which I don't understand. For those that don't know, you should NEVER use eye-bolts at a 90° angle like this (although I did). Eye-bolts are meant to be used in tension, maybe with a ~30° angle on them but thats it, they should never have large bending moments placed on them. Anyways... I used two of the eye-bolts to lift the base vertically and placed it on the hand truck, saddle facing the driver. I used lots of wood on this one and taped it around the ways to make sure not to damage and precision surfaces. I didn't get any other pics of this part as my but was pretty puckered.

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Moving the base to the basement was pretty easy, not even as bad as the column. If you needed to move this part down stairs with a hand truck, like the other parts it would be very doable with one person.

And that was it, everything was in the basement by 2pm. Then literally about 3 minutes after I finished everything my casters for the gantry crane were delivered.

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Typical amazon... but I guess I can't blame them they're probably backed up delivering pallets of toilet paper to everyone. I still bolted the casters on to the gantry just to try them and they are very nice! The thing rolls a lot easier and smoother than the leveling casters I had on there before. I've come to really like this gantry crane and I think I'll keep it around for a little while before I take it apart and turn it into shelves.

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Thats about it for day 3. I spent the rest of the day taking my power sander to mill scale on steel square tubing for the machine stand. Hopefully I'll get to cutting and welding after work tomorrow.
 
I started making the frame today. Got as far as tacking a big rectangle together. I sure wish I had a bigger fixture table.
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Continuing work on the frame, heres some pics!

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I used the gantry crane to save my back when moving the thing around.

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Its been a busy past couple days during the quarantine. My state has issued a shelter in place order so its left me lots of time to stay at home and work on projects. Tuesday after work I start putting the mill on the frame, including wiping off all the shmoo and adjusting everything. I have a big I-beam that runs along my basement ceiling with a beam trolley and a chain hoist attached to it. This makes lifting heavy stuff a breeze if I can get it under the beam.

First part of setting up the mill was putting the base on the freshly painted frame. After drilling the holes and bolting the base down with some 5/16 x 7in bolts, I found that I need to shim one of the corners by 0.024in to get it proper and level. I also left one of the bolts just a little snug instead of torquing it down all the way as to not distort the y-axis ways.
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Next up was the table which went on fairly easily. I found that for the y and x axes, the gibs were way way out of adjustment from the factory. The gibs also don't seem to have that much angle on them, at least now what I'm used to seeing, and need quite a bit of adjustment to get them set proper.

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I then spent a good half hour cleaning most of the cosmoline shmoo off the column before hoisting it onto the base. I cleaned the shmoo off with denatured alcohol and then covered the parts with a thin coat of Mobile 1. I also spent a good amount of time cleaning and scrubbing the base and bottom of the column so they wouldn't have any paint or dirt between them. When taking the mill apart I noticed there was a ton of junk between the two parts which would make the column a nightmare to tram.

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Before putting the spindle on I trammed out the column kinda quick and dirty using some 123 blocks bolted to the table. I figured it would be easier without the spindle and as I later learned I was right. I needed about 3 thou of shimming on the front of the column and about 8 thou on the right side. That got me to within a half a thou in each axis over the 3in distance of a block which is good enough for what I'm doing. It was also at this point that I became a bit disappointed with the z-axis. As with the other axes, the z-axis gibs were way off and needed very large amount of adjustment. I also found that the tolerances between the z-axis saddle and ways were pretty sloppy. I could physically twist and tilt the z-axis saddle and produce about 5 thou of movement on the DI as its setup in the picture, and this was after setting the gibs. I've got the gib set rather tight so I'm hoping it wears in a bit and I can remove some of this slop down the road. I know this isn't a high dollar machine but I was hoping for a bit more.

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Next was putting the spindle back on and tramming it, this was painful... I normally will tram the x-axis first and then the y but I quickly found thats not possible on this machine. The weight of the spindle cants the z-axis saddle quite a bit and of then of course causes the spindle to be pitched forward. Again this was after adjusting the z-axis gib and making it tight. I used two 5 thou shims at about 5 and 7 o'clock between the spindle and saddle to make sure I had a good sized triangle. The spindle is still pitched forward a tad but I'll fix it later when I need to face mill something.

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