Drilling On Milling Machine

I don't have a DRO on my mini-mill either. I use an ARO (analog read out), specifically a dial indicator. It's way quicker and easier than using the dials and you don't have to worry about figuring backlash. I see that you are in South Africa and are using the metric system. A quick ebay search turned up this from China:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/0-50mm-Dial...071569?hash=item3a901002d1:g:1TQAAMXQDnpTaZDR

With a proper stand it can be used on any axis of your lathe or mill.

Of course I have no affiliation with this seller, have no idea about them.
 
You might want to get a couple of dial indicaters and set them to verify your movements . It not as handy as DRO but you can see where you are.
 
This is where a rotary table with a chuck would be nice, but sometimes you have to use what you have. Mike
 
There are some really low cost "DRO" solutions available including taking a caliper that has a measurement distance that meets or exceeds the travel on the table and attaching it to the table so it will indicate the current position. Of course there is no way to 'zero' it at a current position only take the current reading and add or subtract from it to give you the next position.

A cheating way of taking up backlash when making multiple movements in multiple directions is to get to a point and lock the table in that specific direction. Begin turning the screw back to the 'home' position to remove the backlash. Once the backlash is taken up, zero the dial and then make your movement. It's kind of a work around if you have to go both directions with the table multiple times, but it will get you past not having a DRO.
 
For me, a drill press is more suitable for countersinking, which will self-center.
 
Bob Korves said:
+1. Only down side is lots of tool changing. You should also make sure you do not need to move the head up and down when changing tools. That will often move the spindle position away from the original position, causing the kind of errors you are seeing.
Click to expand...

I set my mill (RF30) up with a quick change drawbar similar to this video, and with the Tormach tooling holders, all steps can be done on each hole before moving on to the next hole. At a few seconds per tool change, it doesn't take long, and saves a lot of cranking and reduces chances of errors.


 
Thank you very much for all the information.
I was looking at a DRO for the Lathe but because I am just a beginner it was I bit expensive.
So if I buy a DRO it would first be either for the Mill or the Lathe.
What would you recommend? DRO for the Mill or Lathe?

Thank you again.
Anton
 
probably comes down to what you are doing and which machine you spend more time at.
 
ezduzit said:
For me, a drill press is more suitable for countersinking, which will self-center.
Click to expand...

I did a group of 4 holes in a square yesterday, they were small and in aluminium, I did the countersinks with an egg beater drill in the bench vice. As you say so long as the holes are on location the countersink should follow nicely.

Stuart
 
faavs730222 said:
Thank you very much for all the information.
I was looking at a DRO for the Lathe but because I am just a beginner it was I bit expensive.
So if I buy a DRO it would first be either for the Mill or the Lathe.
What would you recommend? DRO for the Mill or Lathe?

Thank you again.
Anton
Click to expand...


If faced with only buying one DRO and choosing the mill or the lathe to install it on, I would put it on the mill first. You can get a dial indicator that attaches to the ways for the X axis on the lathe and get good repeatability on it with the indicator and simply back out past and then come into the zero on the cross slide or compound on the lathe. It's rare to need to make a specific distance cut going in and then coming out on the cross slide or compound on the lathe. So take up on the back lash isn't as critical.

What I mean by that is if you have .1 backlash on the cross slide and you have zeroed your dial on the screw you simply come out .2 past zero when you extract the cutter then go back into zero. The zero doesn't change. The other thing with a lathe is that moving the compound changes the zero of the cross slide. So while having an X axis DRO, the Y axis indicator when using the cross slide and the compound screws during a cut will throw off the numbers anyway, at least in my mind.

Just reviewed this. Using the compound would change the zero on the X AND Y axis on a DRO on a lathe.
 
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