Milling Rite

[pontiac428]

Try Kipp. Get the product part number of the item you want, and enter it into the search on zoro.com. Probably better than OEM anyway.

KIPP - Hand wheels in aluminum, steel, and plastic

German made hand wheels for industrial machinery, packaging equipment and more. Top quality steel, aluminum, and plastic. Quick shipping from the USA!

www.kippusa.com

 

[Dave Bonzo]

Try Kipp. Get the product part number of the item you want, and enter it into the search on zoro.com. Probably better than OEM anyway.

KIPP - Hand wheels in aluminum, steel, and plastic

German made hand wheels for industrial machinery, packaging equipment and more. Top quality steel, aluminum, and plastic. Quick shipping from the USA!

www.kippusa.com

Wow... that's a good resource! They don't have the exact size, but I think they have some that are pretty close. Mostly the center hub is too narrow, but as long as I clean up the bezel well enough, that could be a non-issue. Thank you!

Also, got a tracking number on the gears: they'll be here next week...so, I'm going to go ahead and get the knee as clean as I can get it, which is probably gonna take an entire trash bag of paper towels: good thing I bought four boxes. I think a clean surface will be much easier to work on than the foulness of its current state.

 

[RaisedByWolves]

Wow... that's a good resource! They don't have the exact size, but I think they have some that are pretty close. Mostly the center hub is too narrow, but as long as I clean up the bezel well enough, that could be a non-issue. Thank you!

Also, got a tracking number on the gears: they'll be here next week...so, I'm going to go ahead and get the knee as clean as I can get it, which is probably gonna take an entire trash bag of paper towels: good thing I bought four boxes. I think a clean surface will be much easier to work on than the foulness of its current state.

Another somewhat cheaper option.

Hand Wheels - Handwheels - Spoked - Cast Iron - with Revolving Handle - Inch - Fixtureworks

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[Dave Bonzo]

Well, I ended up with a clean-ish original set of wheels; I sent a "this is probably too low" offer to the aforementioned eBay seller, and it was accepted when the wheel set didn't sell at auction...so I actually got a pretty decent deal on them. They're not new, but unless they're broken they should work pretty well...and if they are broken, the seller can take them back. So, that's sorted...and I also now have multiple resources for handwheels, which will help me with a few other projects.

Knee-cleaning commences today, albeit after a few errands. Also, I'm looking at Millicent and trying to figure out where to put her DRO bits...and this isn't gonna be easy:

• There is a decided lack of flat, scale-shaped spaces on the head, and that makes any kind of quill-mounted unit a bit iffy; I might be able to cram something off to the side, but I'm not entirely sure how to do so.
• The entire column is mostly-rounded and that makes it hard to install one that reads the position of the knee, if I should want to do that...and part of me hates myself and kind of wants to do that.
• The Y-axis doesn't look too difficult, but I'll have to drill and tap some holes once I can get everything back together, and then I'll have to clean the inside of the knee again. I really don't know why they didn't put an access hatch into the side of this thing.
• The X-axis should be very easy to handle, except for the fact that there's a power-feed dingus directly in the way on the front...so I'm going to have to think my way around that.

Also...a very weird part of me wants a tachometer. That may be just an artifact from wanting one of those on my drill press, but I can at least see some places where I might put one on said drill press; I'm really not sure how to do that on a mill that's totally closed-up.

I'm starting to think that all of this would be much simpler if I had any idea about what I'm doing.

 

[Ischgl99]

The Millrite definitely wasn’t designed with DROs in mind. I only installed mine on 2 axis, I figured the knee was easy enough to do with the dials. I made a 3 axis bracket for mounting the Y scale to compensate for the angled knee, and the X I just installed on the front since I don’t have a power feed yet.

For the tachometer, my DRO has that function, so I installed magnets on the bottom of my pulley and a backet on the housing for the sensor. The sensor gets in the way sometimes when locking pulley rotation to tighten the draw back, so if I were to do it again, I would install it on the other side, and probably find something I don’t like about it there.

 

[Dave Bonzo]

The Millrite definitely wasn’t designed with DROs in mind. I only installed mine on 2 axis, I figured the knee was easy enough to do with the dials.

Agreed; I was mostly thinking that it would be kind of nice to know where the knes is located at any given moment, but it's not a necessity. The other axes...those are more important.

I made a 3 axis bracket for mounting the Y scale to compensate for the angled knee, and the X I just installed on the front since I don’t have a power feed yet.

That's kind of what I was thinking; I like that solution. The more I look, the more I realize that everything is not-quite-square, which makes it more of a headache.

For the tachometer, my DRO has that function, so I installed magnets on the bottom of my pulley and a backet on the housing for the sensor. The sensor gets in the way sometimes when locking pulley rotation to tighten the draw back, so if I were to do it again, I would install it on the other side, and probably find something I don’t like about it there.

I thought about the underside of the pulley; I'm glad I wasn't too far off. I was working on a way to get the sensor buried somewhere out of the way, but I haven't come up with it yet.

 

[Dave Bonzo]

Just heard back from Linn: they don't have anything, but they can do a custom set. $1000 or so. Ouch. I'm kind of glad that I got the inexpensive ones; I'm just going to mod both sets and put a second kit together, and then I'll either have a backup pair or I'll be able to keep someone else from experiencing this exact same brain-pain.

 

[Ischgl99]

That's kind of what I was thinking; I like that solution. The more I look, the more I realize that everything is not-quite-square, which makes it more of a headache.

Yeah, everything seems to be angled a few degrees. My bracket was easier to align than I initially thought, and seems to have stayed in place well too.

 

[toprecyler]

Pics of my messy shop and dro install on Millrite for ideas for you.

I 3-D printed a spacer to mount the DRO display bracket to the column. The rest of the scales was made up from pieces included in kit, and other aluminum pieces I found in my vast resource pile.

A table saw with carbide blade did a really nice job on cutting aluminum pieces down to size. Have to be careful of hot flying aluminum chips, and ear plugs a big help.

I was not able to figure out the quill scale yet. The one I ordered is too big.

But I probably will try to update bigger mills in my shop with DROs first. Then this mill will probably be sold. I do not need 4 mills, I think.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Dave Bonzo]

Pics of my messy shop and dro install on Millrite for ideas for you.

Thank you! I appreciate any and all ideas.

I 3-D printed a spacer to mount the DRO display bracket to the column.

Do you happen to still have that file? I like that solution a lot.

Also, I didn't get my saddle back yesterday - - so I'm going to call on Monday and see what's up; hopefully they're just behind schedule and didn't think to call me to say "it's not gonna be ready today"...and I can forgive that. I mean, I'm also behind schedule: I've been in the garden for two days instead of working on cleaning the knee like I should have been doing...but I'm going to get back on that here in a few. I have a few concrete tubs expressly for tasks like this, so I'm going to put one to use.