My PM45M-PDF

[skeeter355]

That light is perfect! Can you give me some more info on the parts you used and what companies you got them from? Also the wiring is a little confusing on how you hooked it up. You have some great mods!

Thanks Skeeter

 

[darkzero]

That light is perfect! Can you give me some more info on the parts you used and what companies you got them from? Also the wiring is a little confusing on how you hooked it up. You have some great mods!

Thanks Skeeter

Thanks Skeeter!

Sure, no problem. Since you asked about the wiring I'm assuming you have a PM45 so I'll answer in regards to that, if not you'll should still get the general idea I hope.

For the LED ring, I used a 90mm (OD) ring that has 60 SMD (surface mount) LEDs. I purchased mine from ebay seller three-tech which is JLC Lighting. There are many others on ebay that sell them for varying prices & in different prices, I choose this seller only cause they were closer to me. Search "LED angel eyes" or "LED halo" (they're used for headlight conversions to mimic early 2000s BMW headlights). Super Bright LEDs also sells them but they did not have the size I needed. It fit right into the hole on my mill's head, no modifications or mounting hardware needed.

The ID of the 90mm ring is just a tad bit too small to fit over the quill bearing cap. I used a Dremel to open up the ID. Didn't take much, a few passes & my ring fit perfectly over the cap.

For the AC-DC converter, I purchased this one from Amazon. Also can be found on ebay, search "24 VAC to 12 VDC". You can use any 12V DC power source such as a wall wart like this. It doesn't need to be 1A, I believe my ring runs on just under 300ma. The LED ring has resistors already so you can just hook it up (making sure polarity is correct) to any 12V DC power source & that's it.

The reason I used the AC to DC converter is cause I did not want to power it off an external source like plugging it into an outlet. The stock halogen lamp on the PM45 is 24V AC so I choose to power it off that. That way it's powered off the mill & when I shut off power to the mill the light turns off as well without having to turn of the switch.

Here's another pic of my control panel. to the left you'll see a transformer with a gold name plate. On it you'll see that terminals 32 & 33 is 24 VAC which again is for the stock lamp. Directly under the transformer is an orange terminal block with terminals 32 & 33 (the blue & red wires) is what you want to wire up the AC to DC converter to. However if you follow the red wire on terminal 33, it leads to the white circuit breaker that's to the right of the transformer. So I hooked up 1 wire from terminal 32 directly to the converter for AC input. Then I hooked up another wire from the output end of the white circuit breaker to the converter for the other AC input.

Then you would run 2 wires for the DC output from the converter to the LED ring and a switch (polarity matters for the LED ring since it's DC). Negative from the converter runs directly to the black wire on the LED ring, do not use the common ground on the machine for negative. Positive from the converter runs to a SPST switch, then another wire from the switch to the red wire on the LED ring. That's all that's needed.

In my case I used a lighted rocker switch that has an LED indicator that runs off 12 VDC so I had to run an additional ground wire to the switch coming of the negative of the converter. This is the switch that I used, they're local to me but it can also be ordered online & they have other color indicators.

Hope that helps. If you need any more details I'll be happy to answer.

 

[skeeter355]

Awesome, thanks for the list. Will being buying the parts and then picking your brain if I need to. Yes I have a PM45. So is the wiring to the light long enough for you to get full travel of the quill? It looks a little short in the picture.

Thanks, Skeeter

 

[darkzero]

Awesome, thanks for the list. Will being buying the parts and then picking your brain if I need to. Yes I have a PM45. So is the wiring to the light long enough for you to get full travel of the quill? It looks a little short in the picture.

Thanks, Skeeter

No problem.

Yes the wire is plenty long, I actually rewired it to extend it. I have it so it just tucks into the head when the quill is retracted.


Here is the quill fully extended to 5".

Here you can get a glimpse of what the original wiring looks like that comes on them.

 

[darkzero]

Made a backplate to mount a 6.25" chuck on my 8" RT. Once again Matt gave me an unbelievable deal on a 8" Vertex RT earlier this year that I could not refuse (well I tried but he won).


Started with an 8" blank backplate from Grizzly (SouthBend branded "fine grain" CI).

Took sometime to rough it out as it was thick & 1/4" oversized (Ø)

I hate machining cast iron. Anytime I machine a lot of CI (or Ti) is when I really take the time to clean up after.

Bolt circles made easy, can't get any easier than with the ES-12's graphical display. Well I do have a SS.

 

[darkzero]

Just a quickie....

When I got the mill I purchased one of those spline wrenches that some guy makes & sells on ebay. A few weeks ago I came across a "commercially" made wrench that was much nicer. To my surprise I found that LMS carries it. Even though I don't use it all that much I think it's worth the price, made in the USA too. Most of the time I just snug the draw bar by hand without even holding the spindle. But when I need to do some heavier milling I'll use the wrench & give it a quick snug.

Made by Luminar Products & it also fits Sieg X3 mills. Costs $20 & the "homemade" one on ebay is $10. I highly recommend the Luminar wrench.

Luminar Products website

Luminar spline wrench - LMS

ebay spline wrench


These 3 wrenches covers all my mill needs

 

[zmotorsports]

Nice looking setup Will.

When you going to break down and build a power drawbar for the PM45? I thought I remember seeing you have a nice sized air compressor, your half way there already.)

 

[darkzero]

Thanks Mike! You know I never really thought about it. Guess it doesn't bother me too much or at least I'm not sick of yet. I do need to run an air line to mill though, well I already have air plumbed there. I have another cold air gun like on my lathe that I was thinking of using on the mill. Either that or hook up the coolant but not sure if I want to deal with the mess. Just been working on backed up projects for the mill & lathe as I get spare time. Working on a depth stop for the mill now.....

 

[darkzero]

Last year GaryK (MHRIP) asked if I wanted to go in with him on a set of T-slot covers. Well I never really thought much of them & just thought they might be cumbersome or something so I declined. He ended up getting them & posted about them here.

I can't say that I have ever seen anyone use them except Gary. Thought about just making a table cover like many do & it would have been cheaper. Thinking about it I kind of like the idea of individual slots being covered rather than the whole table & I don't have a habit of setting tools down on the table. So I decided to give them a try & bought a set earlier this year. Plus they have holes for coolant drainage so if/when I hook up my flood coolant these will be perfect. Recently I really got sick of cleaning the T-slots so I finally installed them.

Relieved the middle ones to clear the vise T-nuts so I don't have to worry about the vise being perfectly center on the table all the time.

I made sections so they would slip under the vise & so I could just remove sections when needed like for my work stop that I use quite often.

Well I'm pretty happy with them & sure makes clean up much quicker now. Too many damn colors! :lmao:

 

[wrmiller]

I forgot that we basically have the same mill. Cool.

I had put some of those slot covers on my 'watch' list, but after seeing them on your machine I went ahead and bought them. Yellow and black should go together much nicer... :rofl: