I haven't read much about this mill on the forum and thought I would share a few details since I spent some much time lurking here prior to the arrival of my mill.
I have about 50 hours experience running a tormach 770 and have owned a seig X2 manual mill for a year so am a relative neophyte to machining. I have built a cnc router and retrofit another some am pretty proficient with the electronics side of things. I also retrofit another CNC mill to mach 3.
Semi-random thoughts:
1. Thanks to Dan for the video on setting up his 932. The 2 ton engine crane worked a trick and 3 of us had the mill uncrated, and up on the stand in about 90 minutes. We didn't need to cut the pallet down, just cut one of the supports on the pallet so we could work the crane under it and up it went.
2. Removing the z-axis way covers was a pain and required taking tilting the head 45 degrees. It needed to be trammed anyway so no loss.
3. Fit and finish is ok. Almost every bolt we got to was loose. X axis had lots of backlash and I spent an hour with shims until I figured out how to take it out on the end where the stepper couples to the lead screw. It seems like a box of screws was missing so I spent some time hunting up the appropriate M3, M4, M5 and 10-32 bolts to attach the steppers.
4. The stepper drivers had some goofy settings. I guess china uses a different set of definitions for positive travel then we do? The drivers also required the correct setting on current limiting and microstepping.
5. The VFD required some setup, but once worked through it and the spindle is really smooth.
6. The draw bar! I do not understand such a mickey mouse thing on a nice mill like this? Are they all like this with a cheesy pinned nut and the draw bar is undersized so does the hula when the when the mill is running. Yikes!
7. The software was pure Chinese, but I was able to set it up in mach 3 (in english!) over about 6 hours. Matt send me a "brain" file that got the rest of the pendant working. The pendant works, and is much better then nothing, but an aftermarket solution will really improve things.
8. The scariest thing is that the machine has "cycle started" on its own at least 3 times with no one near the controller or computer. Each time an operator was there and could shut things down before a crash but this bare some investigation. Hopefully it is just associated with the control pendant.
It took about 15 hours of work to start making parts. Right now I am running at 200ipm rapids on X and Y and 150 on Z. Just cut UHMW and 6061 so far so no real tests of rigidity, but am making the parts that I need.
Bottom line:
1. Compared to the Tormach this is a much beefier machine.
I haven't got all the Chinese grease off the machine, and am waiting for the 585XL to arrive to test the flood so there is still much more to do.
I can't post pictures yet.
Cheers,
mmason
I have about 50 hours experience running a tormach 770 and have owned a seig X2 manual mill for a year so am a relative neophyte to machining. I have built a cnc router and retrofit another some am pretty proficient with the electronics side of things. I also retrofit another CNC mill to mach 3.
Semi-random thoughts:
1. Thanks to Dan for the video on setting up his 932. The 2 ton engine crane worked a trick and 3 of us had the mill uncrated, and up on the stand in about 90 minutes. We didn't need to cut the pallet down, just cut one of the supports on the pallet so we could work the crane under it and up it went.
2. Removing the z-axis way covers was a pain and required taking tilting the head 45 degrees. It needed to be trammed anyway so no loss.
3. Fit and finish is ok. Almost every bolt we got to was loose. X axis had lots of backlash and I spent an hour with shims until I figured out how to take it out on the end where the stepper couples to the lead screw. It seems like a box of screws was missing so I spent some time hunting up the appropriate M3, M4, M5 and 10-32 bolts to attach the steppers.
4. The stepper drivers had some goofy settings. I guess china uses a different set of definitions for positive travel then we do? The drivers also required the correct setting on current limiting and microstepping.
5. The VFD required some setup, but once worked through it and the spindle is really smooth.
6. The draw bar! I do not understand such a mickey mouse thing on a nice mill like this? Are they all like this with a cheesy pinned nut and the draw bar is undersized so does the hula when the when the mill is running. Yikes!
7. The software was pure Chinese, but I was able to set it up in mach 3 (in english!) over about 6 hours. Matt send me a "brain" file that got the rest of the pendant working. The pendant works, and is much better then nothing, but an aftermarket solution will really improve things.
8. The scariest thing is that the machine has "cycle started" on its own at least 3 times with no one near the controller or computer. Each time an operator was there and could shut things down before a crash but this bare some investigation. Hopefully it is just associated with the control pendant.
It took about 15 hours of work to start making parts. Right now I am running at 200ipm rapids on X and Y and 150 on Z. Just cut UHMW and 6061 so far so no real tests of rigidity, but am making the parts that I need.
Bottom line:
1. Compared to the Tormach this is a much beefier machine.
- Much larger travels.
- Much more massive.
- It should be able to do much more then I could do on the Tormach! The travels are about the same as the Haas TM1. This machine doesn't have the weight or rigidity of the haas, but for a hobby machine, where we run slower it will hopefully do well.
I haven't got all the Chinese grease off the machine, and am waiting for the 585XL to arrive to test the flood so there is still much more to do.
I can't post pictures yet.
Cheers,
mmason
Most of the draw bars I have encountered are pinned, and having witnessed a person leave a wrench on it and turn the mill on I now understand why.