Tons of projects coming up,...

[TorontoBuilder]

Ditron shipped my stuff in less than two weeks from red China, but that was 2018. The world's gone upside down since then when it comes to the supply side, but I thought Ditron's handling through Alibaba (not aliexpress) was outstanding. I always go to Alibaba and chat with the alleged representatives about options and things. It gets me a person and a line of contact. Anyway, under pre-pandemic conditions, Ditron's shipping time was completely reasonable.

Thanks for the feedback.

They ship it by air allegedly... BUT it was a national holiday in china last week so they failed to ship them immediately. I did go back and forth with a rep many times who was very friendly. In the end I got a couple of incentives including upgrading to one um scales for my lathe DRO.

I dont like the aliexpress website would be my only complaint... aside from China having too many week long holidays

 

[pontiac428]

We can all use week long holidays, just without the 6-day work weeks it takes to get there.

My scales and head unit were shipped in two boxes that both arrived together and were in perfect condition. From the talk on this board Ditron has really become popular since, seems like they are up on their game. If the ever decide to DRO my lathe I'd use them again. Sometimes ordering from China feels like throwing money into a black hole until it arrives, but I think it's okay to be patient this time.

 

[TorontoBuilder]

After toying with me and claiming they attempted delivery yesterday (they did not, I remained home all day) UPS delivered my lead screws and nuts.

They also charged brokerage fees well above what their documentation claims they charge and have such obscure invoicing that not even an accountant can figure out the break down of their charges.

The lead screws were very well packaged by H & W for which I am thankful because UPS clearly did not give two shakes about causing damage to my parts. I haven't opened and inspected the package yet but there appears to be a slight warp in the longitudinal lead screw. I'm hoping this is due to the tension of the plastic wrapping and the slightly warped board the screws were affixed to rather than bent screw.

I like how they have the screws inside of cardboard tubes, and the ends of the tubes sealed tight. I opened one spot to take pics of how the screws were packaged. The rest of the shredding of the film and the dent were all due to UPS

The nuts and rebuild manual were in a separate box, well packages and cushioned by foam peanuts as you'd expect.
The DROs from China made it from Chengdu to the Fedex facility in Shanghai and have now hit a snag called an "operational delay" whatever the heck that is. I hope this does not hold up the show. I wanted to get this work all done before I have another autoimmune flare up and get too wrecked to do anything.

 

[pontiac428]

Why would UPS charge you a brokerage fee? H-W is domestic commercial retail, so it should be a sign and drop, right?

 

[TorontoBuilder]

Why would UPS charge you a brokerage fee? H-W is domestic commercial retail, so it should be a sign and drop, right?

Canada.
Government charges duties and sales taxes on many imported goods. No duties on machine screws but there is tax. UPS handles the collection of fees and charges a arm and a leg for doing so.

IF they'd shipped USPS it's a lottery whether or not the shipment gets flagged for inspection and duties and taxes. UPS always does because UPS benefits fincnacially from assuring that the gov collects its taxes.

Even if parcel is flagged in the mail, there is only a trivial processing fee to collect taxes.. always ship regular mail to Canada if you can for benefit of the recipient

 

[TorontoBuilder]

Just some general information for people ordering from Aliexpress and Ditron in particular.

The aliexpress site sucks at providing sufficient tracking info. You really have to click thru the pages to find the actual tracking number for the courier service being used. When you click the external link for that though it does not take you to Fedex (in my case), but rather Cainiao.com a chinese courier tracking service that sucks too.

I say this because my parcel was being held in Shanghai for an "operational delay" and it took a lot to work out why.

I knew items were being shipped Fedex IP (International Priority). It took a while to find the tracking number on aliexpress, perhaps because I'm tired and an idiot? But eventually I found the tracking number and went right to fedex myself since they dont link to fedex. Only to read this on fedex:

Operational delays occur for a variety of reasons; the following are some examples:

• Incorrect recipient address
• Incorrect recipient postal code
• Missing address information (including buzzer code or apartment number)
• Other events that delay delivery of the package​

Now I gave them my complete address, so I figured WTF. At this point I'm seriously ******. I read all their other notes on the tracking terms they use. I see weather delays, delivery held unable to collect payment etc. None of those were registered against the tracking number.

I still would not have a clue what the issue was if the vendor had not called my brother and left a message "You need to go online and pay money for the delivery to make it for the 17th. I'm like "pay who, pay where"??

Luckily I recalled the tracking notice types listed on Fedex.

Delivery is held, unable to collect payment means we attempted to contact you about a shipment that requires the payment of charges, including duties, taxes and other related fees, prior to delivery. To make a payment, go to fedex.ca/paynow.

Although the tracking details never had this remark I went to the link I found to pay fedex. I entered the fedex tracking number and voila. This page showed that I owed them money for Canadian duties and sales taxes. Needless to say I paid.

SOOOO if you ever deal with ditron and see your shipment has an operational delay, dont count on ditron letting you know what to do. Just find your pay fedex link for your country and see if they are holding your shipment until you pay them

 

[pontiac428]

Ah, of course. Canada. I thought you were in East Detroit, I totally overlooked it. I lived overseas for 11 years, I should have figured that out!

I hope your order works out. I wouldn't put too much faith in tracking info until it's onshore. China is a black box, but my orders to the US and Germany all came through safely, eventually. Keep checking your tracking and hang in there.

I'm curious about your bowed leadscrew. I am not completely sure it will make any difference in operation, since it's supported on both ends under a little bit of tension from the preload nut, and supported in the center by the trap nut. Obviously a deep bow would be an issue, but I'd be interested to hear what an old hand at machine rebuilds would have to say about that.

 

[TorontoBuilder]

Ah, of course. Canada. I thought you were in East Detroit, I totally overlooked it. I lived overseas for 11 years, I should have figured that out!

I hope your order works out. I wouldn't put too much faith in tracking info until it's onshore. China is a black box, but my orders to the US and Germany all came through safely, eventually. Keep checking your tracking and hang in there.

I'm curious about your bowed leadscrew. I am not completely sure it will make any difference in operation, since it's supported on both ends under a little bit of tension from the preload nut, and supported in the center by the trap nut. Obviously a deep bow would be an issue, but I'd be interested to hear what an old hand at machine rebuilds would have to say about that.

So today I actually opened the packaging of the lead screws. There was no bow to the screw itself. The wood backer was slightly warped and just made is appear as if the lead screw may have been too.

I'm very happy with the packaging. It protected it from UPS that's for sure. The tube ends have wood plugs and multiple layers of packing tape so that it would be very difficult for the screws to punch thru any packaging no matter what UPS does.

 

[TorontoBuilder]

So time for an update.

I apologize for the lack of a ton of pics, I forgot my camera and tripod and the Mill had so much old black oil that I was afraid to touch my cell phone to take pics except after wiping my hands.



My brother and I got the longitudinal lead screw extracted, and compared it to the new screw. At first I thought that there was no wear on the old screw at all. But upon close inspection the top of the treads were worn and distinctly narrower than the new screw, mostly in the middle of the screw naturally.



I'm sure that we could have made do with the original screw, but we wanted to get as good as we could.

The backlash with the best adjustment when we started was 70 thou. When we finished 1-2 thou.

In case anyone plans doing this themselves I'll just mention the couple minor issues we had. I dropped the old washer head screw down the knee. Too much oil and crud, and the screw driver not fully engaged in the slot of the screw driver, so that when I bumped the screwdriver against the lead screw, when the magnetism sucked it in... kerplunk. Lost that screw.



Luckily the kit has part 1150 anticipating this bonehead move. The two woodruff keys that come with the screw needed to be filed down to fit the slots, and then the height had to be filed down. This took the longest time since knowing very little I squeezed one key into the slot without first stoning it to make it fit. I then had to figure out the best way to remove the key. That was a sharp edge cold chisel and tiny hammer to tap the end of the key, which levered the key out easily in the end.

It took some fiddling to get the screw back in place because the nuts kept wanting to spin so that the key slots did not line up.

Really this part was laughably easy for an amateur like myself because H & W's videos are so good. No need for me to worry about not having good footage when their videos exist.

So with everything back in place but not tightened down I thought it best to get the power feed installed at that point rather than tackling the cross feed screw.

 

[TorontoBuilder]

Next up was the Vevor power feed. That did not go as smoothly.

Firstly, I know I am not the first to say this, but their instructions are grossly inadequate, and the instructions where is had information was wrong.

They say to install 2mm stack of washers between the bushing and the bronze gear. We needed more. We still had movement in the bronze gear when the table changed directions so I think more washers are needed outbound of the gear as well. The hub that extends out from the gear is too long so that the nut for the handle wont fully engage the threads. The keyway in the bronze was under sized, requiring more stoning of the woodruff key and a little filing of the keyway itself.

There was one spring that has no explanation.

It only took about 20 minutes of fiddling with spacers and such to get the power feed installed. Before turning it on we tested the engagement and kept adjusting the spacers until a sort of rubbing noise stopped. Then we plugged it in.

Turned on the master switch and the light comes on and almost immediately goes off. Quick check, it's the break that tripped. Rinse and repeat. Tripped breaker again.

Getting mad.

Okay, time to try another outlet. Again the breaker trips.

By this point the arthritis in the back and the spinal stenosis related pains have me feeling rather pissy. So looking at the panel we see that both the circuits we tried have arc fault circuit interrupter breakers*. I've had issues with come machine equipment with motors and hand tools with motors in receptacles that had arc fault breakers.

*Edited to correct my initially stating GFI instead of AFCI

Out comes the long extension cord, plugged into kitchen circuit with no GFI type breaker, voila. The power indicator stays lit. Shifted the feed into gear and away she goes. Tested that every way possible and we're done and happyish. Not thrilled that we need to replace one breaker to make the thing work.

At least we're happy with the outcome of about 3 hours of shop time.