Milling Machines

[Tinkerer58]

I have made a decision and ordered the HM48 with powered X and Z stand, coolant, got a good deal and I'm happy with what I got. I already have the DRO scales and they will do the job fine, just want to get a remote read out for it. After weighing it all up I couldn't justify another $800 for new DRO with scales when $150 bucks give me the remote display as I have all the other bits brand new that I never got to put on my current RF25.

 

[Tinkerer58]

Hey Rod, when I bought my lathe from China with the DRO I had all sorts of problems, every mm of movement registered 5mm on the DRO took me 4 days to translate the Chinglish in the manual LOL :wall:

 

[rodw]

I had to have a peek at your new machine, it looks pretty awesome.

Hey Rod, when I bought my lathe from China with the DRO I had all sorts of problems, every mm of movement registered 5mm on the DRO took me 4 days to translate the Chinglish in the manual LOL :wall:

The DRO is quite nice I think and the manual was surprisingly well done at 68 pages. My DRO was configured the same way but I knew exactly what the problem was. It has 1 micron scales when most are 5 micron. I went and grabbed the manual and changed the setup in a couple of minutes! The hardware installation manual on the other hand must have been written by the same author who wrote yours...

Anyway, I finished the Y axis tonight (2 down, 1 to go) but I dropped a grub screw that is used to square up the Y scale which I could not find. I was at the bolt shop, I got M4's not M5's so I won't be able to square it up tonight.

The X axis should be easy so hopefully I will have it done by the weekend.

 

[Tinkerer58]

don't you hate that, been there many times so I always have a nice strong magnet at hand that I place near working area when working with small screws and things so if it drops, 90% of the time the magnet catches it. A trick I learnt from an old timer when I did my time with Phillips training as an electronics engineer.

 

[rodw]

don't you hate that, been there many times so I always have a nice strong magnet at hand that I place near working area when working with small screws and things so if it drops, 90% of the time the magnet catches it. A trick I learnt from an old timer when I did my time with Phillips training as an electronics engineer.

Sounds line it is worth considering. I picked up another few grubscrews the right size and finally got the X sensor mounted on the saddle at 9:30 last night. At the moment I have too many other things competing for time and some of them have not been fun things!

 

[jwcnc1911]

don't you hate that, been there many times so I always have a nice strong magnet at hand that I place near working area when working with small screws and things so if it drops, 90% of the time the magnet catches it. A trick I learnt from an old timer when I did my time with Phillips training as an electronics engineer.

That's funny, me too. I actually have a variety of magnets stuck to all of my machines. On my mills I have a deadblow hammer, drawbar wrench, small and large brushes for sweeping chips away from vise, shaviv deburr tool, 1/2in carbide countersink in a tap handle, can of tap magic and a bottle of lay out dye. And a shop vac close by.

The magnets probably see more use than anything else. I also use them to grab chips out of pockets so I don't blow it all over with my air gun.