[RACER99]

I was looking at a g0619 mill then Hoss said look into Precision Matthew and now im debating the pm30mv or possibly the pm45m mill like the features more than the g0619 just need some input thanks guys

[RACER99]

Pm45 1900 rpm, Pm30 3000 rpm, is this gonna really limit what I can machine, gonna be mostly aluminum work but pm45 has coolant pump, but 1 1/2 hp motors and kinda like the 220 v on the 45 too

[doorknob]

To get higher spindle speeds on RF-45 clones such as the PM45M, some owners have done belt-drive conversions.

There are lots of discussions about the topic here. A few of them for example:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/knee_v..._variable.html

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/bencht...onversion.html

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/indust..._possible.html

[RACER99]

Awsome doorknob thanks for the help guess if I can scroung up the extra dough I know which one id prefer.....any other input is greatly appriciated

[pete from TN]

[RACER99]

Anyone got specs on overall size, need to fit thru door to my "playroom" I put a 36" door and raised it to 83" cause eventually wanna put a g3617 hor/vert mill in it so need 81" aleast....will I need a garage door now

[pete from TN]

I think the base on the RF45 is like 24" deep so you could put it on a heavy rolling dolley and roll it in there sideways if you do not wish to take it apart. That 0704 sure looks nice but my money is on the RF45.... can't replace the weight and mass no matter what you do. I LOVE my mill and it is even more awesome when you go CNC. Just really cool and capable little mill. Of course I guess I am kinda biased!!:rainfro: I have owned SEVERAL other mills tho so I am not totally biased I guess. The RF45 is a really great compromise between a much heavier and larger knee or bedmill and the much smaller table top mills. Large enough to do some REAL work and small enough to not take up the whole damn garage, altho with my full enclosure and flood coolant as well as my control unit my machine is starting to push back a little. I think it would be really difficult to find another machine that is as capable yet costs as much as the RF45 and clones. They are a Chinese machine so they are definitely not perfect but they got it where it counts most of the time it seems. Good luck and enjoy.... peace

[RACER99]

Not against disassembly wanna cnc it eventually so it'll happen sooner or later anyways but atleast it sounds doable....any other company's selling the "real thing" or cloned brands you'd recommend avoiding

[pete from TN]

If you have the cash and the space I would recommend the Industrial hobbies mill or the same thing from MTW in canada depending on your location. That machine looks pretty good and has a bit more travels which is very welcome on any MILL. I have a Lathemaster machine from Bob Bertrand at Lathemaster.com and it has been really pretty decent but the machine they currently sell is not the same as mine so I cannot say how good it is really. I am sure any of these decent clones are probably fine. The PM45 also looks good and comes with a bunch of nice accessories but the price is kinda close to the IH style mills. If I was gonna spend anywhere near $2k I would just save a few more pennies and get the IH style machine simply for the travels. The Grizzly mills look nice but they are also pricey and come with options that when you go CNC are not gonna be necessary really and the real RF45 from Rong fu is also very nice but pretty expensive so again I would go IH if I were to spend that much. I bought my mill from Bob like ten years ago and it has been great. Bob is also a pretty good guy and has taken pretty good care of me long after the sale so no complaints here. If you can purchase a mill with a 3hp 3phase motor that will save you some jack down the road when you get a VFD setup so the computer can control your spindle speed and direction. Other than that I would just take your pick depending on price. I have even seen a HF clone in person and it was not too bad either.. peace

Pete

[thedave]

A few of us just purchased PM45's I got the PM45M with power downfeed, and I also purchased the Power X, and the vise/collet kit.

The Bad:

overall finish is decent at best, they use some kind of bondo like filler before they painted, it's not pretty.

Coolent system leaked, the nozzle is junk.

Manual is worthless.

4" vise, not a kurt styled milling vise.

Drill chuck runout is about .006

The good:

Despite how it looks, it seems to be good where it counts. I have mine dialed in overall about .005 including the shars 5" vises. that is total across all movements. The table is about .0015 across.

The pump on the coolent system will work well once I rebuild the system.

The vise is fairly good quality, i'm using it on my bench, bought a pair of shars 5" vises.

The Power Downfeed, and the power X work great.

Overall I am pleased with the mill. I purchased it as an upgrade from my x2 mill, as something to use for production until I can get a tormach. I am not planning to CNC it. For what it costs, I think it is a good value. If I was going to CNC it I would look at the IH mill closer before I made a decision.

[RACER99]

The IH mill sure is nice.....but kinda a lot more than I think I wanna spend now....then double that again to cnc it.....think im leaning towards the pm45 still, but thanks for the info on IH maybe next time....how do u know if ur getting the power X axis from what I see its just a down feed option????

[thedave]

It is a bolt on option, which adds $ 295 to the cost of the mill. Unless it will be a long time until you CNC it, I would skip both power feed options.

[RACER99]

Am I looking at the right web site Quality machining only says like 20.5 X-axis travel power and like 2? manual, it might be awhile before I cnc it, these would be helpful, plus looks like they're out of the basic unit for now anyways

[thedave]

The power x feed does cause you to loose a few inches travel. It is a few bolts to take off if you need the room. The power down feed is built into the mill. Take a look at the following threads:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/bencht..._3_axis-7.html

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/bencht...ll_advice.html

[pete from TN]

Then just get the power feeds at least for the X axis as you can always sell it on ebay when you get the conversion done. Also like Hoss mentioned with the $300 dollars or so you spent on the power feed you could buy a power supply, breakout board, gecko drive, and be part way into a motor for the X and then when you get some more spare change you can go three axis and you are already most of the way there. This will give you a simple power feed for the X axis and you are not out anything. This is of course assuming you intend to go CNC at some point. Peace

pete

[RACER99]

hey Pete your talking a little to fast for me with all this power supply, gecko drives, boards please dumb it up for me i wanna cnc the sucker and been reading my tail off, but still trying to figure it all out......FYI I've got a Smitty 1236 combo now so thats about as cnc as I've gotten, till now......I wanna really get into this I really enjoy "toying" but I wanna get serious

[RACER99]

I went back to Quality Machine Tools website on my PC (not my android) and now I see the axis power feed option, itll be awhile before ii cnc it so woulf it be worth getting the 3-axis digital read out in anyones opinion?????????

[pete from TN]

I used to have a Shoptask 17-20 XMTC gold series machine and learned to machine stuff with that years ago now. You are definitely on the right track here I think. If you want to see what I have done to my mill my build thread is at least a good read and a lot of what we are talking about here has been discussed at length in there. It is called " Finally getting started" and is in the benchtop forum. If you have any specific questions you can shoot me an Email at [email protected]

I gotta run out to a side job tonight so I will not be here for a little while. I will chat later tho... peace

Pete

[photomankc]

CNC generally goes like this

PC --> Breakout Board --> Motor Driver ---> Motors
Power Supply----------------^

Breakout board takes the PC parallel port and spreads it out to terminals you can connect to easily and on some boards isolates the PC from the rest of the high voltage stuff.

Motor driver is what takes the tiny low voltage/low current signals from the PC and does the magic needed to turn that into the high voltage/high current drive needed for the motor.

The motor is either a stepper motor that is a dumb motor, it just tries to do what it was told but has no idea if it really did it, or its a servo. Servos have encoders on them that send a signal to the drive that lets it know that, yes, the motor shaft at least moved where it was told to. Servos are more expensive and complex but offer better performance on bigger machines.

The power supply gives the motor driver the juice it needs to run the motors.

A power feed is usually a pretty simple setup that bolts on and just runs until it hits a stop marker on the axis and is an easy thing to add. CNC for an axis will be a bit more involved but if that is your goal then the commercial power feed is going to an expensive paper weight in not too long.

I ran my machine on just X/Y for a time which let me cut the cost by 1/3 up front. The only real drawback to that was that all the software of course assumes X/Y/Z so I had to hand edit everything to allow me to raise and lower the head, but still made it tons easier to complete a part.

[RACER99]

Or even is the DRO an option i could add later or do I gotta get when I place my order, the website says $495-$595 installed but maybe be able to install it at a later date, or will it not be useful since I wanna go cnc anyways, I think Ill get the x-axis power feed for now tho, cause I wanna get this possibly within the next few weeks and then the 1127LB lathe, then work on cncing the mill for starters......