[ihavenofish]

so, as some of you who followed my other machine design thread know, im trying to build a nice small machine. for me.

that thread got off track alot, the machine kept growing and growing as people put their 2 cents in. it also kept getting more expensive. ive not scrapped those ideas, ive split them into different machines and poke at the designs now and then trying to get them into an affordable config (afordable to build the prototypes).

in the meantime, ive set back to building that machine "i want". i have arrived at a compromise i think. i will be using the weiss WMD16V as my base. im probably going to order it in a week, and ill be designing the cnc retrofit for it while i wait (takes a few months to ship from china aparently).

there is a second motive to this machine build though. that is to find a suitible replacement for the "KX1" sized machine. this includes the novakon nm-070, smithy 516, sieg kx1, etc. these machine are "ok", but dont really fit the market well. they are too expensive for the features. basically, people see the "KX3" sized model, for a minimal upcharge, and just decide its better value - and it is!

but i know theres still many people like me that cant have a kx3. i want a small machine, but i want one thats got accuracy and performance and the kx1 isnt terrible, but it could be alot better. my thoughts are, if its basically going to cost the same as the bigger machine, it should be able to do something the big one cant (besides fit in a cubboard).

so here we are.

ill post more ideas in a bit.

[ihavenofish]

so thats the basic machine.

cost is as last quoted $800cdn. ($760us)

table is a hair over 380 long, giving an absolute maximum x travel of 240mm or 9.44" fully supported. table is 120mm deep, and the dovetail is 280mm long, so theres 160mm potention fully supported travel, BUT, the column mounting and way cover eat 1.5" or so. supported Z travel is 8"+. weight is 130lbs and the spindle motor is 500w with an mt2 taper. its got tapered gibs on all axes.

so all in all, the spec is similar to the KX1 machines. but thats going to change

potential mods are:

- longer table milled from precast iron bar. 18" length for 12" travel.
- spacer for column to allow the full 6.25" Y travel with a way cover.
- turcite on saddles and gibs.
- 12mm ball screws on x and y, with 16mm screw on Z.
- 10000rpm spindle belt drive conversion with brushless motor.

[eartaker]

O_o I want one.... lol

[ihavenofish]

so ive been going over spindle ideas.

the idea was to put in a new spindle shaft, bearings, and a belt drive. i wanted to reuse the quill for cost saving.

after searching briefly for bearings, i figured iso20 would fit nicely. drawback was iso20 has virtually no available tools, and most are $200+ if you can find them. bumping up to iso25 didnt help much.

so i searched skf's site and found thinner bearings. 35mm bore, 47mm outer diameter. these would fit inside the existing cartridge, but i would use 3 instead of 2. the result is slightly less load capacity, but still adequate for a baby mill. if load became a worry, a 4th nose bearing could easily be added. the bearings are rated for 40000rpm in singles, so they should meet my 10k rpm target easily. the ini website has a nice life/load calculator which says at 10000rpm under milling loads expected (including shock from intermittent cutting) with a 2hp motor the bearings will last many years. works for me!

so why the need for 35mm bearings? to acomodate a bt30 spindle shaft. bt30 is certainly overkill for a machine with well under 2 hp, but it is in fact the cheapest ATC compatible way to go. cheaper than iso, hsk, and even tormach tooling. its also widespread so you can get er chuck, shell mills, floating tap holders, and blanks cheaply. maritool has many bt30 holders for $75ish, most of them balanced to 20000rpm.

the second reason to go bt30 is that the same spindle shaft can be used to upgrade the bf20 machine, which is more capable. this also makes tool changer ideas more universal.


thoughts?

[ihavenofish]

so, the machine will be on order friday i hope.

ive been devising ways to do the conversion with minimal modifications to the machine castings.

one of my thoughts is to make dovetail extensions on the ends of the table and on the base between the column. the reason is mostly to get a little extra travel out of the table without having the saddle exposed. this is somewhat important if im going to have turcite because i dont want debris getting onto it and scratching it. the dovetail extensions wont carry much load.

the result is the machine will have 12" in the x, and 6.75" in the Y with ample room for way covers.

i will be mounting the Y axis drive motor to the back of the column, with the couplin acessible inside the column from underneath and the screw support bearing in the dovetail extension.

should work out fairly well i think.

i also found some small flange ball screws from thk. i should be able to fit a 16mm screw in the Y, and a 20mm screw in the Z. the x might fit a 16mm, but more likely a 14mm. the 14 drops off in loading ability a fair bit though. major drawback is thk is expensive, but im sure theres another cheaper company making a similar sized screw.

[machinechick]

Hi, Ihavenofish, was wondering if you got your mill? The reason I write though is I have a BF20L with an Easson dro on it and have been following the threads about it and similar machines. Especially the discussions about the tapers and z repeatability. I have not CNC'd my mill (yet) so what follows should be taken with a grain of salt (as a manual machine is operated under generally less taxing conditions in regards to overall spindle speed, heat induced dimensional changes of taper, etc.). I have read over and over in the various forums that Z is not repeatable. Having found no evidence for this other than people quoting 'what they heard' or presenting seeming logical arguments about locating surfaces, spindle temp. etc. Since I have quite a number of er collet holders as well as dedicated end mill holders I decided to check repeatability out for myself. What I have found is that under manual machining conditions with the BF20 'captive drawbar' my tools repeat on Z =/-.0005". I don't find this surprising in the least as the holders are locating against the spindle taper, although the taper is steeper the principle is not basically different from other systems that locate off the taper like the ISO 20's, 30's, and 40's (at least from my observations). The only variables that I can identify would be torque on the drawbar and temp. induced dimensional fluctuation of the taper. Both of these would also occur with a 30 taper also. I'm just thinking what the smaller Optimum and Weiss milling machines need isn't so much a different taper (although they could use one for marketing purposes in the US, and for tooling availability) but a repeatable: either spring, air, or hydraulic drawbar system.

[ihavenofish]

no machine yet. noone can get me one aparently except machinewtools warehouse and hes said it will be 3 months. so im setting up a gantry for "real work" at the moment and will get the weiss in the spring perhaps.

[machinechick]

It's really a shame it's so hard to get the Weiss/Optimum machines in North America, the Optimum I have is nicer and more capable than the other hobby machines I have had. At least there are some Canadian dealers; in the US only Lathemaster and Penn Tool (limited availability) have some examples. The supposed Weiss US distributor never has answered the phone number listed on the website. If you are interested in seeing a great concept for adding quick change tool capability to these mills and can read a little German check out thread 47492 on cncecke.

[rc-monster mike]

http://www.usovo.de/shop/product_inf...-Machines.html

The site linked above has some cool spindle/tool changer options, including one for the optimum machines, Wabeco, Sherline and some routers.

[sansbury]

KDN Tool in Rhode Island has what looks like a Weiss conversion on their website. No pricing listed. I believe they make the X2 CNC conversion kits that Little Machine Shop sells.

I like the envelope on your machine a LOT. The X2's weakest spot is the ~3-1/2" of Y you get without a lot of mods. 6" would change my life! The long X is also useful to do a rack-type toolchanger which is probably the best choice in terms of cost and reliability.

I use TTS on my X2, and love it. I make toolholders on my mini-lathe, so the cost is very low. Machinechick's experience on Z-repeatability of tapers mirrors tests that Bob Warfield did using R8 endmill holders. For me, the big benefit of TTS is faster changes with less Z clearance needed. I wonder if a homebrew 1/2" TTS-style system would work OK--it would save the trouble and expense of redoing the bearings. Easy choice for people to make themselves, I guess.

[ihavenofish]

KDN Tool in Rhode Island has what looks like a Weiss conversion on their website. No pricing listed. I believe they make the X2 CNC conversion kits that Little Machine Shop sells.

I like the envelope on your machine a LOT. The X2's weakest spot is the ~3-1/2" of Y you get without a lot of mods. 6" would change my life! The long X is also useful to do a rack-type toolchanger which is probably the best choice in terms of cost and reliability.

I use TTS on my X2, and love it. I make toolholders on my mini-lathe, so the cost is very low. Machinechick's experience on Z-repeatability of tapers mirrors tests that Bob Warfield did using R8 endmill holders. For me, the big benefit of TTS is faster changes with less Z clearance needed. I wonder if a homebrew 1/2" TTS-style system would work OK--it would save the trouble and expense of redoing the bearings. Easy choice for people to make themselves, I guess.

kdn used the top tech opti bf16 knock off. its from penn tool. but penn doesnt carry them anymore. they were only $600.

i CAN get a wmd16v. its just going to take 3 months.

and weiss usa seems to be a website with nothing behind it. never any response.

[sansbury]

kdn used the top tech opti bf16 knock off. its from penn tool. but penn doesnt carry them anymore. they were only $600.

i CAN get a wmd16v. its just going to take 3 months.

That makes sense. What is the cost looking like once the dust settles?

I am considering the LMS large table upgrade for my X2, but it will be $400. When I consider that I could probably get at least $400 for my X2 (with belt drive), that gets me $800 towards something with better fundamentals than the X2.

[ihavenofish]

That makes sense. What is the cost looking like once the dust settles?

I am considering the LMS large table upgrade for my X2, but it will be $400. When I consider that I could probably get at least $400 for my X2 (with belt drive), that gets me $800 towards something with better fundamentals than the X2.

the wmd16v is aparently $800cdn. but that probably has changed due to the dollar bouncing around. im close enough to machinetoolswarehouse to pick it up in person so no shipping charge.

[machinechick]

Just received the 2010 sales catalog from PennTool and they appear to have the BF16 machine available again for 695.00.

[ihavenofish]

Just received the 2010 sales catalog from PennTool and they appear to have the BF16 machine available again for 695.00.

they show the photo of it, but what they are actually selling is an X2. at least acording to them when i had them on the phone a few months back.

they also are very slow at responding to questions, and never did get back to me on the price/time for ordering the model in the photo.

[mattmark]

Hey there,

I'm thinking of getting the RF45 from MTW - can they pretty much order most machines? I didn't see any mills under $1199 - just wondering if they have access to a lot of different machines that aren't listed,

Matt

[ihavenofish]

Hey there,

I'm thinking of getting the RF45 from MTW - can they pretty much order most machines? I didn't see any mills under $1199 - just wondering if they have access to a lot of different machines that aren't listed,

Matt

i dont know. i know he said he was going to get weiss, thats all. the wmd25lv is about $1199 - same as the lathemaster. but same storry on this as with the little guy, its a few months to get it.

[mattmark]

it looks like he's going to source more brands, which is always a good thing.

i'm still waiting to sort out my 220v power issue - i'm getting distracted by all these different mill machine offerings =)

have you found any other good companies in Canada (or Toronto) for sourcing machine equipment?

[ihavenofish]

it looks like he's going to source more brands, which is always a good thing.

i'm still waiting to sort out my 220v power issue - i'm getting distracted by all these different mill machine offerings =)

have you found any other good companies in Canada (or Toronto) for sourcing machine equipment?

garant machinerie in quebec also sell weiss, but they didnt stock the wmd16 and their prices were a bit higher and of course shipping would be higher.

theres a company in BC that sells top tech which are opti clones. i cant remember their name. they were listing the bigger models last i looked. the bf46 and bf30. these are fairly expensive models.

[mattmark]

ihavenofish,

is this the store you saw?
http://www.bellmachineryltd.com/new_...g_machines.htm

hoss mentioned in a previous post about a bf 46, but i didn't expect it to be $4650.