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I need a mill ? Manual or CNC??

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EtheAv8r06/07/2011 11:56:29
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OK, current state of play is that I am leaning towards getting a CNC mill rather than just a plain manual mill. If I do go for a manual mill it will probably be an Arc Euro prepared Sieg Super X3, though the Amadeal AMA25LV with 3 axis DRA and Powerfeed for similar money does look great value.

On the CNC side I had thought that converting the Sieg Super X3 with a Syil conversion kit from Amadeal might be a possibility, it is certainly the most cost effective route, but on reflection would involve some additional risk, invalidate the warranty on the mill and result in potential support issues with two different supplied involved – plus I would rather have an integrated ready to roll solution.
The Sieg KX3 bundle from ARC Euro is a bit out of my budget, but doable and possibly the best option, but I have been offered a used (but not for long) Optimum BF20 Vario with Syil CNC complete with 4th axis rotary accessory that comes in at a lot less than the KX3.
 
Can anyone comment on the BF20 Vario? It retains full manual control via handles on the stepper motors, but I believe I can affectively achieve manual control via the Mach3 software, so the only advantage is I have true manual control without having to run the PC. Downside is lower top speed (2500 rpm), MT2 tooling taper and possibly less power and a much less tidy installation, upside is backgear giving good low speed (50 rpm) torque, lighter, 4th axis included and a lot less money.
 
I will make my decision based on any comments/advise here plus mt visit to Arc Euro on Saturday....
Andrew Johnston06/07/2011 23:14:53
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Hi Edmund,
 
I cannot comment directly on the BF20 Vario, but I'd make the following observations:
 
I think the top speed of 2500rpm will be a severe limitation
 
MT2 taper will presumably make it difficult to get repeatable tool heights
 
Backgear for low speeds is good, but I've never found the need to run my CNC mill at speeds much below 1000rpm, except when machine tapping
 
4th axis capability is good; it is a true 4th axis or an indexer?
 
Regards,
 
Andrew
dcosta07/07/2011 00:10:21
496 forum posts
207 photos

Hello Edmund.


Since 2007 I have a milling Optimum BF20 Vario.
At first, still under warranty, I found a problem with the electronics which was sorted out by replacing the electronic board.
About a year ago, because a small amount of brownish liquid came from inside the quill, I decided to open it to analyze what was hapenning inside and also to replace the bearings.
I found everything was fine but still replaced the Japanese bearing with SKF ones.

Before and after this replacement I have done much work on the milling machine BF20 Vario and I'm satisfied.
The MT2 taper never was a problem tome. Maybe because My BF20 is not CNCed.

Note: My connection with the Optimum is just one of a satisfied customer.

Best regards
Dias Costa


EtheAv8r07/07/2011 13:00:37
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Andrew
 
Thank you for your comments.... re top speed - yes that is a concern, re 4th axis, don't really know, it is a rotary table with a stepper motor attached and a chuck, all on a frame (like a vertcal slide) that can be attached to the mill table vertically or horizontally.
 
I thought low speed with high(er) torque might be useful - as this will be the only mill I will have....
 
Dias
 
Thank you for your input re the BF20.
 
 
Edmund
EtheAv8r09/07/2011 23:09:15
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Decision made. Sieg KX3 on order.
 
Now to fit another steep learning curve into an already overcrowded life.....
Spurry09/07/2011 23:54:28
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Edmund
 
It must have been a very impressive demo...
 
Pete
blowlamp10/07/2011 00:06:55
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You had better start learning CAD/CAM then Edmund
 
 
Martin.
 
ady10/07/2011 00:44:33
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Can anyone comment on the BF20 Vario? ... upside is backgear giving good low speed (50 rpm) torque, lighter, 4th axis included and a lot less money.
----------------------
 
Electronic infinitely variable driving gear, and no backgear according to the advert.
 
Backgear is tremendously useful because you can munch through solid steel, aluminium etc non-stop for hours and hours and produce almost zero heat, but there's no mention of backgear in the advertising blurb.
Or is it that "2 stage" thing?
Backgear usually drops things around 6-1 on a lathe and you can munch t-slots non-stop through solid steel with no coolant.
A vfd electric motor would be turned into a smoking buzzy thing within a week if it ever tried to copy what a proper backgear setup can do.
 
Good luck with your new purchase btw, hope your new pal works out.

Edited By ady on 10/07/2011 00:58:13

John Stevenson10/07/2011 00:55:17
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Read it again.
 
First line
 
"Two-stage gear pair for a powerful conduction of the motor power"
 
That's the selector knob just above the quill spider handle.
High range is 1:1 and low is 2:1
 
Drive is usually via a brass gear on the motor to a plastic gear on the input shaft giving roughly a 2:1 reduction
There is a double cluster plastic gear inside the head on the input shaft driving a steel double cluster gear on the quill drive.
 

 
John S.
Mark P.10/07/2011 09:51:40
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634 forum posts
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Hi John,I have a question for you regarding your mill,it appears to be very similar to my Warco WM16 how do you set up the motor drive pinion clearance when you replace the motor mount plate after removing and refitting the motor?
 
Regards Pailo.
EtheAv8r10/07/2011 12:25:21
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Pete
 
It was impressive enough to demonstrate parts can be made quickly (once the job is prepared) and accurately - more so than I will be able to do so manually for quite some time... Also it is easy to drive it 'manually' via the keyboard or screen so lots of simple milling tasks can be done very quickly and accurately (positioning the cutter using the DRO) without using any drawing or G-Code, and this choosing a mill lark has gone on long enough! The KX3 will probably do anything I will ever want and more as it is not so small, and if I need something bigger for the odd one off I can go elsewhere.......
 
Martin
 
Yes... all part of the steep learing curve and new challenges to keep my mind on the learning trail.
 
ady
 
As per Johns kind clarification, two stage speed range with each range having a variable speed. My bad for calling it a back-gear because a) that is what the chap from Amadeal called it and b) I am a beginner and so get some terminology wrong.
 
Edmund

Edited By EtheAv8r on 10/07/2011 12:28:06

John Stevenson10/07/2011 15:12:31
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Pailo,
I can't really answer this as I have never adjusted one.
The mill in the picture was a customer job that was in for a belt drive conversion up to 4,000 rpm to make the machine more suitable for using small cutters.

Seat of the pants experience would tell me to push it as hard into mesh as possible and then back off slightly.
You could also use a slice of baking foil as a spacer and fish it out thru the rev counter hole afterwards.

John s.
Mark P.10/07/2011 20:55:20
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634 forum posts
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Hi John,thanks for the reply,I used a bit of A4 paper and trial and error until it ran quietly! I couldn't pulled it out through the rev counter hole becauseof the oil / grease guard round the drive gear.Incidently the origional guard doesn't keep the grease off the rev counter disc and pick up,so I fitted a plastic seal (a bit of cable sleeving) to the top and bottom of said guard,this seems to work.
 
Many thanks Pailo.
Andrew Evans18/07/2011 09:07:43
366 forum posts
8 photos
Edmund - I would be interested to read a post about your initial experiences with the KX3.

I personally think you have made the right decision to go with the Cnc option. I have a spg9525 manual mill -similar to the one in Johns photo (that main drive gear setup is very noisy) and have recently acquired a Boxford Cnc mill running on mach3. I find I now use the Cnc for all jobs I can fit onto it (it's smaller than the manual mill). I find it's much easier to get accurate results and much quieter in use. I am starting with cad and cam but doing most jobs initially with manually entered simple gcode which is easy to pick up. Think of it as a manual mill with power feed on all 3 axis and spindle speed that is fully controllable If that makes the transition to Cnc easier. It is just as quick to do a simple one off job to be honest. The one disadvantage compared to my manual mill is that the drive has a min sped of around 500Rpm

I did a job the other day involving drilling 75 accurately placed holes - it was a 10 minute job to design the job in cambam cam package ( thats as a newbie) and then a 60 minute job on the Cnc mill while I tidied up the workshop and kept a watch to make sure no glitches happened. The same job on the manual machine would have been repetitive and tedious and error prone. End result was 75 holes in exactly the right spot and exactly the right depth all nicely countersunk to the same degree.
EtheAv8r18/07/2011 10:58:22
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Andrew - That is just what I had been thinking/hoping... I will post once I have it running and have a little experience with it.
 
The KX3 was delivered on Saturday morning (great service from Arc Euro) and is sitting on it's pallet in my workshop at the moment. The Dell PC I got on ebay arrived Saturday as well, and I have reformatted the hard disk and installed XP, optimised services, disabled network and audio in BIOS, cleaned up Resgistey, installed proper defrag tool etc. then installed Mach3 and Sieg KX3 5000 configuration files, and will add Cut2D, but driver test returned the required results. I still need a monitor for the PC in the workshop.... and hope to fine a second-hand touch screen jobbie.
 
I was concerned about the minimum speed of 500RPM, but am informed that with small cutters it will not be an issue?????
blowlamp18/07/2011 12:15:15
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1885 forum posts
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CamBam is vastly more adaptable than Cut2D for similar money - not as pretty to look at maybe, but capable of doing much, much more.
 
Martin.
John Stevenson18/07/2011 12:46:00
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Cut2D comes with the machine.
 
John S.
Andrew Evans18/07/2011 19:55:46
366 forum posts
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Very exciting Saturday
EtheAv8r02/08/2011 10:30:34
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Had my new Sieg KX3 and stand and other necessary bits all delivered from Arc Euro two weeks ago (only a week after ordering). I initially removed all the outside casing and installed the stand and built the PC the next weekend weekend, but left the mill sat on its pallet. This Sunday I borrowed an engine hoist and got the mill up onto the stand and bolted down, cleaned up (not a lot of shipping gunge to remove actually), connected up PC and got ready for initial setup.

I was ready to test it out late Sunday night. Had a quick try using the Jog function using the Up/Down, Left/Right and Page Up/Page Down keys on the keyboard and the Z axis goes up and down, and faster with the Shift key held down, Y Axis moved back and forward and faster with the Shift key held down, but the X axis does not move (but there was a change in the ‘hissing’ sound from the controller and the DRO displayed it as moving), but it did move OK at full speed with the Shift key pressed, but the spindle did not spin up at all when started, so there was a bit of setup to go through. It was now 23:20 and time to retire.

Next step was to go through the setup FACs made available by John Stevenson on the smallcncsupport site, and hopefully get it all sorted and ready to run!
I managed to get out to the workshop last night for an hour and went throught the FAQs re machine setup. All the issues now resolved, everything working, table and head all now move in correct direction (all three needed reversing) and all jog slow and fast with the shift key now the motor tuning numbers have been corrected and the step pulse width has been upped to 5 (some were 2). All three stop at limits and jog off after Reset hit (previously had to power off mill and wind the X axis off the switch and then power back on).

A quick distance move check looks OK but was not accurately done, I just wanted to see if it was close or way out, it is close and hopefully bang on!

I need to determine if spindle RPM is correct.... need to find a tach that will help here, but so far all is looking promising.

Thank you John for your FAQs and documented assistence here; without which initial setup would probably be a bit of a nighmare!

So far I think I have made a good decision to go with this set-up.

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