New Mill - Starter Tooling

I can't see X and Z being a particularly useful combination. For 2-axis I'd fit X and Y. Then you can use it for co-ordinate drilling, milling and milling to a specific dimension. You're far more likely to do those sort of tasks rather than drill or mill to a specific depth.

I've only got X & Y on my vertical mill. I have a rule on the quill which is more than adequate for drilling to a given depth. When I need to mill to an accurate depth I use a micrometer and the dials on the knee.

Andrew

I have two sets of separate readers - both connected to reading heads. One set for my lathe and the other for my smaller mill.They are close enough for most work, but while they read to 0.01mm, they are not necessarily as precise, or accurate, as one might think.

The other dro is one with the electronics to be able to easily fix postions for holes on a circle, to mill curves, etc. and read to 0.001mm. More expensive, yes, but better all round if one needs to use the included options. Not so much more expensive, actually and it may well be worth saving up the extra dosh before investing.

I wonder if Ron was thinking of the 'Y to the Sky' mnemonic as taught to kids drawing 2D graphs on paper? It's a jolly good way of remembering which axis is 'up' on a sheet of paper, but it fails completely in the real world, where 'Z' is up.

Dave

Probably not as he was talking about a 300mm scale and then mentions a 150mm if fitting to Y.

I would fit X&Y first then add Z if you feel the neeed.

Thanks guys, I was thinking X and Z Dave, I at least know my X,Y and Z positions if nothing else...lol

So I will go with X and Y and fit Z if I think it is beneficial but sounds like probably not.

Edited By Ron Laden on 10/10/2018 09:50:28

If I were you, I would be waiting and make up my own mind after finding out what is available and what you will actually need.

Think here of dro’s fitted by suppliers - do they fit only two axes or do they fit for all three axes? The answer may give you a clue as to which is preferred by users? I, for instance, would not mind separate heads for a 2-D lathe, but I would never fit separate heads on a 3-D mill again. In fact, my Centec has a knee as well as a quill, so actually has 4 readers. The quill is the separate one.

By following the advice of abc or xyz here, on the forum, you may end up with either something you didn’t want, or something you won’t ever need.

Or even that of ndiy?

If it's not helpful to consider advice from the forum that rather makes the forum pointless. We might as well all go and do something more useful. Which is exactly what I'm going to do now.

Andrew

I wont have the mill until next week and here I am thinking mods/upgrades but having just got the ARC catalogue it is nice to window shop, the mods will come later as I need to make a simple start and get used to the machine.

The mill comes with a clamp set so I just need a couple of cutters and collets to make a start, I happen to have some lengths of 40mm square alu bar so they will come in for some practice.

I need to get a vice and one or two people have mentioned getting a good vice which I can understand, but to keep within my start budget I was thinking of the 80mm basic one from ARC at £48, it looks ok, its got a removable swivel base and I didnt want to go for too big a vice to start with plus its not a large mill.

Edited By Ron Laden on 10/10/2018 10:11:26

Edited By Ron Laden on 10/10/2018 10:20:18

Edited By Ron Laden on 10/10/2018 10:22:58

Also worth bearing in mind that these small benchtop machines do not have a knee so you can easily loose track of height when the head is raised unlike a bridgeport or centec where the knee handwheel dial can be used for the whole length of travel. The SX2P has no means of measuring Z height of the head only a dial for quill fine feed.This makes a Z axis DRO a lot more useful.

Thanks Jason, when I come to fit them I will probably do all 3 axis.

I am a beginner ndiy and I did start the thread by saying I had a limited budget and didnt want to buy things I may never use. As far as I can see I think the advice the guys have posted here took that into consideration. There are a lot of very experienced people on the forum that seem to be happy to pass on their knowledge to the beginner. To be honest the way I was thinking of making a start with the mill would in hindsight have taken me down the wrong path but the help I,ve received on starting this thread changed my thinking.

I do wonder sometimes if asking the same old beginners questions one becomes a bit of a pain, but so far I have never experienced that, or at least I dont know about it.

Ron

Edited By Ron Laden on 10/10/2018 11:02:46

How important is knowing the spindle speed when milling..? The SX2P doesnt have a speed DRO as standard but a plug in one is available, there is even a bracket to fit it too. Using the mini-lathe I dont always refer to the DRO, I sort of got into the habit of setting a speed by eye for the size and type of material and tweaked it up or down depending on the cut. I tend to use it more when parting and producing more than one part, making a note of the speed that worked best.

If it's about £30 an axis, it's probably worth doing all three rather than just 2. I woudln't like to say which axis I use most - the whole point of a mill is working in 3 dimensions.

I'm sure the reduction in wasted material plus the increased pleasure of being able to work faster, more accurately and more confidently has easily been worth fitting DROs to my machine.

That said, it's a retro fit you can do at any time.

Neil

A thing I use a lot (in conjunction with the milling vice in particular) is one or two sets of steel parallel bars.

The ones I use most frequently are a pair of thin ones which go across the vice so that work is gripped by the top lip of the jaws only and another thicker set which support those bars off the milling table just clear of the central 'spine' of the milling chuck.

Used together in this way enables me to quickly and accurately set work parallel to the table and also to machine down quite close to the edge of the work for things like eccentric strap ends. The second pair of parallels can be replaced by screw jacks or pairs of roller bearings to set the 'cross bars' at different heights but my standard two pairs of parallels get used very frequently, especially to restore settings if work stats to slip in the vice as you machine it. That always seems to happen when you only have a narrow edge to grip upon and of necessity have the cutter very close to the vice - top!

Another is a can of WD40 for machining aluminium but you might already have that for the lathe.

I suggest a pair of decent safety specs if, like me, you want to look carefully when machining into tight corners - tiny milling chips seem to get to places that lathe swarf misses.

Are you sure about that Jason? My SX2P doesn't have a quill. It came with a rack and pinion arrangement for raising and lowering the head with a high degree of backlash so a DRO on the Z may well be useful. I have replaced the rack and pinion with a ball screw while converting the mill for CNC so no need of DROs.

Russell

Yes you are correct Russel I keep forgetting that on the SX2P. But my point was that a knee mill will allow the dial to be used for the whole range of movement but you only have a small range covered by the fine feed dial on the bench mill.

Ron, regarding spindle speed read out I would spend the money on other things and like you do with the lathe use feel and sound to get the right speed..

Thank you guys, much appreciated, hope I,m not a pain with all these questions.

Ron

I think you should use the machine for a few months before adding anything. You don’t want to be fitting stuff for the next owner because you’ve decided to get a bigger mill. I’ve had my VMC mill for maybe ten years and still haven’t fitted a DRO to it.

Thanks Vic, but I have no space for a bigger mill, I only have just enough for the SX2P and as far as I can see I think it will cover most of what I need a mill for, thanks anyway.

Stevensons Collet Blocks..?, not that I want any its just I saw them in the catalogue and couldnt get my head around how they would be used.