Omnimill 00

Thanks Brian.

Julian, a DRO is planned for the machine but I will need to get my Warco GH Universal sold first but that will be after holidays.

Hi all, I am new to this forum.......about 45mins! I've been after an Elliott 00 milling machine for a while now and after a few lost eBay auctions I finally picked one up today.

Has been a bit of an interesting journey getting back to my house in a Luton van. Long story short. They forklifted the mill onto the van but the mill was overweight for the tail lift so wouldn't allow it to lower. So a frantic stripping of the vertical head and anything else I could easily remove to get the weight down ensued. What illuded me was the main bed and knee.

My question is could anyone help me with a manual for this machine?

This thread has given me the drive to strip it down a bit more than planned.

Ian is the machine all wired up and running now?

Many thanks.

Hi Glenn, you could try this place; no connection except as a customer.

Brian

**LINK**

If there is a forum for these machines (I would guess there is) the manual may well be available as a download.

Thanks Brian will check them out.

not done it yet: I havent found any forums as yet for just these machines, only the odd posts about them on forums like this. I need to keep hunting. I'm already impatient to get it stripped and rebuilt so I can use it. 😁

**LINK**

This is where the old Elliott yahoo group went,

It has been copied into the VMC series of machines still in production so a lot of general usage questions eg size of cutters translate across. There are are even copies now with the horizontal capability.

Hi Glenn

There used to be a manual advertised on eBay for the omnimill.

About £10 if I remember correctly.

Not the most informative document but better than nothing.

Can I ask what your mill cost ?

I’m going to sell mine so interested to know what they fetch.

Edited By Julian Lockyear on 05/10/2020 17:06:43

Glenn,

I have a manual that I could scan and email to you in the fullness of time. Send me a PM if interested.

Julian,

They seem to fetch between £800 and £1200 depending on condition, spec and location. I paid £800 for mine in 2018 older version with power feed from jackshaft off the main motor. They seem to be quite rare and sought after machines so you shouldn't have any trouble moving it on, I wouldn't be without mine!

Paul.

The vertical motor on my 00 failed so I lashed out and got a Newton Tesla inverter and 1.5 horse power motor,I can now reduce the speeds considerably to drive larger dia cutters on tough mterials. The horizontal spindle also suffered the same problem as I had a handful of brand new cutters up to 6 inch dia but could not use them on the 100 rpm lowest speed for steel and ougher materials, I found by rotating the vert head through 90 degrees and swiveling round the whole top assembly ,so that the vertical pulleys and the horizontal pulleys are in line and using a longer belt I can drive the horizontal spindle at very low speeds. For most horizontal work the original motor is ok for most purposes ,its just occasionally that a really slow speed is required. As with most of this type of mill,the vertical head ccould be more rigid,so for work with the head vertical and quill locked I have stiffened the assembly by boring a one inch thick steel plate to suit the quill and attached the end of the plate to the round overarm,the plate is split so that 2 bolts clamp the plate securely to the quill. big improvement with large end mills,and the mill is used in this mode most of the time.A good mill for its overall size .but I do miss my Elliot Milmor with its 50 inch table.

A photo of that would be interesting.

I think the manual is on the groups.io site. bear in mind the 00 and juniormill are effectively the same so don't expect the manual to be specifically named.

Yes a photo of that would be interesting. I've managed to get a copy of the manual from Ian (this thread author) thanks all for the help so far.

Just trying to get the table and knee all apart to clean it all up. It's looking like a bit of a resto project now as the original horizontal motor is not dual voltage so a new 2hp is required. The vertical motor seems a fairly new Tyco 3/4 hp. The suds pump and table motor appear to be both dual voltage so all good there. Is it possible to run both horizontal and vertical motors from one vfd inverter independently? The table motor will need one solely. Running 3 vfd seems overkill not to mention expensive.

Thanks Paul,

I’ll get mine on eBay when I’ve had chance to photograph it.

Glenn I’ve used Bosch Rexroth inverters and you can set two motor profiles

so it is possible to switch between the two. ( that was my plan.)

The table and saddle are quite easy to remove but you will need a hand.

The table is quite heavy.

Does anyone know if the oil sight glass is available as a spare part? Mine has a crack right across the bottom!

Julian did you get the Bosch inverters from a supplier or direct?

An omnimill just sold on ebay for just over £1100

Only earlier this year ‘milkybars’ sent a PM to ‘Peter99’, on this very topic (on the mig welding forum). That might be a lead to follow up on?

Glenn I bought mine from Inverterdrive.Com.

They were a little more expensive than the ones on eBay but I felt it was worth it to get a known brand.

I went for the 56 range which give sensorless vector drive.

In theory you should get better torque and smoother running at low rpm.

Hi Ian, just discovered your posts on the refurbishment of your Elliott Omnimill, spectacular job.

I picked up an Elliott 181 in need of restoration about a year ago and it is going through a full CNC conversion at the moment. I was lucky enough to pick this up with the "double swivel" vertical head.

Ball-screws on all axes and stepper motors on all drives. Feed motor can now be deleted completely.

Control system is a Centroid Acorn.

Standard motor on this was a 1.5HP, 3Ph (460V). This will be replaced with a 1.5kW-3ph (220V) so I can run off a single phase supply with an inverter.

To make sure everything was going to fit I scanned (Photogrammetry) the whole mill into my computer and could then "trial" fit everything virtually.

Its still a while away from being finished but felt very inspired by your restoration and now will have to up my game

Nice one Dean. Keep us upto date with the rebuild, I would really like to see this one running. I going to change my table acme to a ballscrew. Ballscrew has arrived but havent had a chance to anywhere near it yet.

I'm very impressed with your photogrammetry, I've had only limited success with geometric objects (as opposed to, say, statues). Would you be able to tell us what software and scanner/camera you used?

Adrian

Hi Adrian, thanks for your kind words.

The software I used was 3DF Zephyr, see link below...

https://www.3dflow.net/3df-zephyr-photogrammetry-software/

There is totally free version of it that allows you to use up to 50 photos to build your model. Great for experimenting with and you can still export an object with it. I bought the Lite version as it allowed me to use up to 500 photos.

More photos = better accuracy but I've gad some great results with 50. Zephyr have a bunch of excellent tutorials on YouTube as well which really helped.

The camera I used was just the one on my phone, a 5 year old Google Pixel XL. A better camera and consistent lighting would have made the results even better. Good enough for my purpose however.

cheers, Dean

What a lovely restoration, I have just had my Omnimill delivered. I am confused that the manual says grease the vertical spindle bearings but my points are fitted with oil nipples, not grease nipples. Unless I'm missing some points tucked away?

Interested on others knowledge on this.

Cheers,

Colin