Yet another 'which mill shall I buy'

I've found a chap in Otley offering a day's hire for a 2 ton hoist for 15 quid on eBay.

Can't complain at that!

Iain

I've got an Amadeal 25 long table with brushless DC motor and R8 taper and I'm very pleased with it. The quality is really good, a surprise because I was expecting much worse from China. The motor is silent and never gets hot. The R8 taper is a real plus and I think it's only amadeal that supply it. Service was great and delivery only £75 to Northern Ireland. I think it's free to Uk mainland. Nothing to complain of really. It would be nice if it had back gear.

Hi Iain,

I bought from SPG SP2217-IV some 2 years ago and other than operator error recently have had no problems whatsoever Its done everything I wanted without a hint of struggling. These also go under the name of Grizzly G0705 in the U.S and if you google there are plenty of sites from owners who have upgraded to cnc etc

I fitted Dro from Allendale for I think £350 but that was 12months or more ago, no connection to either company,

Bob

Well.

As usual there isn't quite the perfect machine.

The one I feel is the closest fit is a Weiss VM32B.

I like this because it is big: 840x210 bed with 580x210 movement, 100mm stroke and 470 spindle to table.

Also 1500W DC brushless, back gear and 60-4000 rpm and heavy (240kg) which must count for something.

But, no-one seems to sell it in the UK. Amadeal thought they were getting some in, but it's a less powerful machine (VM32L - 1100W with only one gear and a smaller speed range).

I spent some time with Ketan this week looking at an SX3 which I like. Has a lovely Z axis wheel at table level and of all the providers in the UK, I'd most like to buy from ARC. But it's smaller (sob). Still a contender at the moment.

I've been in touch with Weiss about importing a VM32B which looks like I could get one into the UK for under £1500 quid, but the obvious concerns there are spares and support. You can't send one back under guarantee!

My current (changeable) short list is:-

Weiss VM32B - if I can get one

ARC SX3

WM18 - I'd be happier if it had a more powerful/ brushless motor

Amadeal VM32L: I really liked the idea of a back gear and a bit more grunt, but it's a reasonable spec for all that.

Iain

Just as a matter of interest has anyone upgraded the motor on a WM18 to a more powerful / brushless / VMD version?

Thanks

Iain

Until now I've been flirting with tender young things, beautiful but flighty, but I've just been seduced by a glamorous mature lady with huge experience and tremendous assets...

And before you lift the phone to call the police (or a Doctor), I should tell you the the glamorous lady was an Aceira F3 in extra-ordinary condition!

Yes, I was swayed by the seductive lure of old Iron. The machine was lovely, felt lovely, smooth as silk. It had a bunch of accessories and despite being older than I am still showed the original frosting on the ways. A youthful body with plenty of experience and accessories. What more could a model engineer want?

Despite falling half in love, I've decided against the purchase. Transport, Imperial, cost of additional tooling or repairs. I also wanted something with a bigger work area (though God knows if I'll ever use it) and I found the layout odd - not bad, but not something I'm used to.

So I'm going to return to my juvenile sweeties, but I will always slightly regret the one that got away...

Iain

So, yesterday I made the long trek down to the smoke to see an Amadeal VM32L somewhere in darkest East London.

And I ended up buying one (which I mainly expected to). I was pleasantly surprised to see that the name plate reckoned it had a 1.5kW motor despite the spec saying it was 1.1.

Hugh had a MT3 with DRO and an R8 without. I reckon I would never be allowed to post again if I ordered an MT3 version (based on comments in other posts!) and the machine does not have a clever way of releasing the taper.

So the R8 version is coming on Friday with no DRO, but the factory DRO will be arriving a little later as an add on kit.

The slides feel nice and silky and the backlash no worse than I would expect.

the one thing that took me a little aback was the sheer X size. To be honest, although I wanted a big machine I would probably have been happy with a non-L version of this. As it is I need to find 6 foot of horizontal space to deal with the travel of the table.

Today was spent building a bench for it. I will post pictures which I've disguised the limitations of my joinery.

I am a little nervous about the delivery as my shed is round the back and there's a definite slope to get there (though tarmac, if rough). In the best of times, the delivery guys will trolley it round for me. In the worst case I may need to go and hire some kit at the last minute.

Getting it into the shed and on the new bench is also a bit scarey. However, I've rounded up some of my kids friends to help push and position.

Iain

Later on you will be glad the X is a decent size, when some odd job comes up and you say "I can do that, fortunately". It will also be nice to have a DRO, and forget about the horrors of backlash, which is always there even if minimal. I always recommend R8 if there is a choice for middling machines when buying.

Good luck with the installing.

I had to do a job yesterday that I’ve needed to do several times before and so glad I got a knee mill. The job required drilling into the end of a long bar. In this case it was only 300 - 350mm long but I have done it on bars as long as 600mm in the past. Quite a simple setup, an angle plate was bolted to the rear of the table and the workpiece is securely clamped to it for drilling and taping. The head of my VMC is swung round until it’s directly above the workpiece. It’s not as good as my old Omnimill for head movement but just being able to swing the head around has been very useful.