Amadeal VM25L R8 Milling Machine

Hello everyone,

I have recently taken delivery of my very first milling machine an Amadeal VM25LV R8.

My first impressions as a complete novice is that it seem pretty good, especially for the price. I can detect no play in any of the movements. I made my first cut on a piece of 12mm steel which came from an old shop display fixture, so the specs of the steel are completely unknown (not that it would mean much to me anyway).

the steel was 350x350mmI and I wanted a piece 350x25mm finished size so made a rough cut with an angle grinder (don't buy Aldi cutting discs) and cleaned it up on the mill. I only have a small 4" bench drill vice so fitted this and levelled it as best I could by eye using a small steel rule.

The result of this first cut is a variance of less than 0.5mm from one end of the piece to the other, which I think is pretty good for my first cut, especially given my rough & ready setup and all that overhang.

I plan to drill a small hole on one end of this 350mm bar to hold a piece of 12mm steel bar, which will go in the collet and then attach a dial test indicator to the opposite end and use this setup for the tramming.

I'm sure I am doing loads of things wrong and would be interested in any comments on this. I know I still need to securely mount the mill to the bench but I haven't decided its final exact location. Plus I want to rig up a drip tray of some sort so all the setup only gets done once (hopefully). I have a piece of aluminium sheet and have been watching some videos about hammer forming metal so we shall see.

That's all for now folks

Regards

Brian

Nice try.....now to address the over hang, you could make some machinists jacks that would fit underneath the bar at either end....

A job for another day...

When you want to make some jacks don't bother with castings etc, head off to http://mikesworkshop.weebly.com/machinists-jacks.html and see how to make them from standard bolts and long "joining" nuts. Good choice to get R8, if you haven't already bought an ER type collet chuck could I suggest that you use R8 collets direct in the spindle? You get more daylight and better rigidity, and they are reasonably priced from the likes of Arc or MSC.

Please buy a proper milling vice, they are so much easier to use.

Definitely get a milling vice. A totally different beast to the drilling vice you are using now and will help you to get more accurate results quicker. A rotating base vice is not necessary, in 12 years modelling I have used my rotating base just once and its not even thick enough to use as a doorstop in the workshop so if I knew then what I know now I could have saved a bit.

Jim

Edited By Jim Nic on 23/06/2022 18:29:27

I have an Amadeal too - very satisfied. You will soon learn it's capabilities but 'start easy and work up' rather than down!

Strongly advise you follow the advise of all the comments but contrary to Jim Nic I would say that if you do get a vise with a rotating base then you have an 'attachment' that when wanted is an absolute godsend.

I agree - it's not used very often but when you want to swivel your vise you can guarantee the bolt holes wont align with the tee slots at the angle required. Yep you can clamp the vise down but if you have the base that's so much simpler.

Remove it as soon as you get it and store it under the bench - the vise will be much more rigid without it and less high

Enjoy yourself

Tug

A drill vice is not rigid enough for milling.

Milling is effectively a series of interrupted cuts, the work need to be held securely.

Aligning the vice along the table, with a clock can be a time consuming task, so I made an alignment tool.

Look at the first photo in my albums (Dated 18/11/2020 )

The only parts requiring any precision are the bottom end of the pillars. they need to,be a really snug fit in the T slots (If they are not, the fixture will not align the vice very accurately )

The "cross bar" needs to be fixed to the pillars so that it is positively located and cannot move.

The trick is that having assembled the complete "goalpost" on the mill table, you take a light cut along the cross bar. In that way, when you clamp the fixed jaw of the vice to it, it will be against a face that is that followed by a cutter.

The only other things that need to be made are two T nuts, and two studs to clamp the whole device into mplace.

I used a couple of long M8 bolts that were waiting "To come in handy", but for another smaller vice, I used some M8 studding and flanged nuts.

Alignment time is less than 5 minutes, compared to possibly 20 minutes of winding to and fro, tapping to align,and probably getting very frustrated.

Using mine, and checking with a clock, the vice is usually within 0.001" (0.025 mm) over the 100 mm length of the jaws.

If your mill is decently trammed, you should be able to produce a part where the thickness varies by almost nothing.. A set of parallels, will help where the work is shallower than the vice jaws, and needs to be packed up to protrude above the top of the jaws by a distance slightly more than the final depth of cut.

You are generating a surface by moving the workpiece under the cutter, rather than forming it.

(As a guide, using HSS end mills, your fed rate should not exceed 0.002" (0.050 mm ) per tooth. So you will need to work out how fast, or slow, from speed of rotation and number of flutes.

It is a hobby machine, with limited power, and rigidity, do do not expect to remove metal at the rate which a powerful heavy industrial machine can. Overloading the machine will cause wear, at a minimum, or damage to motor, or gears as a worst case. Having said that, don't let the cutter idle on the work. That can can cause the cutter to rub,and overheat, which will ultimately blunt it.

HTH

Just spotted a 100 mm vice in the "For sale" section. 

Howard

Edited By Howard Lewis on 24/06/2022 01:28:08

Being good at spending other people's money, you might, eventually find the Vertex HV6 Rotary table useful.

More T nuts to make; but all good practice!

I have the same from Amadeal, got it 9 months ago. It seems to do everything I ask of it. Like all hobby mills there are times when the quill to table height isn’t enough. Ive since added a 6” vertex with tailstock and chuck. boring head, fly cutter. A more accurate drill chuck. My power feed is handy but not essential. A visit to Leytonstone to see it before I bought it was enjoyable because they are nice people. Some others selling similar didnt even reply to email which is strange.

It takes me significantly less than 5 minutes to align my vice just using a DTI. Although my machine vice has slots milled underneath I don't use alignment blocks, as the vice gets moved between three different milling machines. Although all T-slots are nominally 5/8" they vary slightly from machine to machine.

Andrew

I went to buy a 100mm machine vice and ended up with a 75mm and I still had to cut the rear gutter off to get the cutter over the jaws.

The 100mm is longer and higher as well as wider, it sounds like the right size, but it isn't.

BTW the drilling chuck is no good for milling cutters, the jaws can loosen due to the side loads that you don't get drilling.

Does anyone know why every Asian mill only comes with the drilling chuck as standard?

To keep costs down, presumably, but still allow you to use the machine for some things when starting out.

An ER collet chuck would have to be supplied with at least several collets to be useful, and direct collets would have to number more than one for the same reason. These are both more expensive options than a drill chuck.

I was lucky. Amadeal sold me the machine complete with ER25 collet and set of collets, a vice, T bolt set in a box plus a set of milling cutters and a drill chuck.

Edited By NR67 on 24/06/2022 12:25:25

Edited By NR67 on 24/06/2022 12:28:59

Thanks for all the replies good people.

John Rudd & John Haine: Yes. Machinists Jacks are on my list of future projects, thanks. The link to the jacks at mikesworkshop are an interesting idea and something that would be quick and easy to do. Thanks

Dave Halford and others: Thanks. Yes, I understand a milling vice is perhaps one of the first accessories to buy.

I have seen the Vevor vice which seems a good buy, at least for a starter one. The 100mm is £43.99 and just an extra tenner for the swivel base including shipping, so I might go for the latter.

Howard Lewis: I really like the idea of your attachment for aligning the vice, very clever. I’ve watched some YouTube videos so already have an idea how difficult it can be, thanks for that. And yes a rotary table is also on my wish list.

General: I bought a 12mm R8 collet from RDG as I already had some collets with 12mm shank (don’t ask where they came from, they have been knocking about in a toolbox for years, never having been used). Apart from the drill chuck that came with the mill that is the only accessory I have for now. I will probably buy things as and when I have a need for them and funds allow.

Thanks everyone

Regards

Brian

How long practical work takes is often down to a mixture of talent and practice. I'm light on both!

I always align with a DTI and the time taken varies considerably. Usually a couple of minutes, but on bad days I keep overshooting and can take up to quarter of an hour. When that happens best to take a break, because frustration undermines what little talent I have.

I suspect bad days are due to slight differences in how tightly I've nipped the studs - too tight and too loose are both bad, and then results are worsened by my somewhat erratic tapping.

Dave

Like Andrew I can usually do mine in a lot less than 5mins, more like 30seconds. You are just looking for movement in the needle not taking readings at each end and then trying to half those.

I did fit the keys to the 80mm ARC versatile and they are good enough for most jobs, it lives with the CNC milll and does not get clocked when I fit it.

I agree with others about 2 minutes is right for clamping the machine vice to the table if you have a tenon fitted and know it will be accurate enough for most jobs.

In place of a tenon my vice has a strip of square material fixed on the front underside to make contact with the ground front face of the bed so it is necessary to hold the strip in contact when fixing down.

Emgee

Edited By Emgee on 25/06/2022 10:39:18