Seig Super X2P Mill

On Friday I took advantage of Arceurotrades offer on the X2P and thought I would share my experiences with it. Although I have a large and reasonably well equipped workshop I do like to tinker about at home and this was bought for that purpose.

I went for the R8 version because I already have tooling that I can use.

I would also like to point out that this is not a rant, nor is it any kind of fit for purpose debate. If you don't like Chinese machine tools go and buy yourself a Swiss / British one.

Having got it into my workshop (the big one) I couldn't resist trying out this newfangled motor that Ketan keeps banging on about. I got a 6mm drill (not a particularly sharp one at that), a lump of en8 and drilled a couple of holes in it. Initially I set a fairly low speed thinking that I would hear it slow down as per other motor / speed controllers I have used but this wasn't the case. I then tried the same drill again but with the speed set as low as I could go and to my suprise only a small speeding up. I should also point out that I was leaning on it quite heavily. All in all a very positive start.

I know I said this wasn't a rant but what do the Chinese put into their oil to make it smell like that?

I'm hoping to make a start taking some measurements of runout etc in the next week Prior to taking it apart to clean and oiling so will post my findings.

David

Hi David,

congratulations with your new milling machine. Seems you have the same experience as a friend of mine, the brushless DC motors have a lot of torque - even at low revs.

Thor

I have had mine about 18 month now, it is a very capable machine ( for it's size ). I would have loved the x3 but my workshop is just not big enough ( my wallet neither!)

It worked right out of the box as I did not feel confident enough to strip it down at the time. I have fitted Igaging scales on all 3 axis and boy, what a difference, so had to strip it down eventually and was surprised at the overall quality of the machine. For those that mock the Chinese kit based on experiences of 10 years ago, I can assure you that things have moved on a great deal since then. I got mine with the R8 spindle also ( with the freebie kit as well) and tool changing is a doddle. The motor is, as you say, very power full for it's size.

Most experienced of the people on this forum quite rightly advocate much bigger, heavier and stronger machines and would look upon the X2 type machine as a mere toy in comparison - I do have to agree with them, but for it's intended usage range I find it more than adequate, certainly for the types of things I use it for. It all boils down to the space you have, the money you have and the size of things you intend to make.

Arc euro are a pleasure to deal with, I picked mine up from the shop ( more like Aladins cave), it was ready and waiting when I got there and two very nice gentlemen put it in the back of my car for me.

If the size of the X2 is big enough for you, I can readily recommend it.

One last thing, the tachometer that you can buy desperately for £100+, don't bother, you can get a tacho module complete with hall effect sensor and magnet for under £7 on ebay- direct from China (free postage) and took just a week to get here, works a treet.

I've had one of these for over two years now and am very pleased with it. Yes, the motor is very powerful for it's size. It runs rather hot but that doesn't seem to be a problem. The gib strips were rather poorly made but that was easily fixed. I have converted it to cnc to use alongside my bigger manual mill but often use it in manual mode as it is easier than setting up the bigger mill for quick jobs.

Russell.

P.S. Why would you need a tachometer?  The control calibration is accurate enough and you then adjust the speed by feel.  Trying to use published speed tables on a small mill like this is a waste of time.

Edited By Russell Eberhardt on 14/07/2014 10:07:16

My main purpose for starting this thread was to show others who may be considering buying an X2P what to expect in terms of accuracy / power etc. I haven't really started yet so I don't know what this is going to turn into but so far things look very good.

I should also point out that I have no connection with Arc except as an occasional customer.

Regards David.

Well I finally got to spend some time on the mill today. I had already stripped the table and cross slide down so it was really just a case of cleaning and checking. On the whole the only bad points were -

1) A general roughness to the machined surfaces especially the edges / corners

2) The Y axis bearing surface (above the dovetail) was a bit too rough for my liking.

My answer to this was a flat rubber block and some 600 grit wet and dry. In my case I only needed to go over it 2 or 3 times to leave the whole thing feeling much nicer. A fine file on the corners sorted them out.

The Y axis got a similar treatment. I have an old gib strip out of a shaper and by laying a strip of wet and dry on the bottom of this I was able to lightly rub off the roughness.

I put the whole thing back together with plenty of slideway oil and got my DTI out.

The front of the table is to within .02 mm over it's travel and the x and y axis are square to within .01mm over the length of my granite square (100 x 63mm).

I was initially going to take the head off but having seen the rest of it I am happy to leave it for the time being.

I did a quick test cut with a 10mm slot drill and was very impressed.

One thing I should mention here is that the T nuts supplied with the machine and in the free clamp set allow the stud to pass right through. I was told that this is a bad thing so I took a small cold chisel and put 4 small vee's across the bottom of each one.

My overall feeling so far is that this is a very good machine for its size. I know that there are people out there who would say that I shouldn't have to fettle it myself but I would rather do that myself than pay Sieg to do it for me.

I can already see a number of things that I would like to add / change but am going to live with it for a while before I do any of them.

I will try and add to this as I use the machine more.

Regards.

David.

Hi David,

I too purchased an SX2P from ARC a couple of weeks after you, also R8. I have recently finished the cleaning/greasing/oiling.

Unfortunately my mill needs a myriad of must-do improvements/repairs to get it up to some acceptable standard... Anyway, on top of the list is the spindle which has enough runout to resemble a rotating banana.

Therefore I am very interested to see what sort of runout you are getting spindle to head. I will be measuring mine in the next days.

Alex

PS. I hope this adds to this thread rather than hijack it!

David, a few(quite a few) years back in ME some one wrote in about some Chinese tool that he had bought, I think it was his cat that noticed the smell first. He put it down to the Chinese using peanut oil for rust prevention, and the oil had "gone off". Ian S C

Hi Alex,

The runout on mine is .012 mm Measured inside the taper. on the outer surface it measures .04 mm but this doesn't really matter that much to me.

The whole point of this thread was to try and give some idea of what you are going to get so the more info the better.

Ian the peanut theory certainly has merit. Perhaps it's deliberate to make sure that you do clean the machine down. If it is it certainly works. When my 3D printer arrived I had to clean it twice as it stank the house out!

Regards David.

This has got me running to my old-style X2 to check the runout. Inside and outside the spindle the runout was 0.0005"

I've changed to angular contact bearings, so I checked the preload (which was a little loose) with a small but noticeable improvement so it is now better than 0.0004". I hope to further improve by cleaning the bearings

Alex, where are you gauging the runout? you need to measure inside the taper or some accurate silver steel held in a good R8 collet. If you are gauging the truth from the appearance of a drill chuck, don't expect these sort of results.

If you DO have excess runout inside the spindle, check the preload isn't loose before condemning the machine.

Neil

Edited By JasonB on 09/08/2014 13:11:38

Hi Neil,

I take it you have the 3 morse taper spindle. I have not had mine long enough to want to start changing bearings but was under the impression that it is not straight forward on the R8.

Regards David.

As Neil says check the preload when my X3 (not from ARC) arrived there was 0.030" runout, turned out teh lock nut was completely off the thread and the adjusting one loose.

J

Same here on my SX2P with the original bearings. If I were you, Alex, I would discuss it with the supplier.

The only must do improvements on mine were redoing the poorly dimpled gig strips.

Russell.

Finally got round to checking the 'out of the box' runout on my SX2P.

Inside the bottom of the spindle it is approx. 0.01mm - similar to what you guys reported. The nut was tight out of the box.

The provided chuck however has a runout of 0.15mm on its side (under the numbering) and then a 10mm endmill shows 0.4mm runout about 1cm below the jaws.

I have an ER20 set on its way and will retest.

The drawbar might need a sleeve to keep it coaxial with the spindle and minimise vibrations.

A