This thread will be a kind of review of my experiences with an Amadeal VM32L which I bought just before Christmas.

A kind of review, because my previous experience with mills consists of a few years with a CMD10 (Seig X1) micro / mini mill and some vague recollections of a big grey thing in the corner of the metal workshop at school.

The VM32L is roughly 10 times the man that the CMD 10 is (hence the 1.1 mills) and I don't feel I can compare this beast to others in the category, so not a review then!

I went down to have a look at the Mill in Amadeal's warehouse in London (200 miles from home) and Hugh was helpful in showing me the options. I decided in the end to go for an r8 version with a DRO kit from Weiss to follow – he didn't have and R8 DRO in and I prefered to wait than go for an MT3 version.

The mill arrived promptly when booked and, much to my relief, the driver had a motorised pallet truck (with brakes) which made short work of the trip down the steep drive round the back of the house. I'd be dreading that.

An hour or so with a brawny young assistant and an engine hoist and the machine was inside and in-place. The installation went pretty much to plan which is not what I expected!

It's a big beast. The table is 840x210mm with a travel of 580x200mm (or two feet by 8 inches for you old timers). Despite what the spec at Amadeal says, the book and machine claim the motor is 1.5KW (10 times the power of my CMD10).

Here it is with the table fully to the right

and to the left

There were some niggles.

Although it started up first time, the second time it did not. Investigation found that the wires to the fuseholder had come out of the push fittings. Part of the reason for this was that the fuseholder was loose so turned, but the wires weren't cramped correctly. a few minutes with a soldering iron fixed that and I've had no further issues.

The Y axis way protector tore a little when I first wound the table all the way forward. It looks like the paint was still wet when it was put on and it stuck to the paint. I've asked for a replacement.

More troubling was that some collets didn't fit. In particular my new 20mm collet didn't go in. Replacements from RDG also failed, but came closer.

What appears to be happening is that some of these R8 collets have a shallower keyway than the official spec (by up to 1mm). I appear not to be the only one with this problem, but High advised me that there was a set screw in the spindle which you could reduce the depth with which I've done. I now have one 20mm collet which fits and 3 which don't, but I don't want to reduce the pin more than I have to.

Iain

The challenge today was to work out how accurate the mill is. This in terms of the table and tramming.

The results were not entirely as I expected.

I took two sets of measurements. The first was to measure the height (more or less) below the spindle at 7 x 4 locations on the table.

in the X Axis that's 27cm, 18cm, 9cm to the left of centre and the same to the right (+ the centre of course) and from near the front at 0, 6cm, 12cm and 18cm towards the back.

The indicator was a compac micron indicator and the the indicator pin rested on a 6mm slip gauge, like this

This being 27cm to the left and 12cm back.

having run round these 28 locations, I then ran round the outside and through the middle to see how repeatable the measurements were.

I took the measurements and converted them to an offset from an average height

for some reason the very back of the table i rather low (that's a hair under 2 thou) and the right front corner a bit high.

The short form is that everywhere is within 2 thou (50 microns) of an average height and the middle and left of the table (if I ignore the back row), is more or less within one thou of an average.

I think that's probably reasonable, but would value input from more experienced machinists!

The next thing is to see how repeatable this measurements are. This image is the difference between the detailed measurements and the round the figure of 8 measurements.

Bearing in mind that that's in microns, I think that's pretty good in terms of repeatability, given the conditions were not exactly temperature controlled (outside shed with a fan heater!).

So what about the tram?

This is where I got a bit confused. The same set up was used as above, except the indicator was slid out from the spindle.

Same principle again – indicator needle resting on a slip gauge with readings at roughly every 45 degrees. I was making no attempt to be particularly accurate with this, but I did go round twice and the readings were mainly within a few microns. The indicator needle was roughly 9cm out from the spindle centre making the diameter about 180 mm.

This is the circle (sorry – you will need to use some imagination here).

so the left right tram looks good – 4 microns across 180mm sounds fair. Front, back is not quite so great with a lean of 40 microns in 180mm. You could move the front measurement up by up to about 10 microns or so, by pushing the column back (fairly hard). I honestly don't think I would make any attempt to improve this. except maybe by tightening up the rear bolts on the column – even then.

BUT. What I don;t get is how the 45 degrees settings are just wierd! Granted these were all taken with the slip gauge across the t slot, but still. Also I can't work out how we can have a circle with the height values at 0, 90, 180, 270. That's a saddle!

Interested in thoughts here.

Finally, I got out a disk brake I bought a few years ago for when I had to do some tramming – as it's meant to be pretty flat and tried that.

With results as below

Not quite the same results but a similar saddle shape.

Any comments would be welcome.

Iain

Edited By Iain Downs on 07/01/2020 20:13:50

Thanks. Mr Mart.

I don't think that the weight of the indicator is affecting this – it's pretty much the same all the way round the the circle.

I did try rotating the brake disk by 90 degrees and testing at 20 degree intervals. However, the results make me think I need to do some more measurements.

I tried wobbling the disk (pressing up and down), but the readings only varied by about 5 microns.

IOain

Hey, Gavin, I kind of answered in your other thread, but here's a bit more detail.

I've not had to buy spares for the Mill, apart perhaps from the DRO which I ordered when I bought the machine. This was a bit of a fiasco, but I don't blame Amadeal for that is this was during the heart of lockdown and nothing was arriving from China. When it did arrive it was just the scales, sensors and a box – no supporting information at all. However, Hugh was able to get me some photos from the Weis factory on how they put them on which was at least a little helpful. I would recommend you order them fitted rather than the kit – I just didn't want to wait 3 months for a new machine to arrive.

I have had some problems with the spindle being pulled down on heavyish cuts without the lock being applied. The solution to that is simple. Lock the spindle for non-trivial cuts! I've also had issues with the cutter being pulled out of the collet as it cuts. Again, less aggressive cuts and tighter locking is the answer. It's a sign of the power of the machine that this happens and I think that's more or less a good thing.

I don't think it's perfect and I would not like to be trying to make something that HAD to have sub thou tolerences, but there again, I'm not sure I could on an industrial machine.

When I retire (please God may it be soon) and downsize, I would like to get a bigger lathe (probably used British Iron) to replace my minilathe, but I don't feel the need to upgrade the Amadeal machine. Though if someone was to give me a Bridgeport, I wouldn't turn it down.

Iain

Getting the mill into my shed and onto a bench was interesting. I believe I posted about it at some point. Something to be careful of is the ceiling height of your shed. My shed is a standard single concrete garage and it just fits in.

But the headroom it gives is marvellous (especially compared to the SX1 which is my first mill). I enjoy feeling smug when Quin (Blondihacks) complains about not being able to do this that or the other on her mill as it lacks headroom.

Iain