Mill Power feed unit.

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

How do these things grip the leadscrew shaft? Is it grubscrew, pin through, engaging the dog clutch handle interface some mills have? I imagine a taper lock as on pulleys is too expensive. How do they cater for lo9ts of different shaft diameters?

[Taf_Pembs]

On Taf_Pembs Said:

:

How did you arrange the self eject function for tooling?

Robet Butler

 

Hi Robert,

The new collet chuck arrived today so I’ll be fitting the ‘self ejecting’ drawbar soon, I’ll put some pics up if you like.

Taf

Yes please

Robert Butler

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

The gear that fits on the end of the leadscrew has three drive dogs the same as the handwheels. It is held in place by a grub screw.

Martin C

[alan ord 2]

On alan ord 2 Said:

Bill what mill do you have? The reason I don’t use the z axis DRO reading is that the head of the Super Lux mill is huge and the control from the hand wheel (not the powered head, too inaccurate for fine adjustment) is clunky at best. If I had a Bridgeport with knee for height adjustment then it would be a different situation, the Bridgeport has much better control of the knee during movement.

Alan.

I understand, Alan. My mill is a Warco WM18. The Z handwheel isn’t very accessibly positioned but it’s not difficult to fine-feed with it, downwards at any rate.

On a related note, it’s just my luck that the head on my mill doesn’t have a gas strut, as many WM18s do, and that the handwheel is on the right side, which is abysmal for my purposes really. I’ve learned not to worry about this now and just accept that machining is a physical activity, so why complain?

[alan ord 2Participant @alanord2]

Hi Bill, I’m lucky to have two mills my other is a Chester Champion 20vs which is the WM 18 equivalent. I do also have a 3 axis DRO fitted to it but I don’t really use the Z axis on this also. In fact I only fitted scales and read heads to the X & Y axis. The quill on this mill also has a digital caliper fitted by the manufacturer. I agree with your earlier comments about milling with the quill extended but I should explain that when I do extend the quill during milling it is only a few thou or very rarely 1/8″ to 1/4″. I normally remove excess material on preliminary processes and use the mill for finish milling so as not to put too much strain on the quill. With the benefit of hindsight and the fact the head hand wheel is located on the right hand side of the column, the hand wheel could have been used for Z axis adjustment if the Z axis DRO had been fitted. The Champion 20vs head control is way more sensitive to control the head movement compared to the Super Lux.

Hope this explains my earlier comments.

Alan.

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

The black top part included with the 450 in lbs model can be removed if another method of fixing it is required. I have always wondered how the drive is turned through 90 degrees since the drive gear looks like a normal spur gear with parallel teeth, not like a a bevel gear. I don’t understand how they would mesh.

[DiogenesParticipant @diogenes]

In the ‘horizontal’ ones the pinion is indeed a plain spur and drives a gear on the leadscrew – I’m fairly sure the ‘vertical’ ones have a bevel pinion that meshes with a large bevel gear of the leadscrew.

I don’t want to get into trouble with pics or links, but if you search ‘AL310S Milling’ Ebay will throw up a pic showing the array of bits for the ‘vertical’ models, you will see the pinion and the larger bronzy-lookin’-cone that is the gear – it only comes with the ‘dangly’ kit.

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

Now I understand how the plain spur gear type is intended to work, the pictures in Alan ord 2’s post and Peterhod’s post show the drive projecting from the left end of their mills. The drive axis is at right angles to the types that hang down at the end of beds. I was getting confused with horizontal and vertical mills.

[Author]

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