XYZ Mill

[Lee Reynolds 1Participant @leereynolds1]

Hi,

Has anyone got an XYZ Manual Mill or knows someone who has experience of using one.

 

Regards

Lee

[Chris Evans 6Participant @chrisevans6]

Hi Lee,

I have used an XYZ manual turret mill years ago before I retired. It was OK and as good as the last of the Bridlington assembled Bridgeport mills whose quality I felt dipped a little bit to compete with the Eastern clones.

When I retired It was a Bridgeport that I bought for my home workshop although price wise the two machines second hand prices where similar. Sadly now health issues dictate that I part with my Bridgeport.

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

Condition, condition condition,
A lightly used 80’s Bridgeport will be better than an abused 5 year old XYZ. The XYZ is a perfectly good light industrial mill.
More generally with any mill, “extras”. If you get a “bare” mill you can easily pay more for work holding, DRO, etc. I’d rther have a mill with more backlash and a DRO than one with less backlash and no DRO.

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

Reading my reply I see I have made the cardinal sin of assuming. In this case that you wanted advice on buying one.  Sorry about that.

Yes, I’ve used an XYZ mill Did you want to know something specific about them?

Robert.

[Keith Rogers 2Participant @keithrogers2]

Hi Lee,

I seem to remember somebody asking this question on the old forum, was it you? If so I replied at the time, but can’t find the old posts.

I have owned and used an XYZ 1500 for a number of years and found it a very capable machine for the money. It has been very reliable apart for one noisy spindle bearing that I replaced fairly easily.

Any questions you have feel free to ask.

Keith.

 

 

 

[mgnbukParticipant @mgnbuk]

I have experience of using and repairing an XYZ KRV2000 at my last employment & before that I worked on installing and servicing CNC conversions of similar machines – XYZ’s first foray into CNC machines before they started bringing in the Prototrak versions.

What do you want to know ? IIRC XYZ had the machine manuals available to download from their website & I found that their spare parts offering was reasonable ex-stcok and not to expensive (for machine tool parts ! ).

I can’t say i found much difference in operation or accuracy compared to the odd Bridegport of similar type I used occasionally.

Nigel B.

[Lee Reynolds 1Participant @leereynolds1]

Hi,

Thank you all for your comments.

Robert, you are right I should have posted this before I actually bought one!!

However, I have bought one from someone – Rondean- from whom I had bought an M300, also advertised as in VGC.

This one was of the type of mill I wanted (the M300 showed up how deficient my small Warco lathe was) and also advertised as in VGC and Alison was right again!

I briefly looked at reconditioned Bridgeports but would need another £10,000 for one of those.

All I have to do is wire it up to find out what else I need to know.

The top speed is in the 5000 range and I gather Bridgeport made some with that speed for some reason at some time.

Anyone know why you should need 5000rpm. I will have a VFD so have no problem and will run in the slow speed pulley range anyway.

 

Regards

Lee

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

Hi Lee, for some small cutters 5000 rpm is way too slow.

Tony

[Lee Reynolds 1Participant @leereynolds1]

Hi,

 

Thank you all for replying – I am sure I will have some questions in the future.

 

The only one at the moment (it’s not wired in yet) is that whilst there is a spindle brake there seem no way of locking the brake on (or indeed locking the spindle), or is it that I haven’t found it yet.

 

The downloaded manual is not spectacular to say the least!!

 

Regards

Lee

[mgnbukParticipant @mgnbuk]

Hi Lee,

The spinlde brake on the KRV2000 was a lever on the left hand side of the vari-speed head casting – IIRC the brake drum is in the lower casting area. On our machine it had an air cylinder controlled by a solenoid valve & IIRC the default condition was for the brake to be held on when the spindle was stopped – it automatically released when the spindle was started. Obviously need to have air on for it to work & we didn’t bother. When I needed to lock the spindle to install / remove tools I just pulled the brake lever on with one hand & the drawbar spanner with the other, or if a quicker spindle stop than coasting to s top was required then, again, just manually pulled the brake lever.

I guess that a simple machine like a turret mill doesn’t require a spectacular manual ! What areas do you find it deficient in ?

Nigel B.

 

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