Gallery, Projects and General > How do I??

Newbie Tramming an X2

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Chuck in E. TN:
I have just purchased a used X2 HF mill. it was mounted on a 12" x 16" x1/2" alum. plate and had a 4" vise installed on the table. The seller took the column off and helped me load the 2 pieces into my truck.
Obviously, I will need to tram it when I set it up.
I have only a couple of dissimilar Dial Indicators. No Dial Test indicator yet. I'm looking for ways to make a mount to put the DI in the drill chuck or collets for tramming.
I have read many posts here and on other boards about tramming the X2, and have the basic idea of how to go about it.
To aid in deciding how to proceed, I have a few questions... Does the DTI, or DI need to be perfectly perpendicular to the axis of the spindle? What effect does it have? I understand that the wider sweep you can make with the indicator, the more pronounced the error will be presented.
What about a 2" piece of 3/8 round, bolted to a piece of angle, with another 2" piece of round, drilled and tapped or threaded to attach to the clamp on the indicator?
Any and all suggested will be considered.

Chuck in E. TN (currently freezing my a** off in upstate NY)

andyf:
Hi Chuck, and congrats on the new toy.

I have never bothered about getting the indicator perfectly perpendicular to the table. After all, you are initially just checking if readings, whatever they are, are the same or different. Unless you are very lucky, they will be different. But to find out how big the difference is, it will need to be reasonably perpendicular in the sense of being parallel to the spindle. Eyeballing it against a square sitting on the table will be good enough.

If you have an articulated holder for the indicator, you may be able to use parts of that to give you a decent circle.  Arrange things for as big a sweep as you can without the plunger coming off the front or back of the table. For the LH and RH ends, you could use a bigger sweep.

Slip a bit of thin metal or card under the plunger while you are turning the spindle to move the indicator from one position to the other, so it doesn't drop down into the T slots as it goes over them and get bent as you, all oblivious, carry on turning.

Andy

Bernd:
Chuck,

Without seeing what you available in indicators and holders it's hard to say how to set it up. Simplest is a drill chuck in the spindle with a small bar to attach the indicator to.

The larger the arc you swing the better. Remeber the indicator is used more as a comparator than a measuring tool in this set up. An example would be if you zero the indicator on one side of the table and then swing it to the other side and you read a .010" difference. Then you would make an ajustment so it will read .005". Then rezero the indicator and swing back to orginal postion to check the reading. If it reads less the .001" I would consider the the column trued.

Here's a thread on making a mill tramming tool. May help some. http://madmodder.net/index.php?topic=822.0

Bernd

tumutbound:
Chuck,
I can sympathise with you on this, I'm also in the process of tramming an X2 mill and it's proving to be a pain!

I took the column off and performed the alignment as per this http://homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=6007.0 thread on HMEM. Fiddly but I think I nailed it.
Fitting shims to the base of the column to align the Y axis is proving more difficult and involves lots of trial and, mostly, error. There a fair bit of swearing as well  :bang:
If I can pick up some shims today, I'll hopefully get it finished

 :scratch: What sort of accuracy should I settle for when tramming the X2? To date I've been aiming for .05mm in a 150mm to 200mm circle of the DTI. Am I expecting too much?

sbwhart:
If your getting that result I'd bee happy, the bigger the swing the more accurate you're getting it, most cutters are less than that, when you try the mill with a cutter look out for the cutter marks this will give you a good clue as to the tram of your mill, what you want is a nice chris cross pattern.

Hope this helps

Stew

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