MadModder
The Breakroom => Resources => Topic started by: Bogstandard on May 21, 2011, 05:16:40 PM
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I just thought I had better bring this to your attention.
Arc have just released details of a special Sieg X2 mill, specifically built to Arc's specifications, and hopefully solving a few of the problems that the original X2 mill suffered from.
http://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/Catalogue/Machines-Accessories/Milling-Machines/Model-Super-X2-Plus-Mill
Someone I know has already placed his order for one of the very limited quantity available at this time, and I am sure he will be able to update us about it when it is delivered and unpacked.
Bogs
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Looks good... :clap:
They've done away with the tilting column idea, good move makes for a more rigid machine... :thumbup:
But retained the poxy spring mechanism to stop the head falling down... :doh:
What happened to the gas damper strut mod?
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Now...... THAT would explain the very offhand manner of Chester's man, at Harrogate!
When I mentioned what I had done with mine, and what LMShop were selling, he just shrugged!
Essentially, he said. "We're not pushing those...... That manufacturer has no allegiance to anyone.... We're not bothered".....
He wasn't bothered talking to me, either...... ::)
Hmmm...... :scratch:
David D
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John,
I can't comment too much about it, not ever having owned one.
But from reading peoples complaints over the years, the main two problems were the flimsy column and the drive gearing system, whereby you really had to fit a belt drive to get smooth operation and reliability and make major mods to the column to get it rigid. It seems that those are the main issues that have been addressed, plus a larger motor, plus the option of R8 fitting, have all boiled down to not having to spend large amounts of cash to upgrade the machine to a reasonable standard.
In fact, if you took all the modification costs to get the standard X2 to this stage, you would almost be getting the machine for free.
The choice has to be with the buyer, and if I was wanting to buy an X2 sized machine with an R8 spindle, I know which one I would go for, gas strut or not, that would be the least of my worries.
John
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Nice one, Peter! :thumbup:
David D
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Something else not mentioned is that it has more travels than an X2.
The reason for the new column is that it's actually built on an X1L base which is different from the X2 base, the original offering from the factory was an even more flexable tilt mechanism that actually reduced Y travel.
I can't see why these have to tilt given the flexabilty of the columns on these small machines so the decision was made to build a fixed column which ARC has the rights to.
If anyone wants to see the original design pop round before it gets broken up, the column that is, I have a new column on order to upgrade my prototype.
John S.
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John,
I can't comment too much about it, not ever having owned one.
John
Well the Chester version that I have owned since new has had a number of mods to it, least of the belt drive conversion after breakin the gears when fly cutting....
In terms of flexing of the column, I've neer foind it an issue, I guess it comes down to knowing the limitations of the machine..
I look forward to reading the report Peter is going to write :thumbup:
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There is also another one that axminster is selling. This one is different in that the whole column and spindle moves for the Y axis and the table only moves in the X. It gets rid of the tilting problem, but looks like it causes an even weaker link on the dovetails. Check out the parts diagram in the manual. http://www.axminster.co.uk/downloads/600858_manual.pdf (http://www.axminster.co.uk/downloads/600858_manual.pdf)
(http://www.axminster.co.uk/images/products/medium/600858_l.jpg)
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That model was commissioned by JET in the US before being released to other sellers.
It's not a new model at all and has been kicking about in the background for quite a while.
Here's a stack of them from when I was over in China in 09
(http://www.stevenson-engineers.co.uk/files/P1000076.jpg)
Not a good design as the slightest play acts on the column like a pendulum. Also not an easy machine to operate in the Z with the handle so high up and at the back. The Chinese factories will build whatever you want but sometimes they are given ideas that look good on paper but haven't really been thought out.
John S.
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ok, now for the fun question, so if I could get that column would there be anything other than building an adapter plate to attach it to an X2 base? would it help with the flex in the X2? Mad Modders want to know.
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Second time lucky, Peter! ::)
Well done Arc, for acting so quickly..... :clap:
I understand your preference for the "drill" handle. My preference too. :thumbup:
Hope the developing friendship continues, smoothly...... :D
David D
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That's Awesome Peter!! :headbang:
Nice looking mill. I hope it works well for you. Now to see if I can get that column.... :smart:
Eric
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Sorry Peter, what bit are we talking about ?
John S.
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Seems I beat Peter and others on this one. My new SX2P from Arc left Leicester on Friday 18th and was delivered to me in Finland on Monday 23rd. The truck must have been racing through Northern Europe faster than TNT was updating the info on their tracking site. Pretty impressive! Arc was very easy and good to deal with before and after the delivery.
So far I've stripped and cleaned the machine plus changed the mains plug. I also had the motor and drive belt off and checked the preload on the spindle bearings, was OK. Running the machine for 10 minutes each at low / med / full speed I got no vibration or unhealthy sounds. Looks good. The base casting is a bit "hairy" but all the machined surfaces are OK and that's where it counts. I haven't checked parallelism and spindle rotational accuracy completely yet but so far haven't found any problems.
The compound table, then. :coffee: Like Peter, I've also got an issue there. The leadscrew handwheels are a bit wobbly and when you tighten the nylock nuts to take the slack away you actually have to tighten the screws so much they hardly turn any more and the table movement is rather jerky. I'm starting to consider taking the table back to pieces again and installing thrust plus ball bearings for the leadscrews. Anyway, I'd like to stay in the loop and know if the bearing mod is advisable. Any other advice on the table issue would also be welcome. Lapping the dovetails plus new gib strips in brass?
It's a nice little machine although a bit heavy at 70 kg so I'll have to wait until The Muscle Men drop by and help me lift it on the bench. Then I'll make the final adjustments on the gibs and start making swarf. I'm sure the SX2P will live up to my needs and give me countless hours of good service.
Jouko
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Sorry, made a mistake in my previous post. What I meant to say was: order in Wed May 18th, shipment out Fri 20th and delivery Mon 23rd. Really fast, considering the amount of road miles and salt water between Leicester and my town in Finland.
Working on the leadscrews and dovetails.
Jouko
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Yawellnofine,
What did you expect it's from Leicester - The best place in the whole wide world :D :D :D
So what am I doing in South Africa it's sunny :D :D :D
:ddb: :ddb: :ddb: :ddb: :ddb: :ddb: :ddb: :ddb: :ddb:
DaveH
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Looks good... :clap:
They've done away with the tilting column idea, good move makes for a more rigid machine... :thumbup:
But retained the poxy spring mechanism to stop the head falling down... :doh:
What happened to the gas damper strut mod?
According to the factory, there is/was a patent issue with the gas strut. One of our competitors offer it, but neither the factory or I know how they have dealt with the patent issue. As it is not in SIEG's name, it is not their problem!
Ketan @ ARC.
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Wait, Ketan from Arc?
How do I get one of those new columns Shipped to the US)? Not interested in the whole machine as I am building a CNC center and am too far in...
Eric
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Wait, Ketan from Arc?
How do I get one of those new columns Shipped to the US)? Not interested in the whole machine as I am building a CNC center and am too far in...
Eric
It won't fit the X2 as it is made to fit the SX1 base. If you want one to fit the original X2, ask Chris at LMS. He might have a solution in a few months time.
Ketan @ ARC
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ok, now for the fun question, so if I could get that column would there be anything other than building an adapter plate to attach it to an X2 base? would it help with the flex in the X2? Mad Modders want to know.
It did not work out well in our experiment, as well as in the factories experiment. LMS may have a solution for the original X2 owners in a few months time.
Ketan @ ARC
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So far I've stripped and cleaned the machine plus changed the mains plug. I also had the motor and drive belt off and checked the preload on the spindle bearings, was OK. Running the machine for 10 minutes each at low / med / full speed I got no vibration or unhealthy sounds. Looks good. The base casting is a bit "hairy" but all the machined surfaces are OK and that's where it counts. I haven't checked parallelism and spindle rotational accuracy completely yet but so far haven't found any problems.
The compound table, then. :coffee: Like Peter, I've also got an issue there. The leadscrew handwheels are a bit wobbly and when you tighten the nylock nuts to take the slack away you actually have to tighten the screws so much they hardly turn any more and the table movement is rather jerky. I'm starting to consider taking the table back to pieces again and installing thrust plus ball bearings for the leadscrews. Anyway, I'd like to stay in the loop and know if the bearing mod is advisable. Any other advice on the table issue would also be welcome. Lapping
the dovetails plus new gib strips in brass?
It's a nice little machine although a bit heavy at 70 kg so I'll have to wait until The Muscle Men drop by and help me lift it on the bench. Then I'll make the final adjustments on the gibs and start making swarf. I'm sure the SX2P will live up to my needs and give me countless hours of good service.
Jouko
We are working on a bearing kit for the handles. Hopefully this will work for the X1, SX1, SX2P, (not original X2 or SX2). For the cast base, we will soon have a prep.guide on-line free PDF download for the SX1L. So you can refer to it for the SX2P base prep. If you decide to lap before then, in our opinion, please do not use diamond lapping paste.
Ketan @ ARC
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It won't fit the X2 as it is made to fit the SX1 base. If you want one to fit the original X2, ask Chris at LMS. He might have a solution in a few months time.
Ketan @ ARC
I know that it won't fit, but it may work with my design...
Eric
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It won't fit the X2 as it is made to fit the SX1 base. If you want one to fit the original X2, ask Chris at LMS. He might have a solution in a few months time.
Ketan @ ARC
I know that it won't fit, but it may work with my design...
Eric
Ok, in that case, ask Chris at LMS if he can bring it in as a spare part for you in his next consignment. This will be the most economical way.
Ketan @ ARC
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So far I've stripped and cleaned the machine plus changed the mains plug. I also had the motor and drive belt off and checked the preload on the spindle bearings, was OK. Running the machine for 10 minutes each at low / med / full speed I got no vibration or unhealthy sounds. Looks good. The base casting is a bit "hairy" but all the machined surfaces are OK and that's where it counts. I haven't checked parallelism and spindle rotational accuracy completely yet but so far haven't found any problems.
The compound table, then. :coffee: Like Peter, I've also got an issue there. The leadscrew handwheels are a bit wobbly and when you tighten the nylock nuts to take the slack away you actually have to tighten the screws so much they hardly turn any more and the table movement is rather jerky. I'm starting to consider taking the table back to pieces again and installing thrust plus ball bearings for the leadscrews. Anyway, I'd like to stay in the loop and know if the bearing mod is advisable. Any other advice on the table issue would also be welcome. Lapping
the dovetails plus new gib strips in brass?
It's a nice little machine although a bit heavy at 70 kg so I'll have to wait until The Muscle Men drop by and help me lift it on the bench. Then I'll make the final adjustments on the gibs and start making swarf. I'm sure the SX2P will live up to my needs and give me countless hours of good service.
Jouko
We are working on a bearing kit for the handles. Hopefully this will work for the X1, SX1, SX2P, (not original X2 or SX2). For the cast base, we will soon have a prep.guide on-line free PDF download for the SX1L. So you can refer to it for the SX2P base prep. If you decide to lap before then, in our opinion, please do not use diamond lapping paste.
Ketan @ ARC
A bearing kit for the handwheels....sounds interesting. I'll probably be standing in the queue for one, if you decide to bring it on. After the adjustments I have been making on the gibs the table movements are already OK and I can certainly live with them as they are now. The handwheels still wobble a bit but that's not a big headache. However, there's always room for some improvement so the bearing mod could be the way to go. My feeling is that the axial loads on the leadscrews are the issue and could benefit from some compensation. With the dovetails I don't see any problems. The word "hairy" above just refers to the roughness at some points in the unmachined parts in the base casting.
As to lapping the dovetails I'm actually rather hesitant because of the potential risks involved. A year ago I did a thrust bearing / lap / brass gibs mod to an Arc X0 compound table following the methods presented by David White in a past issue of Model Engineers Workshop. The results were quite impressive, a major improvement in the movements. He also presented his mods to an X1 table including the bearings and lapping in another MEW issue. However, with the SX2P there's more money involved than with the X0 table so I'll have to think carefully before starting that kind of actions with my one and only mill. Yet, I still have the rest of the Carborundum powders down to 500 grit waiting for action. No diamond paste for me, thanks for reminding.
I'm really looking forward to the preparation guide you mention, could give me a good reason to take the table apart again and start fiddling.
Jouko
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Now when everybody is warm and cosy maybe I abuse your hospitability and ask a little help on decision making.
I have a 1.5 metric ton (pretty heavy ....) old milling machine that has universal head an plenty of low speed. Also it has plenty of grunt, I think least 3 kW, but it could be 5 kW motor.
However it does not have a pinole. It does have universal head with MT3 taper. Drilling is pain: Knee is heavy and crankiing it up and down beats gym any time.
While it has plenty of lower speeds between 25 to 750 rpm if my memory serves right. It does not have any decent speeds for small endmills.
I'm considering buying a smaller mill/drill, but I really can't make up my mind about following:
* Size: while I understand that to utilize e.g. 12 mm endmill completely even bridgeport is just about there, I'm willing to compromize quite a bit of "productivity". This is hobby after all. But can any machine under 400 kg really be stiff enough to us MT2 drills and succesfully drill holes on normal cast iron/steel. No step drilling. Even 12 mm drilling on solid steel will take on correct feeds some serius power and stiffness from machine.
* Spesification. This is really confusing for me. I work in industry and we build stuff to standards and spesifications. Most often we we have to fill several hard to meet conditions at once and any given time. Whereas consumer products seem to full fill only some specs - some of the time. I understand that these are on completely different kettle of sushi, but how do I read specs on these? E.g. what is practical work and tool envelope with X2 and X3?
* And last: Do these mill drills mill and drill seriously or should I consider two different machines?
I can adjust my expectations when I know how it is really. I'm really bad in explaining this but I'll try:
* Because I have a big mill that is great with big cutters, I would need machine with smaller table capacity (part weight and envelope), but I would need higher cutter rpm. I would love to use 1,5 mm to 12 mm slot drills and endmills. Probably also carbide insert endmills. But does these have enough rpm and is the table rigid enough?
* I also would like to have improved drilling capacity to smaller holes. What about drilling? Does table wobble if I drill normal hot rolled 50 mm thick steel with 12 mm drill at table values or even to 30%? Or is there a workaroud that is de-facto-but-not-published? And how high rpm I can go with smaller drills?
I can go up 600 kg of machine and table size can be small, most parts would be under 30 kg.
Tool taper issue is it's own. MT1 or MT2 would be fine for drilling, but I really would have liked if we would have came up with something better standard for hobby milling machines in last 100 years. Like ISO20, but I'm not trying to adjust reality here....anything will go with me. Maybe MT2 for drill and slight bias in favor ISO30 for milling machine, but if compromise would be needed R8 or MT3 could be fine.
Am I completely out in the woods or even worse?
Pekka
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:( im still dreeming of having a mill
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As to lapping the dovetails I'm actually rather hesitant because of the potential risks involved. A year ago I did a thrust bearing / lap / brass gibs mod to an Arc X0 compound table following the methods presented by David White in a past issue of Model Engineers Workshop. The results were quite impressive, a major improvement in the movements. He also presented his mods to an X1 table including the bearings and lapping in another MEW issue. However, with the SX2P there's more money involved than with the X0 table so I'll have to think carefully before starting that kind of actions with my one and only mill. Yet, I still have the rest of the Carborundum powders down to 500 grit waiting for action. No diamond paste for me, thanks for reminding.
I'm really looking forward to the preparation guide you mention, could give me a good reason to take the table apart again and start fiddling.
Jouko
[/quote]
Hi Jouko, the prep.guide for the SX1L is now on our website here. The base X/Y part of the guide may be useful for your SX2P:
http://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/projects/prepguides/Super%20X1L%20Mill%20Preparation%20Guide.pdf
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Hi Ketan,
And thank you for informing me! :thumbup: Had a look at the guide, it looks very logical and the X-Y table part will certainly be helpful. After receiving the mill I already did many of the steps pictured in the guide but I'll take the table apart again and do what's needed. Well, scraping the base doesn't sound too tempting, as I've never tried it before.
Jouko
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Hi Ketan,
And thank you for informing me! :thumbup: Had a look at the guide, it looks very logical and the X-Y table part will certainly be helpful. After receiving the mill I already did many of the steps pictured in the guide but I'll take the table apart again and do what's needed. Well, scraping the base doesn't sound too tempting, as I've never tried it before.
Jouko
I agree, scraping is indeed an art. Using the diamond file on the dovetail is the nearest I would attempt :). But then again, I am not an engineer. Still, there are plenty of people who still happly make swarf without going through all preparation.
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Ketan,
I have downloaded the C3 lathe prep guide as I have a C3, just not from ArcEuro. I am veryimpressed with the detail of info you provided. Any chance there is a similar document for an X2 mill?
Chuck in E. TN
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Hi Chuck,
Sorry we didn't do one for the original X2. We may do one for the SX2P when we get some time. Broadly speaking, the head of the original X2 is similar to the C3 mini-lathe. The head of the SX2/P is similar to SC2/3 mini-lathe. I also think you might find a strip guide for the X2 on one of the mini-mill forums.
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I have had the X1 type base and I found if I got the Gibs set near enough used it a bit so it beds in and then check it you will fing it will nead nothing more than the gibs re setting if you start scraping bits at this stage when it beds in you will have to do it again, I would just bed it in , the bedways are ok when they leave the factory, just need a bit of setting the long bed ones magnify any bad gib setting I found as updated mine with an Arc long bed kit
Peter
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Yawellnofine,
What did you expect it's from Leicester - The best place in the whole wide world :D :D :D
So what am I doing in South Africa it's sunny :D :D :D
:ddb: :ddb: :ddb: :ddb: :ddb: :ddb: :ddb: :ddb: :ddb:
DaveH
Yep Leicester great place
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-13713798
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Hi Peter,
Good job I left!! :D :D :D
:beer:
DaveH
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I saw it on the BBC web site today and thought, I wonder what Dave H did befor he left Leicester, and is that the reason they are not ready ? :lol: :lol:
:ddb: :ddb: Peter :ddb: :ddb:
:nrocks:
Sorry :offtopic:
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:bugeye:
I'm Still here !!!