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My new detector modding tool

A

Anonymous

Guest
Guys there's just nothing like a new tool to get you in the mood to start modding your detector. This is my new "benchtop" milling machine...
Here she is in the truck, its a big crate, I'm thinking well there must be some airspace above it after all its a benchtop mill. Why is it in my truck? The freight company had to go call me and say it was in but they could not deliver it until Friday, I was down at the dock 20 minutes later to pick it up.
<img src="http://coilbuilders.com/pics/mda.jpg" alt="" />
Here she is with some of the crate removed. I'm REALLY stretching calling this a crate, more like some sticks with some veneer tacked on. If you look closely you can see the forklift guys busted off some parts, one of the three spindal handles and the micro-feed wheel are laying in the bottom.
<img src="http://coilbuilders.com/pics/mdb.jpg" alt="" />
Now my plan was...disassemble the machine in the back of my truck and musle it out piece by piece, I got as far as removing the motor, looked this 700 pound beast over and said not going to happen. So off I went mill and all to the autoparts store to buy an engine hoist. Manged to get this out and onto the garage floor with no mishaps.
Thats my "benchtop" drill press on the floor beside the mill for scale, this mill is HUGE! Tic toc two more days and the CNC conversion kit for this baby should be in.
 
Awesome!!!!!! You can do some serious modding now!!!!!!! Good Luck with it!!!!!!
HH
Beachcomber
 
Heavy piece of work equipment Charles,
Did you say the fork lift operaters busted off one of the spindal hadles? Hope it's not beong repair and you can get here back together again.
Meant to get back with you on this moster <img src="/metal/html/smile.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt=":)"> you wern't kidding about this hugh Mill. Loking forward to viewing your future projects.
If you ever get the chance to build an extra Explorer coil and feel like selling it give me a ring <img src="/metal/html/smile.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt=":)">
Thanks for sharing,
Paul (Ca)
 
No way to get it down into my basement shop and the garage can be -10 in the winter so that wasn't an option. This was about the largest mill I could get down there. Total cost including mill, cnc retro kit, gecko drives, encoders, power supplies, Mach 2 software, optical limits, etc. for 3 axis and shipping was about $4,700. Don't ask me how much the cad/cam software was, rediculous.
 
Charles,
Curious to the quality of the setup. Do you have experience on Bridgeports or other industrial grade equipment? Price certainly looks nice for what you get.
chris
 
Hi Chris,
Good question, I have used mostly high dollar cnc machine centers in the past, never used a bridgeport but theres no comparison really between a bridgeport and this china mill, the bridgeport will win the quality contest hands down if money is not a factor. But money was a factor and there are other points to consider.
My brother, Mr. Machinist who owns a haas cnc mill and some fancy (e.g. $70,000) cnc lathe with live tooling says step up and get a real machine. lol He was impressed with the mill though when I sent him some pics the other day.
I didn't want to spend more than $5,000 on a cnc machine, maybe I could have bought a used cnc bridgeport for that but in what condition and of something failed either mechanical or electronics wise what would it cost me to fix it? Possibly a few thousand dollars.
With this china mill no single part will cost much to replace and since I'm starting with brand new parts all around I should be good for a while. This was important because my free time is limited so I don't have time to tinker with the mill, it just needs to run and make parts.
A bridgeport will take a bigger cut but then I'll be using the mill mostly for plastics and alum so is that really important, its not in my case. This particular china mill has good specs though, table is 32x9.5 and travel is x23 y10, I might get 11 out of it we'll see.
The parts you would normally be concerned with like the V screws and backlash are being replaced by cnc quality zero backlash ball screws. I would not expect this to hold tollerances to .0001 but then I don't need that level of accuracy for my stuff.
Lastly we come to the more practical considerations, first theres no way to drop a bridgeport into my basement shop unless it just fell through the floor by accident. lol But here's another issue, I want to run flood coolant and with a knee mill it would be all over the place. With this bench mill I can contain it quite nicely.
By the way the parts in the cnc kit in the post above were made with one of these converted mills.
 
Hi Charles
Nice CNC machine...Do you have the facilities to manufacture MD rods or handles? Or do you know who manufacture and where to buy rod kits (3 pieces kit) ?
Chris
 
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