[darkzero]

Been a member for a while but never posted here cause I'm not "converted". Hope that doesn't prevent me from being welcome here.


Well since I still turn handwheels, I'll start off with my cast iron handwheels. I hated those stock phenolic hand wheels. They're made by Flair/ Chang Iron Taiwan. I used 6" & 4" wheels.


Stock:



New handwheels (I replaced the X, Y, quill, & handle for the Z).



WIP pics:

The revolving handles I used are 3/8-16" thread. My Z handle (head) is metric M10 so I turned down the threads, pressed on a sleeve, & single pointed the metric threads. Had to make a collet to hold the handle.







I made the M10 thread longer than the 3/8" thread.





Installed.



Next was the quill fine feed handwheel. It did not come prethreaded for the handle so I had to drill & tap the 1/4-20 threads. Bored the center to fit my quill feed shaft & drilled & tapped for the set screw.









Next was to machine the X & Y handwheels. The new cast iron handwheels had a much larger hub dia than my stock ones so I machined them down. Also had to bore the center. Unmachined as received on the left.





Machined the drive to match.





Finally, mounted.

[darkzero]

Made a depth stop for my quill, repeats pretty well unlike using the power downfeed depth collar as a depth stop (which is was not designed to do).







I used a Morton quick release quill stop that's made for BPs. Which means I used the same 1/2"-20 thread like on BPs. Here is showing the quill stop in action.




Here you can see how it's mounted. I probably went overboard on the thickness of everything but I want it to repeat well with no flex & is also why I decided not to use aluminum. And it does repeat excellent!




Quill fully extended.



The rest of the pics are just some of the WIP pics.


Machined the quill bracket on the lathe to ensure the top surface would be fairly square to quill.



Might as well do the bottom too.




Cleaning up the quill bracket.










Verified how square it is, measuring to the table. I don't believe it's really that close but I'll go with it.




Working on the stop bracket.








The head casting is not perfectly square as I needed it to be because of all the filler. It was about 1° off so to compensate for that I just milled the angle using an adj angle block.






Working on the rod holder that mounts to the quill bracket.








This is how my quill DRO used to mount. I kept that method the same but I went with a bigger bolt for for mounting the depth stop as you can see above, M6 to M8.




Also made a new mount & is why I cleaned up the cavity on the quill bracket, old vs new.

[darkzero]

My LED spindle light made from an angel/halo eye for automotive applications (you know, like those that first appeared on the 5 series Bimmers).







I used a 90mm (OD) ring that has 60 SMD (surface mount) LEDs.




I choose the 90mm ring so it would fit just over the bottom ring on my quill. Had to remove just a bit of the ID to fit & it snaps right into place. Although it didn't need it I added a bit of double sided tape just in case. Couldn't have asked for a better fit.





For the DC power I used a 24V AC to 12V DC converter since I did not want to power it off an external source like plugging it into an outlet. The stock halogen lamp on the PM45 is 24V AC so I choose to power it off that circuit. That way it's powered off the mill & when I shut off power to the mill the light turns off as well without having to turn off the switch.




Here's a pic of my control panel below. To the left you'll see a transformer with a gold name plate. On it you'll see that terminals 32 & 33 is 24 VAC which again is for the stock lamp. Directly under the transformer is an orange terminal block with terminals 32 & 33 (the blue & red wires) is what you want to wire up the AC to DC converter to. However if you follow the red wire on terminal 33, it leads to the white circuit breaker that's to the right of the transformer. So I hooked up 1 wire from terminal 32 directly to the converter for AC input. Then I hooked up another wire from the output end of the white circuit breaker to the converter for the other AC input.

Then you would run 2 wires for the DC output from the converter to the LED ring and a switch (polarity matters for the LED ring since it's DC). Negative from the converter runs directly to the black wire on the LED ring, do not use the common ground on the machine for negative. Positive from the converter runs to a SPST switch, then another wire from the switch to the red wire on the LED ring.




I used a lighted rocker switch that has an LED indicator that runs off 12 VDC so I had to run an additional ground wire to the switch coming of the negative of the converter. It fit right into an empty hole on the head, no modifications or mounting hardware needed.







Quill fully retracted to 5"

[darkzero]

Tramming aids.

[dracozny]

CNC not required, welcome to the forum, and very very impressive work I might add. Thank you for the ideas.

[darkzero]

Thanks dracozny.

[skippy]

Cnc or not, it doesn't matter and even more so when the work is of such high quality as your's!

[darkzero]

Thank you skippy!

[rowbare]

Very nice work! I like the 'collet' you made for the handewheel handles.

bob

[darkzero]

Thank you Bob. Gotta love Delrin/acetal, can't be caught without any.

[CS900]

great work. Hope you don't mind if I steal your LED light idea, it's fantastic!

[darkzero]

Thank you. Sure I don't mind at all! It's a great addition.

[cosmox]

Thank you for sharing your mods! I really like the ring-LED one

[darkzero]

Thank you cosmox!

[Coxsteve]

Very well thought out mods and highly practical, I wait with anticipation for when you do an NC conversion as going from what you have done to date it will be well thought out and others may well say why didn't I think of that when you devise solutions for such a conversion.

[MrBean_pm]

Yep, I luv the mods too, you're obviously a machinist, not an electronic nub head like I am

Will definitely borrow your LED ring idea, perhaps the depth gauge one too.

Cheers for that, looking forward to more!

Kind regards,
Beano

[hax0red]

Yep, I luv the mods too, you're obviously a machinist, not an electronic nub head like I am

Will definitely borrow your LED ring idea, perhaps the depth gauge one too.

Cheers for that, looking forward to more!

Kind regards,
Beano

I've got my eye on the tram mod. Might go a bit beefier as I suspect there is some flex going on. Wish the head wasn't designed to rotate

[j3dprints]

I've got my eye on the tram mod. Might go a bit beefier as I suspect there is some flex going on. Wish the head wasn't designed to rotate

I'm very glad it is so there's a method to adjust it! I wish there was one for nod... is there? I just bought an RF 45 clone, nod seems out.

Oh, and nice mill!

[CS900]

I'm very glad it is so there's a method to adjust it! I wish there was one for nod... is there? I just bought an RF 45 clone, nod seems out.

Oh, and nice mill!

nope. welcome to the world of shimming

[j3dprints]

nope. welcome to the world of shimming

Where do you shim an rf 45 clone to adjust the nod? I mean the difference in angle between the spindle and the fixed column slide (A1 in sketch).

I understand you shim the base to adjust the difference in nod between the fixed column and the table (A2 in sketch), but there are two angles that require adjustment .

Do you know what I mean? I did a sketch to show what I'm talking about. Angle A1 and A2 I mention above are shown. It's adjusting A1 that has me beat.

https://ibb.co/nrzBy5