CNC4XR7 Thanks! All the videos I watched showed using gauge blocks or 123 blocks but I don't have any. If the table is suppose to be perfectly flat then I'm not sure why they are needed.
With regards to Y tramming and the overall rigidity of the hollow swivel column X2 mills... I have had one for quite a few years now... if I could have done it differently at the time I would have brought a fixed column mill.. still I did come up with a table modification which allows me to not only rigidly put the column at any angle within the +-60 degree range but also allows me to tram the Y perfectly and even induce or remove twists from the column My mill would cut more in the Y direction from factory... I had a 7 thou difference front to back on the table as well as a slight twist causing it to cut more on the rear left than the rear right even though the front of the table would be trammed in. Both my sieg machines (mill and lathe) are mounted on a heavy duty steel frame bench I made, and so I made a plate for the column which is firmly bolted to the back of column and extends out both sides of the column by about 180mm each side. This 10mm steel plate is attached via bolts and nuts through slots in matching plates welded to the table... The net result is I can tram to column front to back and left to right until it is perfect (I mean not even half a thou deflection), I can lock the trammed column completely rigid to the point where heaving hard on the top of the motor in any X or Y direction will cause at most a 2 thou deflection which then returns to zero on releasing the pressure. Now I can use the machine with confidence without worrying about the column moving under loads as the belleville washer / nut combination is not the only point my column is fixed. Sorting out column rigidity is a must for these small mills if you wish to do things to a decent tolerance.
The solid base mills also need traming, but they must be shimed. also you have to make sure your arbor is straight . Lastly you must adjust the gibs on the column
Use a length of ground stock in a collet chuck place the mag base on the table then line the stock up from either side of the table. Or just use a square on the table to line up some ground stock mounted in the spindle
the problem with my mini mill was - the spindleaxis wasn't lined up with the z-axis, because of bad grinding of the backside of the gearbox part. if I tram the mill like in the Video, I will have movement of the spindlecenter in x and y when moving up and down in Z (really bad for Drilling and boring) . so I decided to made a checking bar on the lathe, You know , something for the spindle with zero runout and the Same diamiter on the whole length to Run up and down with the indicator. losen up a little the 4 Bolts on the back of the spindle head resetting it to the z axis and tram the spindle itself, also need to shim the back side of the gearbox to get 90 degrees to Y. Take several hours.... tighten up the Bolts Put the head back and ... did all again to get closer to alignment. .. But finally it works and now a Everything is squared and lined up ! only can Share this Information and hope Ya'll check this on your mini mill sorry for typos and grammar, english isn't my language
Glad to finally see someone do this with these hobby mills. Might be worth wild to get a square steel plate (.5 minimum) ground flat & parallel (within.001 or better) that would fit the table in it's center position relative to the spindle center so you could do it "old school, Last Word in a chuck or collet in the spindle like on a Bridgeport" and see what your Y tram looks like which you didn't do. Then it would be "proper" and you'd know what you know and be more dead on. You might have to do some shimming on the column to get that right (I have used cigarette paper as shim for very small shimming adjustments and it works great and lasts. Just throwing out there... BTW, how rigid is that little mill when it's all adjusted and cranked down tight??? What kind of max roughing cuts can you take with it in mild steels using carbide?
ill have to redo mine and see if my measurements were false positive.. In the sense i jogged the table to test the X axis , but maybe that doesnt tell the full story
How much was the shipping fee when you acquired the mini mill? In Canada, Busy Bee only sells with tilting head. I am looking for a mini mill with cast solid for better rigidity. I can find the manufacturer which is from China. I am not sure if the shipping will overkill my budget.
@@craigsmachineshop2040 Hi, I bought it a few years ago, and just recently took it out of storage after pretty much never using it. It hasn't been mistreated in storage, so its pretty much that way from the factory.
I just found that mine has the same issue with front to back being out of square. There are 3 bolts under the rear chip guard that can be loosened and shimmed. On my machine, all 3 of those bolts were just barely hand tight...
thank you very much I have just acquired the same mill so it was a great help. However I found from front to back (y-axis) there was a variation, the column seems to be leaning backwards. Did you check your y-axis? I would be interested to know. I trammed the x-axis to < 0.01mm but when I placed the dial gauge in the middle below the spindle and wound it left and right I got 0.04mm variation on 100mm which is really bad. Would be interested to know if you have looked at that and what you found.
I just noticed that my mini mill's column flexes and bends easily. I pit a dial indicator in my spindle and using just my little finger to put pressure on the top of the column, I can get .001-.002 of flex at the spindle. Mine is this same mill but it's the solid column. I am about to start working on a way to stiffen the column and adjust the tram.
+GunsNpolitics I fixed mine by using a .05mm feeler gauge and inserted it at the front bottom of the column. I also contacted Sieg and the said I was tramming it incorrectly and sent me a drawing of what I must do. It is now 100%.
+GunsNpolitics if you pull or push on the column, yes there is flexing. However when you mill you generally use the hand knob and not the levers so it has not had any influence on the milled workpiece. If you would like the drawings Sieg sent me to tram the mill I will email them to you.
Closed caption said "meat ramming" But, I can watch another tramming video. Btw you should mention mounting your mill plum and properly. If you don't you will spend months trying to figure out what is wrong.
Bad design,, l made a 12 base and rear colum with triangle supports from 1/4 plate with 2 Allen screws in colum, l can remove them to tilt, took out alot of chatter and I can finally use all Motor power
Cant' take it anymore.....you turn a 5 min job into a major undertaking..first off never heard the term tramming (is that even a word in a real shop it's known as zeroing out your machine, )...second why would you leave your indicator at 5 thou, why would you not zero it out then move it ??..you do realize that people on here actually believe that what your doing is really how things are done in a real machine shop you understand that right?
1. Tramming is a word. Put it into Google and see what you get. 2. He can leave his indicator at whatever the hell he likes. 3. That's not a real machine shop, it's a mini-mill. There are 1000's of them and the guy is trying to help. 4. Your attitude sucks. If you don't like it, put up a better video.
@@slots1407 1) Tramming might be a word,but 30 years in the machine shop business and I have never heard of it ..and i bet you walk into a machine shop ask anyone what the hell tramming is and they will look at you like you're nut's 2)There's a reason you always indicate to 0 It's 1 of the first things a rookie mill operator learns (I will let you think about that for a bit and if you can't figure it out on your own, message me and i will explain it to you) ....you always zero out an indicator whether it's a full-size mill or a mini-mill the reason you do it is the same 3) I get these guy;s are trying to help ..but there not (as the saying goes ..the road to hell is paved with good intention's) What's your point?? (there are 1000's out there) there are hundreds of thousands of production mills ( sorry full-size mills ) out there so what? 4) I will go you 1 better than making my own videos....I will give you the best advice you will ever get after you have laid out 3;4;5; grand for one of these machines lay out a few more bucks, enroll in a basic machine shop evening course and learn how to set up a machine and the basics of machining...trust me guy's you will be mile's ahead of anyone who trie's to learn it from 99.9% of the videos on here
I have this dial indicator but I didn't think of using it this way. Great video. Thanks.
ExtantFrodo2 Thanks! Yeah, it works pretty good.
And uuuuuuhhhhh...... aaauuuuuhhh.....uuummmmm
Good Instruction on tramming well Done!
CNC4XR7
Thanks! All the videos I watched showed using gauge blocks or 123 blocks but I don't have any. If the table is suppose to be perfectly flat then I'm not sure why they are needed.
With regards to Y tramming and the overall rigidity of the hollow swivel column X2 mills... I have had one for quite a few years now... if I could have done it differently at the time I would have brought a fixed column mill.. still I did come up with a table modification which allows me to not only rigidly put the column at any angle within the +-60 degree range but also allows me to tram the Y perfectly and even induce or remove twists from the column
My mill would cut more in the Y direction from factory... I had a 7 thou difference front to back on the table as well as a slight twist causing it to cut more on the rear left than the rear right even though the front of the table would be trammed in.
Both my sieg machines (mill and lathe) are mounted on a heavy duty steel frame bench I made, and so I made a plate for the column which is firmly bolted to the back of column and extends out both sides of the column by about 180mm each side. This 10mm steel plate is attached via bolts and nuts through slots in matching plates welded to the table...
The net result is I can tram to column front to back and left to right until it is perfect (I mean not even half a thou deflection), I can lock the trammed column completely rigid to the point where heaving hard on the top of the motor in any X or Y direction will cause at most a 2 thou deflection which then returns to zero on releasing the pressure.
Now I can use the machine with confidence without worrying about the column moving under loads as the belleville washer / nut combination is not the only point my column is fixed.
Sorting out column rigidity is a must for these small mills if you wish to do things to a decent tolerance.
Any pics of this ??
It jumped out at me also. You must be a Macheenit.... :)
What cool little set up you created there with mach 3. Nicely done
Thanks
Great job on your Video 🙂☕👍
The solid base mills also need traming, but they must be shimed. also you have to make sure your arbor is straight . Lastly you must adjust the gibs on the column
You using the magnetic stand makes me feel like an idiot for scavenging for clamp pieces for the indicator at the school shop today 😅
Oh, we have all been there. lol.
That was really helpful for me (total newbie). Thanks for sharing...
Sure thing, thanks for watching!
Use a length of ground stock in a collet chuck place the mag base on the table then line the stock up from either side of the table. Or just use a square on the table to line up some ground stock mounted in the spindle
the problem with my mini mill was - the spindleaxis wasn't lined up with the z-axis, because of bad grinding of the backside of the gearbox part. if I tram the mill like in the Video, I will have movement of the spindlecenter in x and y when moving up and down in Z (really bad for Drilling and boring) . so I decided to made a checking bar on the lathe, You know , something for the spindle with zero runout and the Same diamiter on the whole length to Run up and down with the indicator.
losen up a little the 4 Bolts on the back of the spindle head resetting it to the z axis and tram the spindle itself, also need to shim the back side of the gearbox to get 90 degrees to Y.
Take several hours.... tighten up the Bolts Put the head back and ... did all again to get closer to alignment. ..
But finally it works and now a
Everything is squared and lined up !
only can Share this Information and hope Ya'll check this on your mini mill
sorry for typos and grammar, english isn't my language
+Brian Greipel - Wow, great job on getting it all trammed! Well, I'm using a Tormach now. Thanks.
Your tramming of this current 6yr video. I first off seen was the, power driven axis. So how much did these add on, what was your investment 🤔?
Glad to finally see someone do this with these hobby mills. Might be worth wild to get a square steel plate (.5 minimum) ground flat & parallel (within.001 or better) that would fit the table in it's center position relative to the spindle center so you could do it "old school, Last Word in a chuck or collet in the spindle like on a Bridgeport" and see what your Y tram looks like which you didn't do. Then it would be "proper" and you'd know what you know and be more dead on. You might have to do some shimming on the column to get that right (I have used cigarette paper as shim for very small shimming adjustments and it works great and lasts. Just throwing out there... BTW, how rigid is that little mill when it's all adjusted and cranked down tight??? What kind of max roughing cuts can you take with it in mild steels using carbide?
Wwwawww6aawwaweaa6e
wouldnt sweeping the table with the indicator stationary give the same or better results as far as accuracy??
If you watch the videos of the seasoned machinists, they do it the same way.
ill have to redo mine and see if my measurements were false positive.. In the sense i jogged the table to test the X axis , but maybe that doesnt tell the full story
If the head isn't square to the table, the bottom of the endmills won't be parallel to the top of the table.
yep, I did it again last , .0015 across the vice on both axis.. Maybe I just got lucky and thats why It required so little tramming , not sure..
Maybe that method can get it pretty close but not perfect.
You know there's no detents to hold it true, soon as you torque it you will lose everything
How much was the shipping fee when you acquired the mini mill? In Canada, Busy Bee only sells with tilting head. I am looking for a mini mill with cast solid for better rigidity. I can find the manufacturer which is from China. I am not sure if the shipping will overkill my budget.
I think it was free shipping. Yeah, I didn't wan't to spend the extra money for a rigid column.
What about front to back? Left and right is easy. But forwards to backwards, mine is 20 thou off across 4" from front to back.
Wow, that's a lot. Not sure, maybe you have to shim something. Did you buy it new like that?
@@craigsmachineshop2040 Hi, I bought it a few years ago, and just recently took it out of storage after pretty much never using it. It hasn't been mistreated in storage, so its pretty much that way from the factory.
I just found that mine has the same issue with front to back being out of square. There are 3 bolts under the rear chip guard that can be loosened and shimmed. On my machine, all 3 of those bolts were just barely hand tight...
thank you very much I have just acquired the same mill so it was a great help. However I found from front to back (y-axis) there was a variation, the column seems to be leaning backwards. Did you check your y-axis? I would be interested to know. I trammed the x-axis to < 0.01mm but when I placed the dial gauge in the middle below the spindle and wound it left and right I got 0.04mm variation on 100mm which is really bad. Would be interested to know if you have looked at that and what you found.
Sorry, my tolerances weren't very critical so I never checked. Never had any problems though.
I just noticed that my mini mill's column flexes and bends easily. I pit a dial indicator in my spindle and using just my little finger to put pressure on the top of the column, I can get .001-.002 of flex at the spindle. Mine is this same mill but it's the solid column. I am about to start working on a way to stiffen the column and adjust the tram.
+GunsNpolitics I fixed mine by using a .05mm feeler gauge and inserted it at the front bottom of the column. I also contacted Sieg and the said I was tramming it incorrectly and sent me a drawing of what I must do. It is now 100%.
David James Do you have problems with the column flexing?
+GunsNpolitics if you pull or push on the column, yes there is flexing. However when you mill you generally use the hand knob and not the levers so it has not had any influence on the milled workpiece. If you would like the drawings Sieg sent me to tram the mill I will email them to you.
Closed caption said "meat ramming"
But, I can watch another tramming video. Btw you should mention mounting your mill plum and properly. If you don't you will spend months trying to figure out what is wrong.
Bad design,, l made a 12 base and rear colum with triangle supports from 1/4 plate with 2 Allen screws in colum, l can remove them to tilt, took out alot of chatter and I can finally use all Motor power
Not bad!!!
+Stephen Hodge - Thanks!
almost impossible to watch due to uh, uh, what im gonna do...
and arrrrrr the arrrrrr ummmmm
Painfully to many ah ahh ahh ahhhh ahhhh ahhhh
Interesting video but do try to stop errrring all the time. It really drives viewers nuts !
Yeah, that was before I knew how to edit them out. LOL
Pariz
Way to much ocd for me
Hey Gene, Machinists do it with precision! ;)
This was a help to me when I set up my mini. Thanks! Here was my first project on the mini: ruclips.net/video/O2DzzWLVPkk/видео.html
Cant' take it anymore.....you turn a 5 min job into a major undertaking..first off never heard the term tramming (is that even a word in a real shop it's known as zeroing out your machine, )...second why would you leave your indicator at 5 thou, why would you not zero it out then move it ??..you do realize that people on here actually believe that what your doing is really how things are done in a real machine shop you understand that right?
1. Tramming is a word. Put it into Google and see what you get.
2. He can leave his indicator at whatever the hell he likes.
3. That's not a real machine shop, it's a mini-mill. There are 1000's of them and the guy is trying to help.
4. Your attitude sucks. If you don't like it, put up a better video.
@@slots1407 1) Tramming might be a word,but 30 years in the machine shop business and I have never heard of it ..and i bet you walk into a machine shop ask anyone what the hell tramming is and they will look at you like you're nut's 2)There's a reason you always indicate to 0 It's 1 of the first things a rookie mill operator learns (I will let you think about that for a bit and if you can't figure it out on your own, message me and i will explain it to you) ....you always zero out an indicator whether it's a full-size mill or a mini-mill the reason you do it is the same 3) I get these guy;s are trying to help ..but there not (as the saying goes ..the road to hell is paved with good intention's) What's your point?? (there are 1000's out there) there are hundreds of thousands of production mills ( sorry full-size mills ) out there so what? 4) I will go you 1 better than making my own videos....I will give you the best advice you will ever get after you have laid out 3;4;5; grand for one of these machines lay out a few more bucks, enroll in a basic machine shop evening course and learn how to set up a machine and the basics of machining...trust me guy's you will be mile's ahead of anyone who trie's to learn it from 99.9% of the videos on here