[jerryw]

Hi
I am new to CNC milling and chose a Syil X3 conversion mainly based on cost.
From the day of the delivery I was on a steep learning curve and thought some of my findings may help others in the same position.
I was impressed with the machine when I unpacked it from the shipping crate but over to following days I spent a great deal of time tracking down various problems with it. They are listed here in no particular order along with the cause and solution.
The first thing that I had to do was go over the entire machine checking all the wiring as there were numerous loose wires.
The plastic conduits on the home switches did not stay close to the switches which not only looked untidy but allowed swarf to fill up the conduits.
I cured this by using a hot glue gun to glue the conduits to the rubber bush on the switch. This worked very well and looks much neater.
Excessive head motor temperature - The top spindle bearing has a spacer ring that was too thick causing a lot of friction and heat. Thinning this by a few thou really helped. I also fitted a small 12 fan into the lower metal guard cover. Temp is always now luke warm at worst.
The X and Y steppers got way too hot to touch - Rather than reducing the current I chose to fit finned heatsinks inside the metal covers and they now stay cool even on long jobs.
There was a lot of chatter and vibration even on light cuts and round holes weren't - This was caused by very loose dovetails (the lock nuts were all loose) there was around 3mm play at the end of the table. I disconnected the motor/leadscrews and cleaned out all the oil from the dovetails. I then carefully adjusted them so that they were slightly tight but smooth over the full travel. On reassembly and lubrication there was no appreciable play and cutting was much better and round holes are now round.
Head vibration - Loose Z dovetail - Adjusted this and cutting is now perfect. A good test is to lock unlock the head dovetail and watch for any movement on the dovetail.
Too much backlash in the A drive - I tightened the backring on the rotary table. This does not remove the backlash but if tight enough and you always drive the same direction then cutting is much more precise with less chatter.
Sudden loss of Z control - It thought it was at the Z home switch all the time. This was caused by the Z home switch cable having been crushed between the Pillar casting and the rear cover. Replacing the cable and re-routing cured this.
I use Mach 3 and Bobcad to process drawings from Turbocad
After initial problems installing the drivers for mach 3 where the mill would not respond this all works very well. I did have to spend a lot of time setting up the Mach 3 profile to match the X3 as the one supplied did not work.
Let me know if you want a copy.
I also redesigned a couple of Mach 3 screens to allow me to use a touch probe for head/stock alignment. For example I added buttons to zero to left of stock, zero to x centre etc
This really speeds setting up jobs.
I also added a socket for the probe to the side of the mill housing. Let me know if you want wiring details.
There were many other small issues but I am assuming that these are just part of owning a cnc mill. The more time I spent putting the machine right the more I learnt about it and the easier it was to use so maybe having to deal with such problems has benifits.
Reading these forums provided many solutions to the problems that I was having so thankyou to all those that have contributed and saved me a great deal of grief.