Hi Guys

Does anyone know who makes the Square Column Milling Machine (ZAY7045FG) for Lathemaster MetalWorking Tools? Is the workmanship of this Mill similar to the Sieg products?

Also what is the height of the vertical column of this Mill verses the one from Industrial Hobbies? Do they have the same Z Axis travel? The Industrial Hobbies Mill, looks like it has a higher column?

Thanks for your help.

Willyb

Based on their websites, the vertical Z movement is:

Lathemaster is 17".
Industrialhobbies is 23.25".

I believe both are made from the same factory in China. From what I hear, they are the best alternatives to the Rong Fu, which is the standard to go by for this type of mill.

Chris

Hi ChrisJ

Thanks for the info on these mills.

Willyb

If these are 'the best', I'd hate to see 'the worst'!

I think this class of mill are a good value for the price $1400 to $2000. With the Industrialhobbies mill at the top of the price range. I have a Zay7045M from wttool.com and I like it. They have R8 spindle, good power and capacity and its getting me going in the hobby. Im doing a cnc conversion on it. Mine has 16 in of Z travel, 24in X and after I did a minor mod of extending the slot in the base for the Y travel it now has 11 inches of Y travel with the chipguard bellows removed or 10 inches with it installed. Dave

Dave,
I've been monitoring some of you threads and would like to see your cnc conversion also. I went the the lathemaster site and could not fine their milling machines. Are they still selling them. I had looked at their site and looked at their square column, but now can't find the mill. Looks like they redesigned their site.

Ron

Hi Ron, I have just gotten it back together after some mods and tuneup to the basic mill. I guess you saw the epoxy concrete fill on the base and the lubrication mods. I also trued up the bottom of the column to get the mill tram without shims and took the transmission apart and inspected and cleaned it and added brackets to the top mid point on the transmission for two cables to hook to for the pneumatic counterbalance. Also the Y travel mod. I have been researching and gathering parts for the conversion and measuring and designing mounts for ballscrew nuts and bearings. Should start cutting some metal for those real soon. I will post some stuff next week probably in the IH forum here. I think I am going to bite the bullet and fork out the $ for good servos and Gecko G340 drives and maybe even a Grex G100 controller for this mill since mechanically I think it is going to be really nice. I will still be way ahead money wise and have better components than if I had bought a completed cnc from one of the big 2 choices. Plus its more fun this way :) Dave

May have to send Bob a message or call lathemaster about the mills maybe hes out right now and waiting on a new container load. I have bought some small stuff from him and he is good to go. Dave

Dave,
I'm interested in seeing your Yaxis mod where your getting some 11" of travel. I've been looking at the Lathemaster off and on for a year as well as the IH. They about 3 hours from me so it might make it easy to scoot over and pick one up, so I'm glad to hear that they did not get out the mill business. Where are you thinking of buying your servo's from? Might be the best way to get the higher rapids.

Ron

Hey Ron, All I did was extend the slot in the base 1 inch. Also removed the collar from the Y axis handwheel shaft that had the inch readout on it. The table saddle would hit it. So now the saddle will come forward until it finally hits the handwheel at 11 inches from the column. It still has plenty of engagement of the y axis slide and dovetails on the base also. Have been looking at http://www.camtronics-cnc.com The biggest servos he sells 1100 oz in peak. Unless I get a killer deal on something on good old ebay. Several things affect the rapids: The servo rpm, gearing on the pulleys to the ballscrews, pitch on the ballscrews and then the encoder pulse per revolution if too high can cause a bottle neck with transfer of pulse information back and forth between mach3 and the servodrive unit and the encoder. Mach3 has a limit of something like 45 khz pulse rate per axis but that can be multiplied by some components like certain servodrive units or grex controllers. I have been picking up a little on that stuff lately, Another member steering me in the right direction. Where are you at? OK gotta go now. Dave

I picked up three of the 1100's from Dan Mauch at Camtronics and they are great. I am running my R45 clone without any head counterbalance without a problem with a 3.35 gear ratio on the Z. I have tons of power. I am using G320's. Get the 250 line encoders or even lower count so you don't bump into the pulse rate limit like I did in Mach3.

Read up on the G100 in the Mach3 forum before considering it.

Hey Jerry, Thanks for the info and confirmation that the 1100 size servos are working good for you . Like to see pics of your setup! I have been wondering about how much encoder resolution is required to keep track of very small movements and have sufficient accuracy. How small a movement can you make with your setup ? Do you have 250 cpr or 250ppr encoders? Can you make a command for a .001 movement? I see there are some discussions going on about the grex on the yahoo group. Also dont the g340 drives have a pulse multiplier or something that helps with the pulse limits in mach3? Thanks, Dave

I am using the 500 line encoders that Dan sells that give 2000 pulses in quadrature. They are way to fine. I should have used 150's. The resolution depends on the leadscrew and step down gearing. I can easily get .0005 moves with my setup. My maximum rapid rate is only 67.5 IPM but it will double when I convert to ballscrews. The 67.5 is really fast enough for this size mill. If you go faster you have to adjust the acceleration which just slows things back down for short moves.

I would stay away from the pulse multipliers on the G340's. I also have been reading about all the problems with the G100 and mach3. It just adds another layer of complexity and I don't know if mach3 does a good job of keeping track of all the extra calcs related to the pulse ratio. I have a lot of trouble with Mach3's backlash compensation as it is without having to worry about something other than 1:1 for pulses.

I don't know if resolution below your backlash is worth anything in the real world of one-off CNC. If you run a program more than once, then yes, you can factor everything in. I have found that ramping approach and retract coupled with careful attention to climb vs conventional millling and feedrate has more impact on final dimensions and finish for one-off parts. I use the machines for prototype work and need them to run the code the first time right out of the CAM postprocessor.

Thanks for all the information about your mill. I just went down to Wholesale Tool yesterday a bought their ZAY7045M. I am building a Mosquito helicopter kit and needed to build a few parts for that so it seemed like a good excuse to finally get a mill.