Enco Compound Slide Milling & Compound Drilling Table

[7ofclubs]

Enco has an XY table for about 80 bucks. Top of page 273 in their latest catalog (and I tell you, WHAT A CATALOG!). Looks to have 8"x5" movement, which is perfect for milling circuit boards and milling wax.
Question, is this a good alternative to building an XY table? Seems like a pretty good deal, but I know you get what you pay for.
I was told that harbor freight has a nice xy table but it is sloppy as heck, how sloppy is the Enco table?

-=wEsLeY=-

[7ofclubs]

Wow, I usually get instant answers in the forums. Am I safe in assuming that no one has tried the Enco table and I will be a pioneer?

-=7ofclubs=-

[widgitmaster]

Usually the words in a post's title are the attention grabbers!
Yours looks like a sales pitch!

Anyhow, the Enco XY tables are nice and solid cast iron, they use a dovetail slide with grease, and have acme screws without anti-backlash correction.

The dovetails have lots of surface area, and require a larger motor to move them to overcome the friction and thick grease!

depending on what you are doing, it should work fine if you clean up the slides and add an anti-backlash nut!

Oh yea, I use Enco all the time and they sell cheezy stuff as well as quality, so you need to read everything and not shop by price alone!

Good luck!
Eric

[7ofclubs]

Thanks for the advise Wigit. I was starting to think I pissed someone off. What sort of anti-backlash do you recommend? I have 127oz/in motors and I will be cutting wax for making jewelry and possibly some small circuit boards.

7ofclubs

[widgitmaster]

Without dismantling it, its too difficult to say what kind of anti-backlash system you need!
I would most likely try a double bronse nut, and by shimming behind one of the nuts, you can minimize the backlash greatly!

Eric