Mini mills from china - conversation to cnc?

[oskars]

I found several mini mills from China on
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=33686
(there is more mills)
http://www.lathemaster.com/HEAVYDUTY...E%207045FG.htm

I would like to know does somebody have some expierience with rebuilding Chinese mills to CNC?
Please share your expierience, good or bad!

Regards,
Oskars

[CNCadmin]

I converted my mini china made mill, all the gibs needed to be re-cut and polished, to get the accuracy I needed. The mill is now working and after the mods I made it, the mill cuts very well. It really likes aluminum, steel is a Little tough, you have to have everything set perfect otherwise the machine will vibrate. The bigger mills, for what I have read seam to be OK as well, they may need so truing up but other their IMO are a good chose.

[studysession]

This place is where I got my CNC setup from:
http://www.simplycnc.com

[CNCPlastic]

I own a lathemaster, the 700lb brute you see following your link and HF just opened a store about 2 miles from my house last week so I saw there mill in person just a few days ago. The HF is no where near as nice as the lathemaster, I remember the table casting was not only smaller, but it appeared deformed e.g. sloppy. The HF is a good sized beast but its not nearly as sturdy as the square column dovetale lathemaster.

I did have to lap all my ways on the lathemaster for the cnc retrofit to eliminate the tight spots. Its not perfect, but then all these things are econo china mills. Overall though I have been quite happy with the lathemaster and felt it was worth the money.

[wotje]

I do own a lookalike as in http://www.lathemaster.com/HEAVYDUT...NE%207045FG.htm and I am rebuilding this machine at the moment to a CNC machine. But before I started. I searched the net for a conversion kit. There where a several for sale. And these where quit nice looking. But looking at the pictures I saw several small differences on the machines. So, warned by this pictures, I start looking for these machines and I did found out that there are several of machine factory's in china who made this machines. And at the first view, they all realy lookalike. But if you disassembling the machine there are some big differences. For example the length of the ballscrews and the way how they are fit in the machine. At the saddle some have the ballnutt connected at the front from the saddle and some at the back. The same happens with the columm, someone having a bearing at the top and some don't. What means, that If you want to buy a conversion kit for such a machine, the best way to do it. Is to buy the conversion kit by the same address as where you buying your mill. Or at least you must be sure to buy te right conversion kit. Otherwise if you want to make your one conversion, then there is no big problem. You can make it to fit your one specifications.

Good luck

[Halfnutz]

I looked at all kinds of stuff and finally decided I was going to have to do a lot of work to whatever I bought unless I wanted to go deeply into dept. I really liked the lathemaster, but it was too expensive for me. I went to my locall Harbor Freight store and got a 33686, the stand, and a 9x20 lathe both with one year extended warranties for a cash & carry 1600.00. For the money I couldnt come close anywhere else. I could have paid more than that to have Jet ship me thier painted white 9x20 alone. Its exactly the same lathe. I really like both of these machines, allthogh the mill definately needs work before it can get anywhere near a computer. (allthough my table is as perfectly flat as detectable with a 0.001" indicator) All in all, I LOVE MY CHINESE JUNK! They have given me hours of good healthy diversion, and are quite capable if you have the patience to mess around a little. Here are pics of my shop With the 33686, the 9x20, a Homier 12spd. and my first lathe trinkets.
Good Luck and go buy something!