Tapping heads

[l u k e]

How well do these "cheap" (Enco) tapping heads work?



What exactly is their purpose, besides the obvious?

[JFettig]

I have a non enco tapping head that I bought and they work pretty good overall, mine is the grey boddied one(I forget the brand).

mainly with those you would tap on a quill driven machine and its easy to do some really fast tapping. I was planning on setting mine up on my cnc but my travel isnt enough to clear much(X2 mill)

At the place I use to work, we bought combination tap drills and drilled and tapped tubes with one bit in a tapmatic and it worked pretty good.


Jon

[KEYTEEM]

I have used tapmatics but never the enco brand.
if you have a lot of holes to do you can't beat em
they are fast and accurate

[l u k e]

Thanks.

What are the requirements in order to use one?

How many RPM's do they run at, and how do you stop them inorder to reverse the spindle to remove the tap?

[JFettig]

Some can actually run up to 2000rpm, but typically they would be run around 500rpm or so in most materials, You must have the torque to tap the peices and if your running a cnc, the feed it takes to bring it in and out.

no, you dont have to stop and reverse the spindle, when you lift the spindle it has a reversing mechanism and changes direction and turns itself out.
You also need to controll the feed it goes in and out, but if your running something like a quill, thats not a problem usually, just takes a little practice.


Jon

[l u k e]

Yea, I'm running a manual Mill, but I have power down feed, will that work?

Most of what I do is in aluminum, 6-32, 8-32, 10-32 threads.

[JFettig]

power downfeed? does it have like a quill or something you can manually opperate decently fast?



Jon

[smoregrava]

We use tapping heads have 8 in production 24 hours. These are of the brand Suhner GSX50. They are OK but we have some problems with them. The torqe mechanism tend to loose up. So we have to pay attention. When they have been used for a while the chuck get very lose (eccentricity). And when doing blind holes we get a little unstable thread depth. But I think these problems is because the quantity 2000-4000 holes each day. For small production I tink they would be allrigth

We have started to use Rigid tapping instead. But this is ofcourse machine/controll dependent. We do M6 and M8 up to 2000 rpm.

[l u k e]

This is the mill I have.
Features:

One-shot Pump Lubrication
Auto Down Feed
Quill Feeds / Spindle Rev.: .0019", .0035", .0058"
Auto Stop w / Micro Adjustable Stop
R-8 Spindle
Longitudinal Power Feed
Hardened & Ground Table Surface
Chrome Plated, Precision Ground Quill
Adjustable Micrometer Quill Depth Stop




I guess mine does have the "quill" feed, which I believe is the "auto down feed". (?)

I've only been at this for a few years and I'm 100% self taught so I'm not failure with all the terminology, sorry.

[JFettig]

what you have will work great, and you dont want to use the auto feed, you use it like a drill press for these tapping heads.

Jon

[mxtras]

No - you can not use the downfeed for tapping on a machine like that.

The typical selections for auto downfeed on these machines are .001", .003", and .006" per spindle revolution. That is one fine thread!

You will have to have a tapping head or just put a center in the spindle and tap by hand.

Scott

[JFettig]

In reality with a mill like that you dont even need a tapping head, you can just chuck it up and turn down the speed as low as it goes, turn it on, bring it down ito the material, let it grab and it'll go in on its own then you reverse the spindle and it comes up and out and you lift itup. you want to run it less than 100rpm if it can.

Thats something you gotta be careful with, not to screw it up or anything but it does a good job.
I havent done it with taps under a #10 but have seen it done, Im sure it takes a lot more care to not ruin threads or break taps.
Regular bridgeports at about 80rpm can take a 1/2-13 tap through steel without much problem.


Jon