my new IH CNC turnkey

[colbon]

My first post on CNCzone, here goes...

I thought I'd pass along a few pictures of my new arrival - my IH CNC turnkey!

It arrived a couple of weeks ago and I finally got it all set up. I've included a few pictures below of the mill, the new one shot pump, the nice electronics box and an internal picture of the electronics box.

My mill is setup with a number of upgrades to the CNC package: the 2HP VFD Leeson motor, 4th axis rotary table (not shown), ISO 30 taper and the table extensions. The new one shot pump is a nice addition and keeps the ballscrews oiled (but it only covers the screws, the ways still have to be oiled manually). The mill runs reasonably quiet, although it does get louder when you run above 3000 rpm (the VFD limits to around 4K rpm). The spindle speed is fully controlled by Mach3, but they also have an option to mount the VFD control panel on the front of the mill if you want manual control / readout as well.

It truly was ready to run when it arrived, other than figuring out how to lift a 1200 lb machine up onto a stand (no easy task)! After I got it up and leveled, I plugged it in to the computer and was able to start testing things right away. I spent a little bit of time tweaking the alignment of the head and minor adjustment of the gibs to dial it in (work in progress). After that I was able to start running some test programs and cut a few parts to check things out.

I ordered a turnkey because I'm new to machining and am just putting together a shop, so I wasn't setup to tackle a project like a CNC retrofit by myself. It's taken a while for my mill to arrive, which was fine (I had lots to do to get my shop together), and I got a chance to visit Gene and Tommy in CT a number of times while the mill was being built. Those guys were fantastic to work with - they showed me the ins and outs of the mills and some hands on time. I'm really impressed with the quality of their work, especially their control box and wiring (really well built). Overall, it's been a really good experience and I'm really happy with the mill.

I'm still learning how to use everything and trying to tweak the mill to get everything dialed in. I'm sure I'll have questions for the experts here on CNCzone, but I thought I'd pass along some of the info about my machine from IH. Sincere thanks to Tommy and Gene at IH - those guys did a great job on my mill!
Cheers,
-Glenn

[ozzie34231]

Cool! Thanks for posting.

Jerry

[philbur]

Would you mind if I asked what it cost?

Phil

Originally Posted by colbon My first post on CNCzone, here goes... I thought I'd pass along a few pictures of my new arrival - my IH CNC turnkey! Cheers, -Glenn

[racingdave]

Originally Posted by colbon ....I spent a little bit of time tweaking the alignment of the head and minor adjustment of the gibs to dial it in (work in progress)....

Could you explain what exactly you did? I'm considering one of these machines. I thought that the turnkey CNC model had already been 'tweaked' before being received by the customer.

thanks.
dave

[IHCNC]

Hi Dave;
I spoke with Colbon and he asked me to answer your question for him, being he is away on business. Colbon flew in to IH 4 times to get familiar with his CNC Mill and CNCing in general. On one of those trips we set his mill up. He is a hands on guy and helped with all the setting up and testing. We advised him to check his mill when it got to his place, as 2500 miles in the back of a truck can possibly change some of the settings. He just redid all the tests that we preformed here, IE gibs, head alignment and such. A little knowledge can go pretty far. In Colbon's case he had a lot of fun doing it with his young son and daughter.

[oltimer]

colbon
would like to see an update and pics on what kind of things you make with your new ih cnc mill if thats not to personal

[Garland]

newb question here.

How does IH/similar sized mills get away without having a adjustable knee?

All I have experience on so far are Bridgeport manual mills.

Does IH have a usual quill?

[philbur]

The head goes up/down on the column in a similar mannar to the table of a knee mill.

Phil

Originally Posted by Garland newb question here. How does IH/similar sized mills get away without having a adjustable knee? All I have experience on so far are Bridgeport manual mills. Does IH have a usual quill?

[Andre' B]

The pics at the bottom of this page show that it is a typical C frame type bed mill.
http://industrialhobbies.com/Product...mn_mill_2a.htm

[colbon]

Sorry it's taken me a bit to get to this, but here are some odds and ends I've built on my IH CNC mill. Most of these are projects from an introductory milling class that I'm taking at a local community college, but they were also good practice for working with my mill.

The "squares" were just doing material squaring using 1018 steel with a target of .950". As you can see these came out very square and close to target (within half a thousandth of target). This was cut using manually entered NC commands from the MDI screen in mach (cut, measure, compute distance needed to hit dimension and recut).

The clamp is a simple vice clamp, but it was good practice for squaring, notching, drilling, tapping and reaming for dowel pins. The tapping step was done manually using a spring tap guide and the quill of the mill. I did the reaming step at the school shop (on a bridgeport), but I probably wouldn't use the manual quill for precise reaming, I'd use an NC operation on the Z axis instead. Generally the quill does OK, but mine flexes a little when it hits the stop if you're using the quill stop nut. Again, this was 1018 cold rolled mild steel.

The step blocks are a the same thing you can buy for a dollar, but it was a fun project. The picture of the blocks together showed a very nice fit (no visible gaps at all between the steps when held up to the light). Again, 1018 cold rolled steel.

The final one is my cylinder pedestal for a "flame sucker" vacuum engine. This was a very complicated (for me) NC program. It's machined out of 6061 aluminum using 5 different fixturings (rotations in the vise): base drill tap, facing / profile / pocket and drill top side, face bottom side and corner round the base edges. The center of the pedestal was finish bored to final dimension using a boring head (again with Z axis controlled by MDI commands).

I hope you guys enjoy the pics. My IH mill has been working great and is very capable. My biggest challenge has been learning machining and NC programming without destroying too many end mills, vises, etc. So far I've only killed one end mill (crashed it into my vise by transposing X and Z on the keyboard) and killed a tool height gage by accidentally Z'ing down when I meant to Z up. Aarggghh.

Cheers,
colbon

[oltimer]

colbon,
Thanks for the update and nice note. It seems that as soon as someone gets his new IH Mill they disappear from the zone. Lots of us guys that are going to get the IH (someday $$ saving up) mill really enjoy progress reports and projects being done by IH owners. By the way I'm getting close to a turnkey order, finally.
oltimer

[tikka308]

I wholeheartedly agree with Oltimer! Colbon - thanks for the pictures and keep up the good work!