Is the Syil / Sieg X3 suitable for climb milling?

[Ed from NY]

If not, are there any benchtop mills that are?

Thanks!

[ZipSnipe]

They're all suitable for climb milling its just how much you plan to dig in the metal that determines the size machine you need, plus cost of course.

[phantomcow2]

Yes you can climb cut with the X3. I do it frequently.
But under what circumstances are you assuming?

[Ed from NY]

Originally Posted by phantomcow2 Yes you can climb cut with the X3. I do it frequently. But under what circumstances are you assuming?

I'm not sure what reasonable would be. I'm a newbie I thought that in order to take good advantage of the cutting tool you would want to remove 50%+ of the tool diameter in each pass and at a depth around 1x of the tool diameter. What is your experience?

Sorry if I'm asking too many questions...

I'm still waiting on Syil's quote on the shipping costs, but the X3 seems to be of resonable size and I was wondering how aggressive you can work it. The other thing that is at the back of my mind is how does it compare with the Tormach -- twice its weight and cost.

[phantomcow2]

I've been pretty aggressive with the X3. I don't know if I would go as far to say that you can comfortably remove 50% of the . I doubt even the Tormach could do that. Well, hte X3 could but at very slow feeds.
Using a 6 flute 1" roughing end mill, I was able to take off .25" no problems at all, going at a good feed. Even with my non roughers, you can take off quite a bit. I COULD and have gone .5" deep, but you need to slow way down in your feed or else you will bog the motor. Its not worth it at that point, I say .25 max.

[Ed from NY]

This is very interesting. I thought the problem would be the stability/precision of the table never thought of the motor.

I plan to do a lot of steel plate cutting (A36 in 1/4" and 1/8" thick) using a 1/2" or 1/4" SGS carbide end mill (a poor man's waterjet if you will). Assuming I figure the clamping what would be a realistic expectation for the feed?

Thanks!

---

PS: Do you use the X3 or the Super X3?

[phantomcow2]

I have just the X3. It took a pretty large cut to stall the motor, I would not call it weak. Chances are you will be in Low Range when you cut your steel, there is a 1:4 reduction here. Still, I have plans to replace the motor and controller with an AC induction motor w/ VFD. I like 3 phase .

I never calculated the IPM feed rate I use, but it would depend on how deep you are cutting. I like to take .1-.15" off per pass in steel, this allows me to feed pretty fast. I would think 20-30IPM would be alright here, of course it depends also on hte steel. Not talking about stainless here...
I have never been reluctant to take on any steel project with my X3.

Do you plan to do a lot of steel? You might even try insert cutters. I know at work we rarely use end mills with steel, at lest for roughing. It is all insert, sometimes the whole cutting head is the insert like ones from Iscar. You might consider this, these things will be the strong link in your X3 setup.

[Ed from NY]

I only got the regular 120V... the best I could do would be to run an extension cord to get 220V -- or perhaps even run a 220V line. How big a motor are you going to put on it?

I'm getting the 3500rpm mod on mine... it may reduce the torque too much. Hmmm... we will see when I finally get it what it can do and when it stalls. I suppose we could always get a larger motor if it does stall. If the mod is just on the belt and pulleys then I could double the engine power to 3HP and the rest of the machine should take it... if the belt does not snap and hit me in the head or something... I guess... assuming it works with the new controller Syil is putting together.

May be I should drop them an email...

.

[phantomcow2]

WEll the SuperX3 supposedly has a 1kw motor on it, so about 1.34HP. I'de like to get a good 1.5HP on my mill. I've found that the motor has bogged down under heavy cutting, where the physical mill is not even chattering. I'de like the physical mill to be the weak link of my setup.
FOr your applications, you may end up finding you don't need great torque at 3500RPM. On a bridgeport or clone, you can take very deep and fast cuts with a 3/4" EM at 1500RPM. But our little X3's don't have that ability, there would be excessive chatter. So chances are, your higher RPM's will be reserved for finishing in aluminum, and the use of smaller diameter tools (which will require less HP). The motor Syil showed that he used looks different than the one in my X3, it is probably well over the 600W my motor is rated at. I think his setup looks good

[Ron111]

Phantomcow2,
Educate me a little on the different X3s that are out there. I saw the harbor freight which had a 1hp motor but only 12 inches or so x axis(unless it was a misprint). Grizzley has a little better than 15 on the X, but only 3/4hp. So what is the super X, and who sells it, and which ones do you like?

By the way, how's you conversion coming?

Thanks,

Ron

[phantomcow2]

According to Chris wood, the HF and Grizzly X3's are the same thing. The specs are different people measuring the same thing in different ways. The motor is about .8HP. Grizzly rounds down to 3/4HP, probably the more honest way. HF rounds UP to 1, because 8 rounds up to 10, right?
Super X3 is the X3 except it has a nicer head IMO, only because the motor is mounted inside the head rather than hanging off to the side. It has more power in the motor, a tapping function, and a spindle tachometer. Currently there are no importers to North America (besides Syil's conversion of course). It probably makes no difference when it comes down a CNC conversion....

My conversion is going well. I just bought a laptop to run Mach3, got all my electrical stuff working. I've not felt like milling the last actuator mount for my Z axis. I've been using a bridgeport for 5 hours a day making precision shims for 2 days, when I get home I avoid the basement . I also need to turn down the end of my X axis ballscrew, and install my ballnut. Besides that, its just installation and I am good to go.

[Ed from NY]

The inserts are a nice idea. How many times do you get to change the inserts before you have to replace the Iscar holder?

I emailed Syil and got a very interesting response.

I asked him if he thinks we could upgrade the SX3 to a 5 HP motor. He said that a lot of testing would need to be done, but that there is a good chance that the mill could handle that sort of power (with whatever upgrades). The major hurdle is that the electronics is not designed for it and redesigning the board is not an easy task because Sieg does not publish the specs. They have just designed a replacement board to control the speed via G-code (which I'm getting on mine), but the new board works with the same power levels. In order to handle a much larger motor they would need to redesign the board all over again and that is not feasible at this point.

I told him that if he were able to come up with a 5 HP upgrade kit for the S/X3 there might be quite a few people interested in it...

Perhaps we should all beg together

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