show off time... got my new X4+

[ataxy]

Well just added a new member to my shop, a brand new X4+ and so far so good havent been able to machine anything yet as i am waiting for my TTS to come in monday, so for now i am stuck with the cheap drill chuck that comes with the machine, good anough for wood so ill try out the machine in some piece of 2x4 while i wait.

Back to the machine, as an overall package, X4+ with 4th axis and coolant system, i am quite please it is well built and a pretty heavy machine at around 520 pounds it fits perfectly in a niche between the x3-superx3 and the rf45 type machine, item got here well package with "quality" documentation from Syil, so that explains pretty much the states of the machine inside the crate, the crate was so so and as been pretty bang up during its transport from Syil China to Syil Canada to here, Montreal, but hey i bought a mill not a crate and as long as the mill is allright who cares about the crate.

Ok now as for detail now this is one place where i would gladly pay 200$ for some amelioration in the machine for instance:
-Axis motor wire that go from the control box to the axis motor could be twist lock type connector making it possible easly to take them off for transport.
-Some of the lube tube could be at least an inch longer as for instance on mine when the y axis is at its home position the lube tube is almost stretch to its max.
-Cover over the limit switch the Z axis is fine as its in the column but for the X and Y those are expose, Keith at Syil Canada as told me that this as not been a problem so far, but still this would be a nice small addition that would add to the overall crafstmanship of the machine.
-Black texture on the motor cover and electronic component box as some have allready pointed out is nice but should definitly change to a flat suface for ease of cleaning.
-The mpg that comes with the machine (X4+) should be able to interface with Mach3 by default and as a mpg when you use the manual mode.
-switch the drain of the table from the left side to the right side as the way it is made now if you go pass the limit switch of the X axis in manual, yes there is a good ~4inch of travel more in manual mine as 14.8" of capable movement in manual but only 11" in cnc mode, you will hit the switch with the drain adaptor that you would screw there.
Thats about it for now but i think this would greatly improve in the overall look and quality of the machine.

Now for the 4th axis, overall the 4th axix is nice as it is now i do not know how it will be in the long run but out of the box its pretty hefty at around 25 pounds but again some little things could be made to make it a bit more of a quality product for instance:
-Cover on the motor, again i was told that it was not affected by the fact that it as no cover but a simple cover over the motor would be a nice addition and would also solve the plastic shielding from just haging there open to chip, grit, and coolant pouring inside the shilding.
Aside from that the 4th axis as i said it seem to be of good quality i even expected it to have more backlash but only 0.5 degree is fine by me.

Coolant setup nice little tank made out of the same material as the axis motor cover and it contains about 2 gallons (6 litres) of coolant ok for this type of machine pump as a cast body that seem sturdy as for the quality of the motor will see in the long run but again some little details could be added to make it a better quality product for not much:
-First the chip cage in the cover, now here let me be sarcastic, how the hell are you suppose to empty that thing its welded in place and this i am sorry but its redicule and it as gap all around it making it actualy useless, so off this will come, it would have made alot more sence to make it like a little drawer that you can slide in and out of the cover to empty it.
-Tubing lack of adapter to go from the from the half inch tubing of the pump to the quarter inch adaptor of the coolant nozzle adaptor.
-No tubing for the drain of the mill pan to the coolant tank a simple 4 feet lenght of 7/8 id tubing to connect to the pan with an adaptor to connect it to the .600" hole of the coolant tank cover or simply drill the hole one inch so the tubes fit in.
-An electric wire to connect the pump, i know wire is not expensive but at 225$ it could come with a wire.
thats it for the coolant.

Know those are all little detail that would help in making this nice machine an even nicer one but aside from those they seem to have put alot of effort into it to make it a more profesionnal machine from the Syil superX3, i would have to say that the machine is not up to the spec that they advertise for instance the fact that they advertise it as a machine with (15")400mm of travel in X one would expect it to have that much travel in cnc mode but on my model this was not the case and its closer to the (11")280mm that is in there documentation wich is a let down as you did buy a cnc not a manual machine as for the Y axis it was alot closer to what is advertise (6.3")160mm mine got (5.9")150mm while in manual mode i can get (7.95")200mm, now this would not be as much of a problem on a machine with huge amount of travel, loosing 4" of travel on 46" for example, but 4" on a advertise 15" cnc mill thats huge like almost 30% huge and in fact does reduce your work envelope by alot, wish i could have said the opposite.
Spindle speed i also not as advertise the website say 100-3500 and on the mill head it says 300 - 3500 now mine is 180 to 3360 it will go pass the 3360 mark but the speed becomes unstable and jumpy and it will definitly not go down to a hundred as the motor simply stops under 180.
Anyway, again let me point out that i did not own a superX3 but based on what i read this machine is definitly an improvement, but it does have some issue that could be resolve easly and does not make it less of a capable machine but in fact would make it even more capable with out having to rethink the whole machine, i will also contact keith at syil canada at the beginning of the week to see if some of those issue can be resolved ill let you know

i will post my pros and cons ounce i get to test even further

ps: man i like that blue lcd with the syil boot logo , oh and ill post photo later on

[ataxy]

some pictures with some of the thing i pointed out

[neilw20]

I was surprised by the quality of the chuck.
Run out more than acceptable for a big chuck.
Bit of a pest not going below 3mm, but at least the jaws have some gripping area.

I'm afraid it is a homing switch, and as such does not need to be at the end of travel.

I continuously use a 3/8" solid carbide endmill in the chuck, taking 0.8mm DOC in stainless steel, flooded, at 3 IPM and 3600 RPM. It makes some noise, but cuts beautifully. You need a spring cut for final pass because of flexing of the cutter and that's on an SX3 with the quill down half way.
I like my quill. move down near job, with spindle stopped. Zero DRO, move quill down until firmly on the job. Lock it, and move Z up. Perfect zero re setter with no wires.

Coolant hole needs opening out so it does not pool in the table and a step up to bigger hose so swarf can't block it. Table fills up VERY quickly.

Pull the pump apart and take off the impeller. The seal will self destruct in 4 hours. Easier to fix it once before getting stuck half way through a job.
Are there instructions how to hook up the pump and it's capacitor?
The coolant cage comes off. Just loosen the screws with a 3mm hex key.
I pull off the hose, take it to the rubbish, and shake it out there.
Main problem is swarf getting to the bottom of the hose and clogging the drain. Takes about 3 seconds before you get a flood once blocked. Needs bigger hose that can't block. I am going to make a full flow filter on the pressure side out of a peanut butter jar (plastic).

Dont waste your time using the tap that came with it unless you put it where it will leak back into the system. They didn't pilot drill the hole for the shaft in the tap and it is oversize enough for the O ring to leak - sorry - piss everywhere. Nice plastic tap from garden supplies is great.
Make sure the drain pipe is DOWNHILL all the way to the tank. If the table moves and the pipe goes above table level the tiniest bit you will have a new flood. My flood control is bulldog clipped heavy rubber curtain totally hiding the job, held by a few super magnets. Coolant full on flood mode in a 6" space, one hose only. Both the hoses get in the way. The magnet needs pulling to bits and doing properly so it does not wobble. Once it is very stiff then you can adjust the blue pipe thingy with ease. If the magnet is bad, then it is a b1tch. I drilled a few small holes in the terminal housing so the capacitor wires were a push fit through the holes. Beware that the earthing screw if tightened adequately will bust the insulation block. It needs a real spacer so it clamps to the housing correctly. SAFETY ISSUE HERE. Set it up and bench run it for 10 minutes to make sure it doesn't get too hot. If wired correctly it will be OK but I'm an expert in that area, so did not have to try it one way or another. I just put a cable with a 3 pin power plug on it.

I put a real plug on the 4th axis, and a hinge on the back of the cabinet.
I replaced the cable with a COILEY CABLE off an OLD keyboard. Just some hefty tiewraps. Coolant won't hurt it.
Heavy little sucker isn't it. Chuck quite nice, and you will spend a bit of time clocking it true on the rotary table. Talk about possible backlash later. Make a thread for it on cnczone.

Be careful of the 4th axis clamps. Little burrs can spoil the nice table.
I always use a thin S/Steel 0.5mm packing piece under ALL CLAMPS.

Make sure it is OLD and heavy duty coiley wire, and use a positively attached plug. If ti comes loose during operation you can cook a driver. Big label by plug TURN OFF before fitting/removing plug.

A double power point. One for the pump, the other for a light. The light is the 'power on indicator'. You don't notice the the little bit of green as you walk out the door.
Make sure stepper drivers revert to low power after stopping. (switch one, and the factory setting is probably in HOT MOTOR mode.

Use Peu's (Argentina) adapter to make MPG become useful.

The reason the spindle speed get's unstable is that near the end of the potentiometer range the firmware over flows and does read the pot correctly.
Same can happen at the low speed end.
When you control it from Mach3 the same limits apply. Ask for too much speed and you will use the cutter for a plow. Test carefully and stay in the safe range. The motor speed control can handle it. It just the interface they got wrong. Limit low end to say 250 and top end to 3300. If you don't want to use it for a plow.

That's my coffee cups worth.
That's 16 month's experience in 1 reply. I'm sure I missed something because of my aging brain.

[ataxy]

yeah i agree with you the chuck is pretty decent and true, cant wait to get my tts then ill be able to see some chip and really test the capacity of the machine it self

[neilw20]

I think I will rest now.... xxx....yy.....z.........aaa......f.g..p999

[ataxy]

yeah well i have some but my brain is currently going toward sleepy mod so ill post them back tomorrow thank for the info ill take them into account.

well actually time for one
Make sure stepper drivers revert to low power after stopping. (switch one, and the factory setting is probably in HOT MOTOR mode.

the motor do stay hot so you say switch on on the driver to put it in low state

yeah i was quite surprise by the weight of the 4th axis

[ataxy]

ok a few other critic of the design, well actualy one wich would help the design in two way
as it is now 1/3 of the Y axis travel is outside the table of the mill on the positive side of the y travel while you cannot reach while you cannot reach the bottom third of the why table with the tool because the table does not go that far in its y travel thus having to put almost half the width of you part if you want to use the full y travel out of the table now there is a almost easy solution to this make the axis sadle longer and the x table wider since there is almost 4" of space in the back of the table this would not require a change in the mill structure itself as the space is there and would make the product benefit in two way 1- more of the saddle dovetail would be engage at all time reducing vibration and flex in the machine for more precision 2- widen the table by ~2" making the table go from 21 5/8" x 6 1/4" to 21 5/8" x 8 1/4" thus a gain of ~43 square inchs of table surface and the y dovetail engaged inside the dovetail of the base by 5" instead of 3" when fully extended in its y travel and make it use the full 8" of its capable travel instead of its current 6". i know all this is probably due to the fact that the machine is still using the superX3 table and saddle but i think it could be worth it.

[neilw20]

I have found it rather convenient to be able to drill over the side of the table and have daylight underneath so I have resisted putting in a spacer at the stepper motor to move the table over. An adjustable spacer would work nicely.
Hanging stuff off the table is very convenient.
Must design one one day.

Travel problem is a geometry problem. Travel will never be more than the length of the screw thread minus the width of the nut, that's if the screw doesn't hit the column first or squash the cables like in the X axis. Drilling a cavity into the column as some have done improves Y travel.

I improved my Z axis travel by 83mm and it is possible to squeeze 100mm but getting the head another 17mm lower than I have is of little use.
At least I can put a tall job and a long normal drill bit to greet each other now. Z axis was easy and cost $30 for a new strut. Good gain, no pain.

[ataxy]

well actually in the case of the x4 its not a geometry problem i could easly make some new limit switch trigger to gain some 2 inchs of y+ travel in the y axis but i would end up with only 3" of dovetail in the base that is why i say if the table and saddle would be wider then going to the maximum travel available on the x4/x4+ would still leave 5" of dovetail thus helping cuz 3" of engaged dovetail is not enough i think as for the z i dont know yet if ill be faced with a height limit problem as for the x travel well this is an easy fix i just have to drill two new hole for the pin that activate the limit switch and voila, as for the saddle i think ill do some hoss modding and add a homemade dovetail section in the back of the saddle to lenghten it at least this way ill be able to gain 50mm of travel in the y axis without affecting the rigidity of the table and i have plenty of space to do it in its full y- position i still have 4" in between the table and the column

[LEN1042]

I am not possitive but I think the switches are dual purpose switches. In MACH3 they are used as homing switches but they can also be used as software limits when in the CNC mode.
The switches are configured as limits by going to the motor home/softlimits setup. The steps are detailed in the MACH manual.
Len

[ataxy]

well first try today to cut aluminium... what is it to say but that i am...not impress slut cutting with a 3/8 coated carbide 4flute endmill @ doc of .1 with a feed rate of 10ipm made the machine vibrate so bad that i had to stop it the finish of the slut was as good as when i first tryed to see if it was possible to mill with a drill press ill be trying again some new test but thats it,

[squale]

how are you liking the X4? I am trying to decide between the X4 and the Smithy cnc 622