Small manual horizontal mill

[syyl]

Good morning together, this is my first post here in these forums, and first a few words about me:

My name ist Stefan, 21 and i'm from germany, bavaria. At the moment i am attending an apprenticeship in mechatronics.

And here is my actual project: A small, manual horizontal milling machine

Some time ago, i ripped a few Bosch Rexroth linear guides (and some other nice stuff like pneumatic actuators, ballscrews, and much more) from an old machine, i found at the scrapyard. Some of this stuff has been sold on ebay, but i keept a few parts. So i had the idea of building a small horizontal milling machine that could also be used as a lathe for short parts with big diameter or as a tool/cutter grinder.
My design is inspired by the gingery mill and the murad bormilathe, so it will feature a cross slide in front of an vertical axis, on which the headstock with the spindle will move up and down.
The cross slide will be a cheap, chinese one, with new spindles and bearings. The vertical axis will be built completely from scratch, a 100x100mm square tube, weldet together out of hot rolled steel. Two stripes of cold rolled steel are bolted to the front of this collumn, and will carry two 450mm long linear guides.


(it will be filled with concrete for dampening)

painted, and the linear guides screwed on:


(I hope, it wont warp to bad under load)

when it all comes together it will look something like that:



and here is the acme threaded spindle installed, it runs in a single grove ball bearing:



One big problem was finding a spindle, that fits my machine...i couldn't find one, so i built one myself
After working for two weeks on my minilathe, these parts were finished:



The spindle features a short taper nearly like a Sk20 ("Steilkegel 20" in german, i have to admit, that i don't now, what it is called in english). The Bearings are two Single grove ball bearing with an ID of 30mm and 25mm, i hope those will carry the cutting loads. But, if i remember correctly, the spindle of my minilathe has the same bearings mounted.

When all is put together, it looks like this:


(Runout on the taper is lower than 0,01mm..the needle of the dial test indicator is shaking just a little bit)

It will be driven by a Poly V belt and a 0,12kW asynchron motor with inverter.

Next to come is the beltdrive assembly and a base to mount it all together...and the electrics of course.

Please excuse my english...hard to write a text, thats not my native language...i hope, some of you understand, what i'm writing

Good night,
Stefan

[skmetal7]

looks good! your english is fine, dont worry about it!

do you ever plan on CNCing your mill? if not thats ok! it would probably be something you could put on your resume, seeing that you have a mechatronics major! if you did, you would have to replace your acme leadscrews(spindles?) with ballscrews.

do you think that a 0.12kW motor will be powerfull enough? what will you be cutting?

show us pictures of your minilathe (we LOVE pics!!!!!)

[syyl]

Hello,

no, there aren't any plans on cnc for this machine, i'm just thinking of power feed in one axis. At work we learned how to use and programm cnc mills and lathes, but, speaking for myself, i love to work on manual mills and lathes...at work we have those realy great manual deckel fp1, fp2 and fp3 mills, they are just a dream to handle

I hope, the 0,12 kW motor is powerfull enough...but if it hasn't enough oomph, i can replace it by a stronger motor, with the same frame size. The materials i want to cut, range from plastics, over aluminum up to mild steel.

Here are some pictures of making that thing:

Drilling the mounting holes for the linear guides...yes, i need a bigger drill-mill


Roughing out the spindle of a massive piece of steel, the indicator stand holds a shield, protecting my left hand from all the hot chips. Finishing was done between centers


Machining the taper using a homebuilt steadyrest


Boring the spindlehead to size, 80x80mm aluminum block chucked up in my 3" 4jaw chuck


And as a last picture, a test version of an endmillholder, made of aluminum (the final ones will be made of steel, of course)

(biggest diameter of the taper is 22mm, for size comparison, the thread, holding the taper in the spindle is a M6)

Stefan

[ZipSnipe]

Yep, we love pics and thats a beautiful job you are doing so far.
Keep up the good work!!!

[S_J_H]

That is very nice work! I'm especially impressed with turning such a nice looking spindle on a mini lathe!

Steve

[zephyr9900]

Syyl, your work is truly an inspiration! A wonderful build. And I like your hexagonal steady rest. It is very stylish!

Best regards,

Randy

[syyl]

thank you for these encouraging words

not to much progress in the last days, just mounted the spindlehead to the collumn. the motor will be sitting behind/above the spindle, driving ist via a belt:



and here a picture of the motor and the inverter:



stefan

[skmetal7]

did you say 0.12kW or 1.2kW? because that looks like it will be hella powerfull enough to cut just about anything (depending on the way you run the pulleys)

[syyl]

did you say 0.12kW or 1.2kW? because that looks like it will be hella powerfull enough to cut just about anything (depending on the way you run the pulleys)

hi,

0.12kW

not to powerfull, but the inverter can't handle a bigger motor.

stefan

[ataxy]

yes nice work look foward to see how it goes and i agree that 0.12kw motor is on the low side

[syyl]

hello, everyone


slow progress, just one new picture:



on the left side, the finished steppulley, 30mm and 60mm in diameter for a ribbed v-belt. on the right side, there is a fresh machined tool blank made from steel. the taper is machined on the lathe, the front side of the toolholder will be finished on the milling machine. the runout of the blank is 1,5/100mm, according to the dial test indicator

[syyl]

Some progress in the last days:

at work, i had the possibility to turn a er16 collet chuck from a piece of 115CrV3:



finaly i finished welding the motor mount together, and screwed all together on a wooden board to make a first test run:



the motor and spindle are rotating really smooth and quite, and my overall feeling is very good

Stefan