I have had a new Tri-Power since June. I like it, although I've never done machining professionally. I am an engineer and wanted to do my own prototyping.
The Tri-Power has a longer x axis and the mill is centered. So the mill pulleys are very far (>20 cm) from the mill lift mechanism. There is no longer any chance of interferance.
I've only used China mfg R8 collets from Shoptaks and Enco, so I don't know if the key is still a problem. Everything seem fine to me.
Backlash is disappointing. With split nuts, one should be able to adjust it out, but I have not been able to reduce it satisfactorily. I would not recommend this machine without the DRO. With the DRO backlash is a minor pain. I assume that with ball screws it is much better for CNC.
The space over the work area is rather confinded by the bidgemill structure. So if you are accustomed to a Bridgeport or similar, you may find the Shoptask too limiting. However, for the money, a flexible owner will be quite pleased once the problems are addressed.
I had many out of box problems, some sever. Shoptask addressed all of them in a timely fashion with no hesitation. The suggestions offered by the Alchemist and others preceeding him will yield a fine budget cost, small shop machine.
Spencer Lovette
tri-power
well i have been waiting 4 and 1/2 months for my tri-power and in 1 more day it is due. ordered with dro,ball screws and 4axis servos. i hope i did not waste ten grand????? good old john promised it would hold .001 tolerances,we will see.will keep posted.
I would not have sunk $10k into a Shoptask.. no matter the bells and whistles.
I paid a little over $3k with DRO and lifetime warranty (used it for several start capacitors and a wiring harness, also the DRO PS failed).
Unless the newer models addressed all of the issues (motor caps, location of lathe oil drain, location of the mill pullies, better quality hand cranks, pluss additional fit and finish issues).
I hope it turns out well for you.
Shoptask thoughts
I thought I would jump in here. I am not a machinist by trade. I design ceramics and was trained as a potter many years ago. I make tooling for ceramic reproductions for the tabletop industries (yeah, dishes and serving pieces). This machine is quite good for my needs to machine Ren-Shape and non-ferrous metals to make models from which I can make plaster molds and then rubber molds from the original plaster molds. Maybe I got a good machine I don't know. I followed alot of instructions and advice from The Alchemist's site as well as some others I found.It was fine right iout of the crate.
I put ball screws on and 3 axis CNC from Camtronics and for me, the machine works very well, but I must quantify this by again reiterating that I am not a machinist. I wanted to learn how to machine and this serves my needs very well. My future plans are to get rid of all the belts and pulleys and put on some higher horsepower motors with a VFD, but that's for some time in 2007.
Happy holidays to all!
Best
Jonathan in Denver
The Shoptask is sold as a MILL and LATHE (I could care less about the Drill).
Its a 5 out of 10 on each count. It can be upgraded, which is a plus, but again, I would have bailed if my bill came to $10k.
TO many quality issues.
well i have new tri-power 2 weeks now. i am not a happy camper. of all the
claims made on there website at shoptask.com, i can only confirm one, it is yellow in color. more to come later.
I have had a tri power since september this year, and have been, for the most part very happy with the machine. There have been a few grumbles (my toolpost was machined incorrectly (too high) and came with metric toolholders, my tailstock came apart because the recess for the set screw holding the acme nut was too shallow), but other than that I'm happy.
Before I bought mine, I considered all of the options I had available to me at my budget: mini lathe and mill, other kinds of 3 in 1's, the shoptask. For me, the biggest issue was capability: the shoptask is way bigger and has so much more work surface. Any of the options I was interested in required initial work to get them up to speed....the most being the mountain of parts to get the mini lathe and mill where I needed them.
I finally settled on the Shoptask, and after setting the gibs, and fixing a few bits and pieces, I am quite happy with the machine. I set up for a cut, lock down all axes but the one I need to move, and my DRO shows that there is virtually no movement (the .000X digit flickers between 1 and 2 as an example). If I have to leave the x and y axes loose, I have adjusted the backlash down as low as I can get them, but take any remaining lash into consideration when making any cuts (just like every other machine I've used), and things turn out pretty well.
I'm sure as I use the machine more, I will find the odd thing here or there that is problematic for me, but as of now I'm quite happy with it .....and look forward to cnc'ing the machine.
I have a bridgemill w/CNC that I bought a couple years back, I planned on doing some prototyping of a mold in AL 6061. I spent more time trying to overcome the shortcomings of the machine, than making chips. The milling motor was typical of many imports, smoked and died. When I addressed this with ST they were quick to disclaim that it was something I did wrong! The bottom line was a defective switch that caused the motor to burn out the start winding. I wasn' t going to waste my time with another import motor and put on a US motor. I bought this machine with ballscrews, this is a must for accuracy with stepper motors. They were modified by ST to fit by cutting off the original leadscrew and welding on the ballscrew, the run out in the screw is unacceptable by any standard, over .030". Also there was .005 " backlash in the ballscrews! The balls were undersized and had to be replaced.
The list goes on and on and my time was too valuable. The one possitive thing I can say is that this machine taught me a lot about accuracy and when I moved on and up into Commercial sized machine my work got easier. If you have the room for a regular size mill, either convert a manual to cnc or find an older cnc that just need a little tlc. I still have this machine in my Basement and havent had the time to dust it off and sell it.
Sealguy I think your expecting way to much.
Many many ballscrews will only hold .004 per foot unless they are precision ground and VERY EXPENSIVE. Shoptask uses the rolled ball screws for the lower costs.
Its not that they are sloppy, its just that they are .004 per foot.
Also milling and placing bearing ends on lead screws are again, several $100 per end and thats x6 for all axis.
In all you are getting an OK deal with some pretty smart workarounds. But by the time you are done putting cash on the barrel head, you are still at $10k for a .004 backlash unit.
Due to its indredibly crappy design I don't go to the shoptask website much... so I don't know what the lastest propeganda is for thier mills.
i have ball screws that shoptask installed. backlash is .008 0n x axis,.011 on
y axis and .003.on z axis. john acts like its my responsibility to get it any lower. i would be happy with .003 per foot, it want come that way. i wont mine getting it lower on my nickle if it were not a brand new machine. another
problem is a binding in the z axis, we are working on that. more to come.
Norvil1,
When I first got my Bridgemill my backlash was simular to yours. John said that there was some undersize balls that got into some of the Ballscrews. They should measure .125" and when I checked mine they were .1235. I changed them all out and this cut the BL in half. There are several other sources that will add up play and affect your accuracy. Careful placement of a dial indicator and some light levering and you can find where that wasted motion is going. good luck!
I had very poor backlash on the x axis. Acme screws. I discovered the bushing holding the bearings on the right end of the screw where longer than the thickness of the plate they were in. So even with the end play nuts locked down tight, the whole assembly shifted left and right. I removed the bushing and turned it down so it is is shorter than the plate thickness and eliminated this source of error. John said, hmm, they must have made them wrong.
So check end play in your x axis screw.
I haven't measured my final backlash, but it is much better, not great.
good luck![/QUOTE]
seal guy:Originally Posted by sealguy
thats the same story he told me. so my thought was, if that is a problem,why did he let it leave that way? if this were a used machine - ok i got no complaint coming, but this a new machine that he charged me 9,987 dollars for. my biggest problem has been the binding in the z axis, without the bevel gears in it is as smooth as oil. fixing the spindle key problem,the burnt up motor wires, and the other problems i fixed is water under the bridge.
i have allready waited 41/2 months and now i have to wait more months to get this thing to cut a part to a reasonable tolorence. my biggest mistake in this whole thing has been to believe jt's claims about this machine, imo
whats claimed is not what is delivered, he' s got my money so he can afford to be calm about the whole thing. if this sounds like a rant, it probable is.
i figured i payed for it, so i can have at least one. end of rant. on the postive side it will cut metal, if anyone really wants a tri-power with all the bells and whistles i can arange for them get one tomorrow instead of the usual 4 to 6 month wait 601-584-8450 8am- 4pm cst.
The bitter pill
Norvil1,
You are due your rant. The Lemon law don't apply because we all had the same bad experience. As I said before I moved on from the experience and into some bigger, dedicated machines. Fortunately for me, my Company absorbed the $$ I put into ST.
In hindsight, I paid less for a 10X54 Mill with AC servos, glass scales etc...
At the end of the day I wouldn't recommend to anyone to Buy from ST.
To those who are over coming the problems, my hat is off to you.
The as advertized Tri-Mill. HMMMM.
Hey guys, I have a Tri-mill and have had most of the same problems as the rest of you. I also have a 1995 Smithy in my garage that was not perfect out of the box either. I stopped a few problems before they started on the Tri-Mill by virtually taking most of the machine apart and cleaning, deburring, and aligning before I even turned it on for the first time. The workmanship is far from great and I must say that the Smithy was a lot better out of the box than the Tri-Mill. The first thing I did was rewire the whole machine with 12 ga. wire and tossed all of that little 18 ga.telephone wire the factory used in the trash. By doing this there is very little resistance and the motors run nice and cool with no lugging or overheating. I had to make new mounting brackets for the X and Y leadscrew gears to take the excessive play out of the gears and clean up the gear teeth on all of the gears to get them to mesh correctly (the workmanship in this area really sucks). I told John at Shoptask that the gears looked like they had been cut out with a hacksaw and a file. The mill spindle gears had a lot of burrs, flashing, and rough cuts in the teeth that had to be cleaned up and that made the spindle operate a lot smoother without binding up. The tool post had the same too high and metric sizing problems and the table slots had to be resized as they were not uniform. John said that he would correct it if I sent the parts back to him but I just did it myself to save the time and the hassle, and to know that they were going to be right when I got done. The list goes on and on. After re-doing everything, the machine is not too bad now; but I don't think that a brand new machine should have to have this much overhauling before it can be used. I have everything except the ball screws from Shoptask on the machine, but have yet to get enough nerve to try the CNC out due to the lack of faith that it will work correctly, or even be close in tolerences. When I do finally have the time to try it, I will do so on something that I don't care about like a piece of cheap wood! Manually though, the mill does quite well now with most metals except that you can't take big bites or it chatters. The lathe is very critical for alignment to cut correctly between centers due to the tailstock being quite sloppy inside of the housing. The Smithy lathe is much better but lacks the power that the Tri-Mill has for deep cuts. All in all it has a lot to offer for the money in a compact design for a hobby or very light industrial use machine. I'll say it is alright and that is about it. I have many different machines and have been a machinist for over 30 years but I would not buy this particular Tri-Mill again unless the quality and workmanship was greatly improved. One other thing, is that it is yellow as advertized, but even that doesn't match on all the pieces.
Single purpose machines are a much better investment if you have the room.
Happy machining,
Badhabits 101
I must say, I'm sure glad I got mine when they were still around $2,000.
The ballscrews were installed before it came for an extra fee.
I had my share of problems from the getgo, but I took it completely apart to get it into my basement. The whole thing was a learning process for me so I didn't gripe TOO much.
Now, because of what I learned, I'd get the basic machine and go from there.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with the whole thing. The lathe/mill concept allowed me to have both. I can hold some pretty tight tolerances by using it correctly!
You may have already seen my thread but here it is anyway:
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2139
...and with it I was able to make this machine....which is very accurate under load, and has good speeds:
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5049
John (bloy)
The Tri-Mill overview follow up
I will say that John at Shoptask has been very helpful with some of the Tri-Power issues. I am still waiting on the X-Y leadscrew upgrade that he said was done in May'06. This is what January '07 now? and no upgrade sent as yet. I bought the machine in March "06 and I finally got a very limited manual and the warranty paperwork in Dec. "06. I think that his hands seem to be tied on some things due to the factory in China not responding to some of the issues. At least that is what he has relayed to me. My experience with some of the other machine suppliers including Smithy, has been a lot better as far as parts replacement goes. By the way Bloy2004, I really like your CNC Router setup as I do woodworking as well as metal.
I am looking for a better 0.750" - 0.875" left hand thread ball screw for the Tri-Mill as Nook Industries only sells a 0.625" in left hand which is too small. All suggestions are welcome.
Badhabits 101
Yea, I am with BLOY on this one.
I too started with the base machine Eldorado, and upgraded, fixed, repaired, re-designed, overcame ect. But for me it was a learning experience to get into CNC.
It gave me a "cheap" mill/lathe to make my mistakes on.
Knowing what I know now, I would have bought a BP 2, and some dedicated 14" x 40 lathe or something.
But again, if you want to learn to build CNC machines, and stuff, it is a good "School-tool". Not really for commercial use, ok for hobbie use.
Chinese quality control is like saying, "Military Intellegence" they are two mutally exclusive terms.
Scott
I didn't buy this machine to hang my crank on . I bought it to machine parts with.But I need to know what is the thread type of the Z axis lead screw. It measures 5/8 x 16 thread . If its a ACME thread it seem impossible to find.
Last edited by ger21; 02-24-2008 at 01:26 PM.
I had a similar issue on my old Quadra Lift unit, but it was easily solved by changing one belt to a slightly shorter one- Shoptask sent the belt out at no charge.
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