The Home Machinist!

So I bought a face mill, a 2" one with a R8 arbor, from Wish.com in China. It cost about $25 US to get it including shipping. It looks ok, and this eve I went out to the shop to give it a spin to see how well it worked. I already had a scrap of plate in the vise, so all I had to do was mount it and turn it on. Which I did, and it worked fine, and the finish was ok, and there was no chatter and all seemed well, except the power feed quit on my milling machine X axis quit. The motor turns in it but it is not driving the X axis. The inserts for it cost about 90 cents each plus shipping, I bought 20.. should last a while. Now I have another project.

Would that be related to pulling a 2" face mill ? I mean, we think about drag in the head but what does the table drive see ? Hopefully it is just a pin or a gear you can get.

I agree with spro - there may be a pin that is intended to shear if the load it too high, kind of like the shear pins on your snowblower that save the motor in case you suck up a big rock.

Steve

What kind of mill is it and what type of power feed unit is on the X-axis? Many of the Bridgeport clones use the Servo or similar power feed units. They have a plastic gear that is usually the victim when table stops moving, yet the motor keeps running.

Nyle

LIALLEGHENY wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2020 2:10 pm What kind of mill is it and what type of power feed unit is on the X-axis? Many of the Bridgeport clones use the Servo or similar power feed units. They have a plastic gear that is usually the victim when table stops moving, yet the motor keeps running.

Nyle

The plastic gear has been my experience with the Servo type table feeds. I wouldn't think the cutter would be a problem. I have had no problem using an 1.5" diameter 3 flute at any number on the feed dial on the old 135 inch pound servos. I believe the newer ones for X and Y axis are 150 inch pounds now? The problem would usually be someone ran the spindle into something a either half stripped some teeth of the plastic gear, or totally stripped off a few teeth in one spot. The motor would run but wouldn't stop at the bad spot on the gear.

Richard_W

Stripped the plastic gear on mine some time ago, not waiting for it to come to a complete stop and reversing.
Considered making one out of bronze but the tooth count is a prime number > than 100, cant compound on my indexing head.
Bought a replacement and more careful.

armscor 1 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 03, 2020 1:56 am Stripped the plastic gear on mine some time ago, not waiting for it to come to a complete stop and reversing.
Considered making one out of bronze but the tooth count is a prime number > than 100, cant compound on my indexing head.
Bought a replacement and more careful.

I would advise against it. The plastic is sacrificial in the event of a wreck. They are inexpensive and easy to replace. We have a "genius" or two at work that manage to strip one every few years.

My new-to-me Newport (Bridgeport clone) has a Servo power feed on it. When I first tried to turn it on, I found that the circuit breaker/switch was broken off on the bottom. Then when it runs, it has a loud "noise". Turns out, there are 4 or 5 teeth stripped on it. In motion, it has enough inertia, I guess to get past them, but if I happen to stop where the stripped teeth are, it won't go. I just ordered a new gear off of ebay and it should be here in a couple days. (Should be, because for some reason almost every item I've ordered over the past two weeks has been delayed by several days, even the ones with guaranteed delivery dates!)

I don't know how heavy of a cut you were taking, but I used my 2.5" face mill a couple days ago and didn't have any troubles at all. I see people routinely taking pretty heavy cuts on the internet. At 140 in*lb, that's over 50# of force on a 5" ball crank. That's a lot! I don't think it was overloaded.


Dave

Oh, and I don't know what shows up on your facebook feed from Wish, but if it's like mine, I don't know if I'd call ordering from them a "good deed"! LMAO

Dave