Re: Drill press & cross-slide vice

Of you are intent on this approach you will find that cheap drill
presses not only have crappy bearings, but the spindle is not stiff.

The rack and pinion gear that drives the spindle is very very sloppy,
and there is no adjustment. that pretty much eleminates that from
being a part of the CNC. unless you can figure out how to compensate
for a backlash of something over an eight of an inch.

for drilling, you have a chance, and if you do very light loads, you
can make a cutter stabilizer to take the side loads. not complicated
or too hard if you have access to a lathe or mill.

and last but not least is the machine ridigity. with only a very
slight pressure drilling with a 1/16 drill into aluminum, you can
visually see the machine flex.

The XY tables for $110 are a great start, a trim router for another
$50-100 is getting much better and then buliding a fixed mount for
the router on a plunging Z axis is not too hard or expensive.

Of the 4 HF el-cheapo drill presses ($39 to 49) I have one that the
chuck falls out of regularly, but the bearing and spindle are decent.

I have one that the lower bearing is not seated. the bore is too big
and the bearing slips.

I have one that the spindle is noticbly sloppy in that you can feel
the play.

the last one is 10 years old and is not a valid unit for review.

Dave

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@y..., Dave Dillabough <dgd@b...> wrote:
> Another issue is that most drill press spindles use a taper to
mount the
> chuck. These tapers are not designed for side loads so you would
have to
> come up with a different way to hold your cutters. You do not want
a
> spinning chuck to come off while you are milling.
>
> At 08:20 AM 10/30/02 -0800, you wrote:
> >Been there and done that. I used the 5" version from harbor
freight for
> >around 60.00 I had to take a lot of slop out of the drive
mechanism and
> >made some stepper motor mounts. I install Torrington needle thurst
> >bearings on each axis. I used it to cnc drill some stepper motor
mounts.
> >The problem is that you cannot use a drill press as a mill because
of
> >the slop in the spindle assembly. The enco mill drill tables for
$119 is
> >a better deal in the long run but figure out how you plan to do the
> >spindle first.
> >Dan
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: vandersandtc [mailto:vandersandtc@a...]
> >Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2002 12:52 AM
> >To: CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@y...
> >Subject: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Drill press & cross-slide vice
> >
> >
> >Now my question : I bought a cross-slide vice yesterday and my
first
> >thought was 'Hey, if I stick some steppers on this sucker, mount it
> >on my drill press then I might have a cheap mill' - I suppose a lot
> >of people have asked this question before. I would like to hear
your
> >comments please.
> >
> >Regards
> >Coert
> >
> >
> >
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Google.com to
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> >http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jobshophomeshop I consider this to
be a
> >sister site to the CCED group, as many of the same members are
there, for
> >OT subjects, that are not allowed on the CCED list.
> >
> >NOTICE: ALL POSTINGS TO THIS GROUP BECOME PUBLIC DOMAIN BY POSTING
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EXCEPTIONS........
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