วีดีโอ

What are you using for CAD? I need to move on from Tinkercad, looking for ideas that _aren't_ commercial black holes which will eat money for years. Great videos!

What would those step pulleys have cost you on Amazon? About six bucks apiece? The motor mount and belt adjuster sure 3-D printing was the way to go but those pulleys I would’ve bought those for sure. Or made them, out of aluminum, on your mini lathe.

Maybe tried to condense down to four wires, conjoining thoughts going to the same place

With leaning over the punch, the acrylic finder can get dark. You can make the acrylic rod longer which acts as a light pipe, or make the holder out of clear acrylic. The punch needs to be very hard, I used water hardened drill rod and the point still dulled on relatively hard materials. Later I used commercial centerpunch replacement tips, they’re cheap. I made an acrylic spacer to account for the difference in size of the acrylic finder and the commercial punch tip. That worked well. You can make the lens end by drilling a piece of 2x4 scrap with a 3 or so inch hole, then cut the 2X4 across the hole 😂and use the curve of the hole to hold sandpaper. It is slow going with sandpaper unless you get a head start on the curvature of the lens. You can vary the size of the hole in the wood and make different magnification lensed ends. I used 400 grit wet or dry sandpaper glued to the bottom of the holder instead of my first inclination which was an O-ring. The O-ring sometimes slipped as I changed from the finder to the punch, the sandpaper is better. Your slightly eccentric punch… you can turn the whole length of the punch in the lathe. To align the center of the punch to the acrylic finder rod, you can drill a hole in scrap hardwood the same size as the finder and punch then push the finder and the punch in from opposite ends marking the flat end of the acrylic rod. If your punch isn’t perfect, you can mark the orientation of the acrylic finder and the punch when marking the spot on the flat end of the acrylic rod. If you pay attention to the orientation of the acrylic finder then the punch, it won’t matter if the punch isn’t perfectly centered, it’ll still be registered to the rod marked by that punch. Good luck. Fun project, eh?

The gears sound like the coffee grinder at Trader Joe’s.

These are nice for the right person! Great video !

Well done

I've run million+ dollars of CNC machines in the past and having this at hoe would be awesome. I have a very capable 3d printer so the metal part is all I'm missing.

Make some jack screws to fine tune the column tilt similar to what is used on lathe headstocks.

What’s wrong with 62.5 thou? That’s just 1/16” 😅

From Toys R Us or Kmart?! They're ok for hobbyists/small light work.

I would try using a timing belt with timing belt pullies (properly sized for the load of course). This would reduce the risk of slipping and reduce the radial load on the motor mounts as well. Of course if you printed the pullies this would increase the torque on them, increasing the risk of them breaking. I don't know how expensive new pullies would be. Printed ones would be a cheap test. Just a thought.

Hei I own an equivalent. 200 pounds. Something to say?

As for the gear noise, have you ever heard a Bridgeport? ( yes I know the ridiculousness of comparing it to a Bridgeport, it will never happen again) the real issue with the gears is they are engineered to be the weak point for a reason( they are cheap to replace) a belt drive eliminates these issues.

I think a lot of complaints might just be from people expecting "out of the box" performance. Have to figure that most people buying small machines are likely hobbyists and not professional machinists that know how to take the time to set up the tools. Admittedly build quality is probably not as consistent on really cheap stuff, so always a chance you might get a dud, but sometimes any machine is better than no machine. I'm still hoping to get a lathe one of these days

The tool, machine whatever has a safe working design limitation, exceed this and one is just asking for trouble. I have a small Sherline Mill, and this for me covers all the tasks I ask of it. Any bigger and I do my milling on the lathe! As its surprising just what can be mounted upon the carriage or cross slide and `in` the tool post too!! Even employ a Jacobs chuck with through bolt for small milling tasks. So, what the issue there??

Use feeler gauge set for shim stock... It works

I’d consider working with an STM32 of some kind or maybe an ESP32 which both have 12-bit analog to digital converters (arduino nano’s atmega328p has a 10 bit adc), which offers a 4x higher reading resolution. You should also consider using a good power source and reference voltage circuit to ensure proper precision. There is also a component called opamp that can be used in your constant current circuit to reduce its power loss across the resistor, not forgetting about the heat sink on the ic to ensure it works properly (edit: I did forget, oopsies). Last but not least a breadboard is terrible for any kind of precise circuitry; breadboards are meant for very early prototyping. Exceptionally on your case, the high current flowing through the circuit gets especially distorted as you have pliers-like things that grab onto the components’ legs and dissipate a lot of the power that should go to the actual nitinol wire. I’m not an engineer myself, more like a hobbyist (on a cellphone at that) of sorts. Hopefully I could be of help.

Are you using a grinding vise for milling? Wow, I've never seen that before!

I have an older Mini Mill and Mini Lathe and I've found, as well as you, - the internet was indeed wrong. They've been extremely useful in doing small machining on steel, aluminum, and other things

Excellent tool, simple and easy

As someone also running a very cheap hobby shop in the basement i got two pieces of advice: but a noga indicator stand. Yes they're expensive but the second you use it you'll understand. I have three or four of the bases you use but i wish I'd never spent money on them and just got the noga first. If i break it I'll replace it, I'm never going back!

What size gear cutter did you use please

Hey man, loved the video. I have a bit of experience experience with engineering and 3D printing and I thought in regard to your slipping, that might be causing a lot of friction and therefore heat into the 3D printed part. Even if your printed in ABS, if that plastic gets near 90°C it will start to deform and it could fail in a hazarhous way. I thought it might be worth considering sending the parts out to have them either printed in nylon or metal 3D printed. Of course, once you're set on a design (which looks fantastic by the way).

You would be doing this old Tony proud , I like your video's

Comprare è facile... Difficile è costruire..

I bought both a mini lathe and mill and find both very handy. Its more about who uses it and how.... A hammer is a even more simple tool that many can't master..

2:52 are the gears made of cast concrete?🤣🙃

I have had one of these for over 10 years. It works really fine for small work, helps to get a cheap DRO for it, since the scales are not any good. Mine is mk2 so I can use the same tools via adaptors as in my larger TOS and Aciera mill. Only use it for 2:nd op setups etc. In Al I have run a small boring head with excellent results. Modifying it with belt drive will give better results. I have always been amazed about the quality and precision of work many modellers do with these inexpensive machines. A skilled machinist can make great results with simple equipment. I would not use it with more than a 6 or max 8 mm mill though for best results. Make a small fly cutter instead. Also trammed and pinned mine permanently, never had the need to tilt the column. It is usually more precise and simpler to use angle blocks, a small rotary table or a sinebar. The vise in vise technique is very useful. I second taking everything apart when buying it and take some time to clean, debur, check and fix issues. I would suggest ER16 collets as a good match.

Why the heck aren't any of you TH-camrs using coolant/lubrication on your lathes/mills when using HSS tools? They heat up and go blunt way too fast!

Just this video has me convinced to get one of these in the future so I can make a better tolerance part to fix the sloppy cross feed nut on the 706 lathe I have. I find that the craftex tools need a fair amount of cleanup and adjustments to get working to any sort of accuracy but the price range of them sort of indicates that to be expected and I still can't get over the convenience or satisfaction of being able to turn a piece of metal into something useful. These tools are great for learning how to do machine work for the reason that you may have to make a part to fix them in the future, if you don't like this then don't buy them or invest the money in something better I guess lol

I recently bought a Grizzly G0937 for some DIY projects, and to teach myself the basics of using machines of this nature. I've been training myself using brass and plastic before moving on to steels. Thus far, I've found the machine to be adequate for my needs, and I haven't ruined too much material during the learning process.

The disclaimer after your promise was great 👍

I have grandiose to convert my G0704 to CNC, though I have yet to focus on it.....I found that most issues in my machine lie in my not so rigid setup's or my greedy speeds/feed expectations. Otherwise they are very capable little machines! Fun video / fellow 'tool collector' 👍😁

My mini mill is probably my most used piece of shop "equiptment" behind the shop vac

I have a Harbor Freight mini mill and it has proven to be quite useful. I upgraded all the nylon gears (except the easy to replace intermediate gear) with steel ones after I accidentally overloaded it and sheared a bunch of the ones inside the gearbox. I also replaced the original spring loaded arm for the Z axis support with a gas spring support, which gave it slightly more Z travel. At some point I plan to convert it to CNC.

I have a Sherline 5400 mill that I converted to CNC. The axis drives are stepper motors, not servo motors. The lead screws are 1/4-20, not ball screws. The spindle motor is DC, set on machine to run at 10,000 RPM. The ways are machined, not ground. Minor modifications have been made to improve control of backlash. A 4th axis CNC rotary table has been added that I use for the A axis. Designs are done using Fusion 360 (free to hobbyists), with tool paths generated using the post processor that comes with the applications. Machine control is accomplished using an online gcode sender. Clearly, this is not a Mazak. And I, being a mechanical engineer, am certainly no machinist. All that said, as a demonstration of the capabilities of a carefully set up Sherline mill, I made Lego bricks in brass and tested them with real Legos supplied by a grandson. The fit on Legos is very precise, requiring a slight push to set them in place, and there is no detectable overlap between the edges of one brick and another. Using my brass bricks with each other and combined with plastic Lego bricks, the two designs were identical in fit and function, discernible from each other only by weight.

Awesome scrolling disclaimer! Lol

Mill is a bit small for serious work, even in the home garage

That grinding vise on a mill is causing every toolmaker who sees this physical pain.

Unless I missed a comment, I don't recall hearing you mentikn what CADD software you use for your 3D printing projects.

1:50 That would never work on my Harbor Fright drill press. It has SO much slop… 😕

I got a round column mill drill and it sucks

the reason for your dimensional error is partly to find in the actual cutter dimension (Chinese cutters are not spot on). The rest is contributed by the machine's instability. But not bad at all.

OK, now convert it to CNC.

I'm actualy impresed that the 3d printer vice claps hold :))

I have a mini mill and a bench top lathe and they are both fantastic. I cut steel routinely. I can hold half thou tolerances without crazy difficulty and tighter on the super rare occasions I need to. They aren't huge industrial machines, but for a guy in his home shop, they are fantastic.

thak you mini lathes are like buying a used car that you like and making it better

I'm not interested in a product like this where out of the box I'm expected to shim this and level that, and loosen the other thing so I can modify it. Junk out of the box imo

To cut a KEWY WAY: Use an endmill that is smaller than your key. Then cut the keyway to size by gradually increasing the width of the keyway until it is cut to the proper size. You should be able to 0.001 or 0.002 inch tolerance. If you use a nominal size, the key way will be over size because the end mills push off center and thereby cut oversize.