X1 Mill lifting mechanism

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

the latest MEW #233 has an article describing milling of a 50mm thick block of Al to raise the column – the photographs also appear to show some motorised mechanism to raise + lower the head (any change to tooling usually needs a tedious multirotation of the awkwardly placed handle) – has anyone published any mechanism to do this especially if manual adjustment also is required.
Has anyone used gas struts to oppose some of the mass of the head making raising less of a chore ?

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

[Peter HallParticipant @peterhall61789]

I have 2 X1 mills. I have not done any of the mods you ask about, but I did install a thrust bearing on the rise and fall screw. Still needs tedious multirotation, but essentially removes all effort in turning the wheel, so makes it fast and easy. Did the same to the x and y axes too, with similarly happy results. I can't remember exactly how I did it now, but if you're interested I will try dredging through what passes for my memory these days and give you a how-to.

Pete

[TrevorKParticipant @trevork]

I have fitted a gas strut. In MEW 150 David White describes how to do this. I also fitted a replacement bearing block and bearing to the Z axis from a design by Graham Meek. There are a couple of photos in one of my albums. These two mods have made a dramatic improvement to moving the head but I'd also be interested in motorising the Z axis.

[Peter HallParticipant @peterhall61789]

Yes. I did the X and Y axis bearings to Graham Meek's design.

Pete

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Rich (Firebird) posted about his Z axis feed  over on MEM forum

Edited By JasonB on 10/09/2015 20:59:37

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

is there a ref to Graham Meek’s work please

[Thor 🇳🇴Participant @thor]

Frances, I have sent you a PM.

Thor

[RobboParticipant @robbo]

Nice work by Rich.

He seems to get through a lot of overalls!

[TrevorKParticipant @trevork]

Frances, I have sent you a PM

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

The Myford powered lead screw is written up in ME, which may help anyone wanting to motorise the X1 z-axis.

Neil

P.S. the washing is a major feature of all his project s

[Bernard ReillyParticipant @bernardreilly64467]

Hi all has anyone carried out a similar mod on a Warco WM14 mill which has a very heavy mill head and difficult to access lead screw & hand wheel . No problems on downward direction but a pain in upwards direction as it has a 5 TPI lead screw. Enquires up until now have ruled out a single phase geared motor. I do not have electronic knowledge to take stepper or server motor route.

Thank you all B Reilly Glasgow

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

'Hi all has anyone carried out a similar mod on a Warco WM14 mill which has a very heavy mill head and difficult to access lead screw & hand wheel' Would be interested to see method & maybe adapt to fit WM16… George.

Edited By mechman48 on 11/09/2015 12:50:02

Edited By mechman48 on 11/09/2015 12:50:31

[Bob RodgersonParticipant @bobrodgerson97362]

ThoseOveralls remind me of certain scenes in "Breaking Bad"

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Hmmm… seem to have got my 'quote' editing screwed up… but you get my drift.

[Author]

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