(Micro-Mark Mega Mini R8) Milling machine for fabricating parts... advice needed.

Am very seriously looking into acquiring the Micro-Mark Mega Mini R8 Milling machine Super Package. I have a list of simple adapters that I want to make. Have never used a Milling Machine before, but I am very handy and resourceful. Up to now have been making metal adapters from aluminum stock for years by hand, but this way is very slow to say the least, and not all that precise by far. Plus aluminum no wheres as "solid" as steel. Threaded aluminum works but doesn't stand up to continuous use, and an accessory shoe's male counterpart when made of aluminum far from being useable without bending in little time. Distinct possibility of taking an adult Ed course in (metal) "Machine Shop" locally, which would be a real plus. Am not looking to adapt barrel lenses to shutters... will leave that S K Grimes. My adapters are simple constructional configurations with usually only 3/8" or 1/4" female threads included.

Currently have a Horseman bellows lenshood that I would like to adapt to my Sinar X and Chamonix cameras. Have seen images of the adapters to make this so, but the adapters look to me to be beyond being manually fabricated. Using a milling machine I believe a must for fabricating these adapters. Also use a Nikon Multiphot whose some accessory parts are seemingly non existent, but look to be quite easy fabrications. These Multiphot parts require tolerances way more accurate than what I can do with a hand file.

So.... hopefully am looking for advice. Hopefully some forum members have some experience with fabricating metal parts.

Thanks

Take the class first

The Micro looks neat

Lifelong paid hacker of metals, flame cut, any type welding, big and small machine shop work, some very accurate adapters for high speed Dyno testing

But I now get a lot done with a cheap drill press, and many thread taps with correct drill bits.

Anything you make just needs to work, beauty is overrated

Another one to look at is the Jet Hobby Milling Machine.

Definitely worth taking a class before spending the money.

Start checking out the modelers forums and buy something that people get along with and has a good track record, the hobby market is full of badly designed / manufactured mills and drills due to established western companies getting involved with overseas manufacturers then re-badging lower priced equipment. It is all very good getting a reasonable warranty period but not so good if you have to return the machine time after time.

The things I would be wanting to know are:

1. What kind of motor - Brushed or brushless?

2. What kind of gearing - belt, geared and if geared nylon or metal?

3. How exactly does the speed controller work, does it govern? Is it just a potentiometer wired to simple electronics, or is it digital with PWM and PID?

4. What is the bed accuracy?

5. How powerful is it?

Hope this helps:
http://www.siegind.com/product_detai...857815262.html


Good luck!

Yes the class is mandatory for at least 3 reasons

1 You will learn safety first, I was on a factory response team, seen plenty of terrible accidents. Some were not accidents.

2 You will learn a lot very quickly.

3 Your classmates may be expert or just starting like you, but they all want to know what machine to buy.

The one just recommended looks like my $150 drill press with a geared table, not a good Mill, but a low grade drill press.

In other words, have about a thousand bucks set aside for anything new, and leave bargain hunting for used options. And that's for miniature gear. Precision drill presses start around $2000. Cheap ones don't have precise run-out and wobble too much for serious work. But I made due with an old industrial large floor press a friend parked in my shop because he didn't have room. Small presses can be downright dangerous for cutting big holes in metal lensboards etc.

A far better forum is https://www.practicalmachinist.com/ and a member here moderates there.


I have 2 Unimats which I don't recommend as they are all old now. One is set up as Mill and the other as Lathe, they are convertible.

Here is the guru of Unimat. I have bought parts from him. http://unimat.homestead.com/
,
I also have 2 of these Watchmakers' Lathes - USA, but I don't make or repair watches.

None of it is for sale.

The first lathe I was used was freshman HS a massive automatic taper lathe for making cannons. I made slot car wheels on it.

I could have had any number of big industrial lathes and milling machine cheap when the shipyards closed around here. But all the necessary supplementary tooling would have been quite expensive. You have to factor that in, plus good measuring gear. It's often better to have a connection to a fully equipped machinist who will accept small projects. Some kinds of material are amenable to newer relatively affordable CNC milling.

Being about 60 miles from Bridgeport, I'd think this stuff would rub off on you, Greg (?). Being able to do 3/8 or 1/4 inch threads requires v. little knowledge....but taking a class would certainly help. Bridgeport milling machine used to be THE item to get for this kind of work (could be an overkill). My machinist converted his into CNC and the accuracy is around 1/10,000". Yes, accuracy is very important and the heavier machines tend to deliver this. I've done some projects on the lathe and milling machine in HS (Vo-tech orientation), but I also know that more stuff/tools is needed to get great results. Wonder if there is a place where you can experience this machinery.....like a showroom ? Yes, the more hands-on, the better your results. Safety...or shall I say anything that rotates with some serious HP...always requires respect (my mo).

Les

Before you buy any machinery of your own, you might see if there are any "maker spaces" in your area where you can --usually for a fee, but sometimes for free -- get time on various machine tools to turn your ideas into tangible things.

Although this does impose some limitations on when you can do the work and for how long you can monopolize any machine tool in one go, it's a great way to gain some experience, especially as most such spaces offer training and usually have other members around who can answer your questions.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Greg

Am very seriously looking into acquiring the Micro-Mark Mega Mini R8 Milling machine Super Package. I have a list of simple adapters that I want to make. Have never used a Milling Machine before, but I am very handy and resourceful. Up to now have been making metal adapters from aluminum stock for years by hand, but this way is very slow to say the least, and not all that precise by far. Plus aluminum no wheres as "solid" as steel. Threaded aluminum works but doesn't stand up to continuous use, and an accessory shoe's male counterpart when made of aluminum far from being useable without bending in little time. Distinct possibility of taking an adult Ed course in (metal) "Machine Shop" locally, which would be a real plus. Am not looking to adapt barrel lenses to shutters... will leave that S K Grimes. My adapters are simple constructional configurations with usually only 3/8" or 1/4" female threads included.

Currently have a Horseman bellows lenshood that I would like to adapt to my Sinar X and Chamonix cameras. Have seen images of the adapters to make this so, but the adapters look to me to be beyond being manually fabricated. Using a milling machine I believe a must for fabricating these adapters. Also use a Nikon Multiphot whose some accessory parts are seemingly non existent, but look to be quite easy fabrications. These Multiphot parts require tolerances way more accurate than what I can do with a hand file.

So.... hopefully am looking for advice. Hopefully some forum members have some experience with fabricating metal parts.

Thanks

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I think you need to do more research on hobby mills before dropping dimes on that Micromark mill, LMS
has a very similar mill with slightly larger table on the Y axis ( front to back ) but sans the table power feed
that Micromark includes in the package for about the same price.
https://www.micromark.com/Milling-Machine-R8-500W
https://littlemachineshop.com/produc...ory=1387807683

Shipping can also be a deal breaker on machine tools.

Bear in mind buying a milling machine whether it's from Micro Mark, Little Machine Shop or Grizzly and every vendor
in between them is going to be about the same ( made in the same factories, re badged, different importer manufacturing tolerances ).
It'll come down to what's the best bang for the buck in terms of capacity and accuracy, too small a mill and you'll out grow it quickly
and there is never a mill that's too big. The same goes for lathes.
Don't be swayed too much by "package" deals, the only thing I see in the Micromark package that's of good value is
the power feed for the table, you'll do much better by purchasing a better / larger capacity mill and getting the accessories separately.

As the saying goes - You can make little things on a little machine but not big things on little machines ;)

In regards to aluminum, there are different alloys of aluminum, if your parts are not holding up
to use then I would look into getting aluminum from places that will give you specs on that alloy.
Home improvement big box stores are the worst place to get aluminum, it's practically dead soft and gummy when machined.
McMaster is a good place to start since they carry high strength 7075 aluminum.
I have a tooling plate that's 6061 aluminum that I use on my smaller mill and I have no issues
with the threaded holes in it, other than getting chips and cutting fluid gumming up the holes.

You may want to take a look at the series of video's MIT put out a few years ago for freshmen
working in the machine shop.You might be able to save a few bucks for milling accessories
rather than going to a class.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...DN3g6ZgaM0tbk7

JimC

First off... Thanks for all the feedback, please keep it coming.

Locally finding an adult Ed classes in metal working came quickly to a dead end. Was told that they ceased to exist a while back for reasons of Insurance "Liability". 3D Printing classes seem to be taking their places. The LittleMachineShop.com HiTorque Mini Mill looks interesting, will take a look. Looks like I will be spending the next few days viewing 5+ hours of those MIT videos.

Via
https://www.practicalmachinist.com/
found
http://www.mini-lathe.com/Mini_mill/Main/mini-mill.htm
which contains a lot of pertinent information. Right now considering the Micro Mark (Microlux) R8 Mill and the Grizzly Mini Mill G8689. They look to be essentially the same basic machine. Am giving myself a month to decide wether to acquire a Milling Machine or not. Will post how things go.

thanks
Greg

Insurance companies have extremely good reasons to shun co-ops and art colonies with equipment. There are plenty of horror stories; and I've seen more than my fair share of cripples.

We had a rule at my work

Count your fingers in the morning and count again when home

I saw many intentional machine 'accidents' I was on the response team, Medical, Fire and Hazmat. I also saw spontaneous fire, heart attack and one guy drilling the web of his hand, it wound up the bit, with little real damage. looked real painful...punch press do ruin hands...

But my crew of 14 never

Too bad about the classes, a big mistake losing our machine tool teaching ability

Agree with Jim about the MIT videos. The practices (and safety tips) prepares folks for real world machining. However, theory should be aligned with practice (if possible)....and hands-on classes help. I do recall my instructor giving students demerits in regard to machine shop safety: having loose sleeves for instance, longer hair, etc.....no doubt, that any sort of incident related to that could change one's afternoon....if not life.

Les

We had people enforcing the rules at my workplace too. I was one of them. Then all the young guys breathed a sigh of relief when all us old grumps finally retired. I returned to visit a month later, and a new hire had severed off the fingers on one hand with a power saw the previous day. They got sucked into the vac system and took three days to find, so not good odds surgically.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Greg

First off... Thanks for all the feedback, please keep it coming.

Locally finding an adult Ed classes in metal working came quickly to a dead end. Was told that they ceased to exist a while back for reasons of Insurance "Liability". 3D Printing classes seem to be taking their places. The LittleMachineShop.com HiTorque Mini Mill looks interesting, will take a look. Looks like I will be spending the next few days viewing 5+ hours of those MIT videos.

Via
https://www.practicalmachinist.com/
found
http://www.mini-lathe.com/Mini_mill/Main/mini-mill.htm
which contains a lot of pertinent information. Right now considering the Micro Mark (Microlux) R8 Mill and the Grizzly Mini Mill G8689. They look to be essentially the same basic machine. Am giving myself a month to decide wether to acquire a Milling Machine or not. Will post how things go.

thanks
Greg

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Any class these days will be oriented towards the latest and greatest. 3D printing, CNC.
None will teach you to work with your hands and use your gray matter. It all relies on
what the you do with the software and software tells the machine what to do.

Practical Machinist is very swayed towards big iron, American, German, Swiss machines
they don't allow discussions about made in China machines, those get shut down quick.
You may want to try The Home Shop Machinist, there are many discussions pertaining to
such machines and everything in between.

I know that you're looking towards a very small lightweight mill, but you can also window shop
at Precision Matthews, their offerings are on the bigger side, and again seems like the same factory
that supplies Grizzly supplies them and others.

Good luck on your mill purchasing decision.

JimC

From my experience as live steam builder, plan that you will need as much money for accessories as the price of the machine. Stuff like clamps, milling vices, parallels, collets etc.

The guys at Practical Machinist can be more than a tad prickly.
You'll find a friendlier lot at https://www.hobby-machinist.com/forums/

I learned to use machine tools in a college lab class; that was a long while ago and I couldn't operate one now without a substantial refresher. Maybe youtube videos help. Nevertheless, my two cents are that engineering (design of) the parts you want to make is also a key component to success. A copy of "Machinery's Handbook" is the classic reference for various material properties and constructions (like, deciding size and how many threads one needs to put in fittings).

A couple of the issues that you mention with aluminum such as damaged threading, and bending accessory shoe feet (if I understood correctly) may also be addressed with design - for example, size of thread relative to the load. There are a lot of flash units with plastic feet - of course they can be broken, but I'd think it is possible to make a sturdy shoe foot out of aluminum, depending on the load.

Don't forget that McMaster Carr sell metal in all kinds, in many sizes. Study the online catalog.

I have bought large dowel rounds cut by them at 1". Accurately, they stock them. Huge Chicago area warehouse.

At my old shop i could exactly specify big sheets of steel already cut to almost any size. Like !' ground flat 36x72" and delivered to my corner. Outside vender. Which became our welding table, after we welded a base for it.

We also had a metal shear that could cut 1/4" 4X8 ft sheets into tiny pieces or in 1/2 with a bang.

Loading that monster with a full sheet was a one man job with power hoist and one clamp.

Gotta know how and I never was a strong man, finesse did it.

Followup on the original post:

Considered the Micro Mark, Grizzly, and LittleMachineShop's mini mills. Evidently all are made by the same parent company in China but to different specs. In the end chose the LittleMachineShop's 3990 HiTorque Mini Mill, but I'm quite sure that the other two would have also worked for me. Having a tilting column just didn't seem necessary. More robust construction of the 3990 was a plus. Also decided to include their 4858 Tooling Package, included 95% of the accessories that I would ever need. Added in a few more accessories from Grizzly. Also ordered some Multipurpose 6061 Aluminum bar stock from McMaster-Carr for my first fabrications.

Seriously considered the alternative of just plain having the fabrications (that I wanted) made by a local machine shop, but two price quotes almost exceeded the total purchase price of the 3990 Milling Machine, including shipping.

Milling machine along with 2 boxes arrived securely strapped together on a wooden pallet. Was delivered at the bottom of our very steep driveway, fortunately the delivery person was agreeable to the both of us hauling it up the driveway into our garage. The milling machine weighed in at 120 pounds + but was very top heavy and awkward to lift. With the help of my son and a friend was able to get it into the cellar and onto its dedicated workbench.

Workbench is sturdy, but will still have to secure it to the back concrete wall. Since I have only wood working experience, father was a self employed carpenter and taught me a lot, will start to mill with some blocks of PVC that I have lying around to get used of using the machine's controls. Should be interesting.... The micrometer sized tolerances and measurements are so different than working with wood.

Good to hear.

Checked the website and they cannot state a date of availability

I wonder if prices will rise OR fall by summer

Keep us posted!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tin Can

Good to hear.

Checked the website and they cannot state a date of availability

I wonder if prices will rise OR fall by summer

Keep us posted!

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I think that they just held a winter sale, and all their units were sold out. Was very impressed with the wooden shipping container it came in, was actually quite over constructed in my opinion. Was very impressed by the Company and most certainly will be ordering items from them again in the future.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Greg

Followup on the original post:
Milling machine along with 2 boxes arrived securely strapped together on a wooden pallet. Was delivered at the bottom of our very steep driveway, fortunately the delivery person was agreeable to the both of us hauling it up the driveway into our garage.

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Every hobbyist/craftsman should have a pallet jack.

Glad to hear you purchased a mill, metal working tolerances can be as accurate as you want to work in.