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

  1. #11

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Greg View Post
    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
    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

  2. #12

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

    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

  3. #13
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: (Micro-Mark Mega Mini R8) Milling machine for fabricating parts... advice needed.

    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.

  4. #14
    Tin Can's Avatar
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    Re: (Micro-Mark Mega Mini R8) Milling machine for fabricating parts... advice needed.

    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
    Tin Can

  5. #15
    Les
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    Re: (Micro-Mark Mega Mini R8) Milling machine for fabricating parts... advice needed.

    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

  6. #16
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: (Micro-Mark Mega Mini R8) Milling machine for fabricating parts... advice needed.

    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.

  7. #17

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    Nov 2007
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    Re: (Micro-Mark Mega Mini R8) Milling machine for fabricating parts... advice needed.

    Quote Originally Posted by Greg View Post
    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
    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

  8. #18

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    Nov 2017
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    Re: (Micro-Mark Mega Mini R8) Milling machine for fabricating parts... advice needed.

    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.
    Expert in non-working solutions.

  9. #19

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    Dec 2013
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    Re: (Micro-Mark Mega Mini R8) Milling machine for fabricating parts... advice needed.

    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/

  10. #20

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    Jan 2019
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    Re: (Micro-Mark Mega Mini R8) Milling machine for fabricating parts... advice needed.

    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.

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