Super drill press - Holy cow!

"....I was assured the weather changes would effect the electronics and they were correct there hasn’t been a single issue with cold or hot temps,..."

Did you mean "...I was assured the weather changes would NOT effect the electronics and they were correct there hasn’t been a single issue with cold or hot temps,...."
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
"....I was assured the weather changes would effect the electronics and they were correct there hasn’t been a single issue with cold or hot temps,..."

Did you mean "...I was assured the weather changes would NOT effect the electronics and they were correct there hasn’t been a single issue with cold or hot temps,...."
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Correct, I went back to edit the first post, apparently my tired brain didn’t do a good job checking what I did or didn’t type.
 
joedhiggins said:
It looks to have a threaded spindle. I have a similar feature on my Clausing press. A matching collar on your jacobs chuck or other MT tooling allows a positive lock under side loads. This obviously limits its use in side load applications to some degree, but from the pictures, it looks like their ER collets use this retaining thread.

I have used the clausing with significant side loads without issue (in the case of my press, the collar is spindle mounted and it uses a jacobs taper with a threaded bit of the chuck for a positive lock), though because you ahve to chuck the bit in, I only have used it for the lightest of hand milling operations (like IFB, corian, etc).
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just looked back over the pics and your right the outside of the spindle is threaded and the inside has an ER taper. kind of neat way to set it up with duel tapers in the spindle and they have an upgraded drill in prototype that might be interesting. not that i need one tho
 
Rhinoknives1 said:
Looks nice, but I’m a tad leery of the computer control. After the two year warranty . Don’t know how expensive or if they will even be available if the board goes out in Say 5 years?
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Wouldn't that be true of any computer control on any piece of hardware? Lathe/mill DROs come to mind right off.
 
I was looking at the machine with my wife yesterday at woodcraft, explaining the features and I had an epiphany!
One feature that separates industrial drill presses from home and small shop units (like this unit) is that the rack for cranking the table up and down is merely held by a grooved collar on each end. It moves to allow swinging the table out of the way. On industrial units it is milled into the column, which is usually square. Unfortunately, the industrial units start in the $400-5000 range.
The round column and sliding rack makes a home shop unit have to be re-centered each time you rack the table up/down. I though of a way around that. If you made collars that fit over the rack and could be locked down tight, you could put one over the rack above and below the table at the high/low movement locations and lock them down tight. Then you could move the table up/down without the rack moving sideways.
I am looking into ordering a pair of split collars to fit the column on my current drill press and milling a keyway in them to fit over the rack. I'll let you guys know how it works out.

On a side note, why don't the manufacturers use square columns on these mid-range units???? I know that the answer is it is cheaper and simpler to do it round.
It would not cost much, if any, more in materials. It would require closer fitting parts (round things can be turned/bored to fit, square things need milled surfaces). I would think making a unit with a square column in the $1500-1800 range would be a big seller.
 
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I've seen a fair share of burnt DC controllers (KBIC originals and chinese clones) they work nice but sooner or later they give out the magic smoke, they are not difficult to repair or replace thou. The cause is usually sudden stops or stalls that kill the electronics if they aren't properly protected (like most VFD are for example)

Hopefully this machine at its price point (not cheap) has addressed these problems

Pablo
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
On a side note, why don't the manufacturers use square columns on these mid-range units???? I know that the answer is it is cheaper and simpler to do it round.
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My partners here in Argentina, are (were... the market is almost gone by now) manufacturers of big drilling machines, the ones that can drill a 2" hole without a hiss. The process starts at the foundry from where they receive the columns and then go to a big ass lathe, not an easy operation, but far easier than their biggest model which has a square column that needs lots of milling.

They also import small drilling machines/lathes/mini mills and they all are DC motor driven, there is always repairs going on on the electronics...

Pablo
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
I was looking at the machine with my wife yesterday at woodcraft, explaining the features and I had an epiphany!
One feature that separates industrial drill presses from home and small shop units (like this unit) is that the rack for cranking the table up and down is merely held by a grooved collar on each end. It moves to allow swinging the table out of the way. On industrial units it is milled into the column, which is usually square. Unfortunately, the industrial units start in the $400-5000 range.
The round column and sliding rack makes a home shop unit have to be re-centered each time you rack the table up/down. I though of a way around that. If you made collars that fit over the rack and could be locked down tight, you could put one over the rack above and below the table at the high/low movement locations and lock them down tight. Then you could move the table up/down without the rack moving sideways.
I am looking into ordering a pair of split collars to fit the column on my current drill press and milling a keyway in them to fit over the rack. I'll let you guys know how it works out.

On a side note, why don't the manufacturers use square columns on these mid-range units???? I know that the answer is it is cheaper and simpler to do it round.
It would not cost much, if any, more in materials. It would require closer fitting parts (round things can be turned/bored to fit, square things need milled surfaces). I would think making a unit with a square column in the $1500-1800 range would be a big seller.
Click to expand...

I don't know about anyone else, but there are times when I need to swing the table left or right, like when drilling odd shaped pieces that have to hang over the side of the table a certain way, or even when drill long pieces that I clamp to the side of the table. Sure, 99% of drilling is done on a centered table, but there are those occasions when you need to swing it one way or another. Either way, I think it's easy enough to center whiling your cranking it up and down, though it might be helpful/useful to have a center line scribed along the length of the column, and a little tick mark on the center of your collar to line the table up every time, so you don't have to eyeball it.
 
In most operations, I agree. But in precise drilling, like center drilling long blocks of wood from both ends, the centering needs to be exact and identical to the one started from the other end. The clamps mentioned would be easily released for swinging the table when necessary.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
I was looking at the machine with my wife yesterday at woodcraft, explaining the features and I had an epiphany!
One feature that separates industrial drill presses from home and small shop units (like this unit) is that the rack for cranking the table up and down is merely held by a grooved collar on each end. It moves to allow swinging the table out of the way. On industrial units it is milled into the column, which is usually square. Unfortunately, the industrial units start in the $400-5000 range.
The round column and sliding rack makes a home shop unit have to be re-centered each time you rack the table up/down. I though of a way around that. If you made collars that fit over the rack and could be locked down tight, you could put one over the rack above and below the table at the high/low movement locations and lock them down tight. Then you could move the table up/down without the rack moving sideways.
I am looking into ordering a pair of split collars to fit the column on my current drill press and milling a keyway in them to fit over the rack. I'll let you guys know how it works out.

On a side note, why don't the manufacturers use square columns on these mid-range units???? I know that the answer is it is cheaper and simpler to do it round.
It would not cost much, if any, more in materials. It would require closer fitting parts (round things can be turned/bored to fit, square things need milled surfaces). I would think making a unit with a square column in the $1500-1800 range would be a big seller.
Click to expand...
If you don't want to spend a few hundred on the collars and want a system that will keep the rack in place, use large pipe clamps and torque them down well. It is a bit less elegant but is saves a ton of money and accomplishes the same thing.

Beware however that you will need to check the rack for parallelism (to the column) every time you loosen/tighten it with either system. Either way, you will never be perfectly lined up after moving the table. I don't know the avg runout in these things, but I guarantee the rack and gear themselves have a few thou of runout.
 
I noticed the Nova metal working drill press is on sale for August. Anyone know if they run these all yhe time?
 
For $2,500 USD$

I can get a used Bridgeport type mill here and get some variable speed and instant reverse with VFD three phase power.

If I just wanted a small dedicated use tool, I'd add an extra pulley or gear to drop the speed and put a tapping head on
 
Numbers, I mostly agree, but the DVR motors are really amazing and have unmatched torque curves. A square column benchtop mill driven by one of these motors would be spectacular. I would buy it right away.
 
That is a cool looking piece of gear, but pricey. But then again, most cool pieces of gear are pricey.
 
jdm61 said:
That is a cool looking piece of gear, but pricey. But then again, most cool pieces of gear are pricey.
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Yes . Obviously only problem is that people love to have ONE tool for ALL job and there is no such thing ....:)
 
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