Odd Noise G8689 Mini Mill

[chip maker]

Maybe someone else has had this. I was cutting some dove tails in steel and noticed that I started getting what I would call a lot of like gear noise. I never heard this before doing other milling but wondered if the cutting stress of the dove tails was causing this noise. It almost sounded like gear backlash noise. Didn't seem to affect any thing but did make me wonder if something unforeseen was or is going on that I should be looking into. Any help would be great as I hate to tear into this and find that it is just a normal noise to get used to when doing these kind of cuts. I wasn't forcing the cuts ,was cutting slow and at a fairly slow speed to not damage the cutter and the dove tails came out good. Just not sure about the noise I was hearing from the gears. Thanks:thinking:

 

[kd4gij]

Dove tail cutters do make a noise like you discribe. If you could post a vidio it would help.

 

[chip maker]

It wasn't the cutter making the noise or at least not the one I am concerned about. The Gear noises came from the mill itself. Sounded to me like backlash and well grinding the noise seemed to come and go almost like the load from the cutters would get it going and than again it would be gone for a short time and than return. Still lost as to what would be causing this. I used the mill again today to cut out some slots in the same job and didn't get the odd backlash noise or at least not that I could tell. Thanks Again

 

[ch2co]

Sounds like the cheap *** plastic gears to me. These have always been a problem with these mills. Otherwise I love mine.
Does the noise change when you switch from high to low speed? Shut off the mill and try switching the High-Low lever back and forth a few times,
starting and stopping the mill while not under load each time. Does this change the sound? Run up and down the speed each time.
At first I just ordered a couple of replacement gears, but finally decided to switch over to a belt drive system and have never looked back.
It purrs more like a kitten now. Good luck.

Chuck the Grumpy One