# Anyone own a PM-1030V lathe or PM-25MV mill?



## Steven57 (Dec 17, 2014)

Bought these in 2013 and am just starting to use them. I know I know. Looking for tips, suggestions, mods, general help.


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## NoobCanuk (Oct 20, 2016)

Hi Steven.  Unfortunately I can't offer any helpful advice yet.   I'm in the same boat as you.  Just got my 1030v close to a year ago.  I'm working on learning threading myself right now.  Not quite as easy as youtube makes it look.  But time and patience is about the only thing I can suggest.   Keep at it and hopefully we can both learn new things on our equipment.


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## shooter123456 (Oct 25, 2016)

I took delivery of a 1030v at the beginning of August and I only have about 100 hours on it so take it with a grain of salt.

My biggest issue has been with the change gears.  There seems to be a design flaw there where the fit between the gears and bushings is very very tight and the bushings are made of a very soft metal. I found anything more than light pressure getting the bushings in and out of the gears would deform the bushings and cause the shafts that go through the bushings would bind.  So the first thing I would do is get some sandpaper and files and make sure you can slide the bushings into gears without a ton of resistance.

My lathe was pretty well adjusted from the get go, but it needed a bit of tweaking. The lead screw for my compound is a standard 60 degree thread instead of an acme thread and the compound gibs contact face looked like tree bark. Needless to say, smooth travel wasnt easy. Ill be making an acme lead screw for it at some point and ill probably make a brass gib. The cross slide ways on mine were scraped so dont mess with those unless you know what you're doing.

The chuck cover kept sagging and getting hit by the chuck so I just took it off.  I know its a safety feature but I have to imagine a chuck spinning a 1000 rpm getting a cover caught in it is probably more dangerous than chips. 

It took me more chuck changes than I will admit to before I realized the right way to swap chucks. Just loosen the nuts on the back and rotate the plate then pull through. If you take the nuts all the way off less than 6 times, you are ahead of me already.

I havent entirely figured out how to adjust the tailstock correcly because sometimes tightening the bolts pushes it and sometimes it pulls it. 

If you are coming from a machine like a 7x12 you will realize there is a threading lever and a power feed lever. The big one on the bottom is for threading and the little one on top is for the power feed. Dont power feed with the threading lever and power crossfeed with the top lever. The top lever feeds both. 

Thats all I can think of at the moment. I hope it helps.  I did a lot of work with it on a suppressor and can tell you it is capable of excellent work.


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## Iceman (Oct 30, 2016)

I have the PM-25. Handy little mill - still learning what it's limits are. Right now I have a 40 pound piece of A36 steel on the slab fly cutting 2.5" diameter with nice quite operation and great surface finish.

I had no issues with the nod (good front to back), but I needed to adjust the tilt of the head to tram (13 thousandths with an 8" swing on my DTI side to side). 

I see people talk about the tramming aids, basically blocks they add to the side of the head to help precisely adjust the tilt. 
I just slowly loosened the bolts a small bit at a time, and with a small soft piece of wood as a buffer and a brass hammer gently tapped the side until it started to move ever so slightly, took about 6 cycles of tapping and swinging the DTI to get it to read within .001" of each side - close enough that it won't really be the tram that induces the error but rather the lack of rigidity in the mill.

To keep that to a minimum - I am careful to keep my depth of cut on the low side of what should be possible and take it relatively slow. I guess the metal will tell you if it likes what you are doing.


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## LEM (Oct 31, 2016)

I just bought the PM25mv.  Shipped fast and arrived in great condition.  Trammed up very easily with tramming aid.  Was only out .005 side to side.  Front to back was only out .0005.  Can't get much better then that.  Belt drive much better then plastic gears.  Has plenty of power with 1hp dc motor 700W.  Paint is chipping off in certain places.  Some other fit and finish things but nothing serious.  The dovetail on the y axis was dented on the edge.  I was able to file it off so it works smoothly now.  The power drive on the x axis is not real high quality and it does not have a limit switch.  I also had to take it apart, adjust the gears and adjust the clutch.  They probably need to upgrade this part.  Mine came with a drill chuck.  Matt told me they shouldn't have sent it as they are supposed to take them out and throw them away as they are of poor quality.  Does not matter to me as I bought a high quality one from Shars.  The milling package is pretty good I would recommend that you buy a better vice.  QM sells a better one.  The only thing I wish I had done differently.  Tech support is in a word terrific.  I sent Matt and Greg emails and Matt even answered on Saturday.  My questions were answered quickly and problems solved.  After much research I think this is the best choice for this size mill of all the choices out there.  Variable speed, 3 axis DRO, power feed, digital readout on quill..  What more could one ask for.  Side note:  I have not checked column to spindle alignment.  Not sure how to adjust it but I have a machinist coming over with shims and is going to check the whole thing over.  More to follow.


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## Iceman (Nov 1, 2016)

+1 amazing customer support. I am in the process of engineering a powerfeed for the x axis. Controlling it with an Arduino - inexpensive, and probably way overkill.

So some people discount these smaller machines when it comes to working on large heavy steel.

12x12x1 A36 fly cutting top surface - this will become the base of a home built cold saw.

Fly cut:





Sanded - Dry 220, oil/wet 330 orbital sander (how basic is that)





It just takes some careful planning, and willingness to plan your moves/ set up. Not saying I wouldn't have a full size Bridgeport - but, for the size, and how low the noise output is, it is a dream. 

and, as always - my images upload 90* anti-clockwise.

-IM


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## wrmiller (Nov 1, 2016)

There are always people out there who stick their nose up in the air over anything they don't approve of. Ignore them. It just pisses them off...


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## Subwayrocket (Nov 29, 2016)

Iceman said:


> 12x12x1 A36 fly cutting top surface - this will become the base of a home built cold saw.
> 
> Fly cut:
> View attachment 138460
> ...


 How is that cold saw coming along ?  I have a Dewalt DW872 saw . It's decent , but the base is nothing spectacular. I have thought about making a more solid base like you've got started there . Looks good !


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## Iceman (Nov 30, 2016)

Subwayrocket said:


> How is that cold saw coming along ?  I have a Dewalt DW872 saw . It's decent , but the base is nothing spectacular. I have thought about making a more solid base like you've got started there . Looks good !




Slowly. So here is what happened,

After fly cutting that A36 I decided the mill needed a power feed. So I started fabrication. I got to the motor selection and determined I wanted to test a few of the motors I have for performance. So I am building a prony dyno.  Normal people would buy a scale. I bought a basic strain bridge and am building the scale element. Almost got it dialed in. I'm using a uC32 chip kit board. I'm going to use a banner retro reflective sensor to count RPM's, and should be able to have the uC32 perform all of the math and spit out torque while I measure voltage and current draw of the motors. I have a 65:1 van door motor which is overkill - just want to know all of the motor specs and verify the real world performance.

Yea - turns out I'm "that guy".






Oh and I also built a holder for my ER collets because it was driving me nuts having them roll around in the drawer.






It's amazing how we get side tracked. No shortage of projects. The cold saw is still happening - just a bit slowly. I really should make build threads and maybe show the design of the prony dyno for others to follow.

-IM


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