Getting a little more Y travel, looking for some additional ideas

WobblyHand

WobblyHand

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Have a PM25MV with DRO. I am finding with a 4" vise mounted in the middle table slot, I don't have a lot of usable Y travel, maybe 4". The back of the vise hits the accordion and the DRO shield hits the SHCS that mounts the accordion bracket. So I was thinking of removing the accordion and replacing it with a sheet of rubber hanging from the top accordion mount point. I think this would eliminate both of my issues. I might pick up close to an inch of Y, which would help a lot.

Has anyone done something similar? Are there any the downsides of this? What do I need to look out for? Anything else I could try?
 
Give it a whirl, what's the worst that can happen?
 
DavidR8 said:
Give it a whirl, what's the worst that can happen?
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Only it being a time suck and the end result is awful. Was really trying to find out if it was a BAD idea. Or if I was missing something really obvious. Seems like I could pick up some travel.
 
Not going to hurt anything and if you gain something , go for it . :encourage: Most of the time , the accordian thing cracks up over time anyway and the chips still get behind it making it harder to clean .
 
Would you gain any by mounting the vise in the first slot?
 
John O said:
Would you gain any by mounting the vise in the first slot?
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Good idea. I think I tried that, and found the middle slot gave the most usable travel for objects in the vise. But I will check again, to be sure. Definitely worth a try.
 
I was able to gain a 4.6 extra inches of x axis travel on my RF30 clone by cutting clearance in the base for the left side bearing housing. I don't often need that extra travel but when I do it's nice to have it. I made an extension for the left hand crank to take advantage of the extra travel.
Mill Extension .JPG
My 12" RT overhangs the table at the rear and I lost about 1/2" of travel as a result. Removing the mounting screws for the way shield and dropping the way shield gave me back full travel.
 
May be making an adaptor plate for the vice so that it can take up any positions instead of limited to the locations of the slots ? or switching to other types of vices that do not have fixed mounting holes.

For the DRO, may be slimming down the shield in some ways ? If the slot of the scale is facing down ( should be ), there may not be any need for the shield. On my mill I mounted the X-axis scale at the front in order not to affect the range of Y travel.
 
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No harm removing the accordion and going with sheet rubber. My Bridgeport has a wide flap of rubber with a wooden dovetail on the top of the knee (mod by the previous owner). When I clean chips, I never have any on the top of the knee; works well.

Bruce
 
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