PM-932M-PDF experience

Is this strut used for lifting car rear doors? I went on amazon and looked at lifting struts.
 
hgneese3rd said:
Is this strut used for lifting car rear doors? I went on amazon and looked at lifting struts.
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That is a **Traction** gas spring, it's different than the normal gas spring. The **traction** gas spring "pulls" rather than pushes. It acts like the ones you see on a typical screen door (which aids in pulling the door closed). Where the normal gas spring aids in pushing the car hood or hatch up.

I took the part number off the picture and searched on Amazon and found it pretty easy and ordered the exact same one. I have not installed mine yet but expect it will work great..Good luck with yours!!
 
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ajmacdon said:
So this was a super helpful thread as I considered a new mill. I ended up with the PM 932 as well and am quite happy so far. No major grit in mine, just a light wash with kerosene and complete re-lube and I was good to go.

As I started to use it I struggled with the quill backlash as well so stole the OP's great spring idea but modified it slightly. I got a puller gas strut from Amazon and replaced the silly drill press depth gauge with the strut. I spec'd 40lb pull but probably would pick 30 if ordering again.

I had to drill out the hole in the bottom of the gearbox to allow the body to partially pass through. That is also the support, there was no need to make an upper attachment, I just used a die grinder to make a ledge for the body of the strut to sit on. Out of gas on the tig today so used the mig glue gun to ugly effect on the adapter.

Works great, no more sudden 0.050" drops and jumps.

Alex



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By using this strut did it make lowering quill harder?
 
I have learned so many things about the 932 that I didn't know. Unfortunately almost all of it wasn't good. I will now go check my machine to see if some of the problems outlined here. One thing I didn't see anyone discuss is problems with the table. I recently purchased a Kurt vise. Available for Kurt vises are alignment keys to position the vise perfectly on the mill table. I thought about making some but I'm a novice in the machining world and based on what they do I decided to buy them from Kurt to make sure they were perfect. They arrived today and I took them right out to install them on the vise and table. to my surprise they wouldn't fit between the ways. Precision Matthew's information on the machine said the ways are 14 mm. The keys I ordered were 14 mm. I measured the keys and they both measured 14 and 16 mm respectively as advertised. I measured the spacing between the ways and and all of them measured under 14 mm. The largest opening I found was 13.85 mm down to 13.31 the best I could measure. That's bad but it's not the worse problem with this story. I called Precision Matthews and talked to someone in their technical help area. The representative I talked didn't address the incorrect spacing between the ways other than to say most of them are not correct but are usually larger than smaller. His advice was to mill the sides of the keys down to make them fit. I'm really not too comfortable doing that again based on what they are supposed to do aligning the vise on the table. Since these keys square the vise to the table and none of the ways measured the same there is now way I could position the vise accurately in another place.
Like I said I'm very new to machining and was not comfortable making such a critical piece much less modify the ones I purchased. I'm not sure what to do now and am looking for advice from this group about the best way to proceed. In the mean time I'll be opening up some areas of my machine to check for the problems I learned about here.
 
LOL welcome the biggist problem with the Asian rim machinery. The quality sucks.
 
I think you'll discover the Kurt vise keys are hardened - not a milling project I would take on lightly and certainly not one for a novice. You need specialize carbide end mills to cut that stuff. I think your choices are limited. You could certainly machine the T-slots to a consistent 14mm, but that too is not a job for a novice. You could make your own keys from low carbon steel, or just do without and tram the vice when you move it.
 
Actually, that's exactly what I was thinking. Besides I can use the experience. Thanks for your input.
 
COMachinist said:
LOL welcome the biggist problem with the Asian rim machinery. The quality sucks.
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Not necessarily. Depends on the distributor's specs and where the machines are sourced from. Taiwan is certainly better than China. I think you may have meant Pacific rim, which would also include Japan.
 
I read the OP and now know some things to look at for problems. Does this group have any advice on other important areas to check for hidden problems. I've had this machine for 9 months but due to some back problems have not had the opportunity to use it very much. Therefore I'm hoping no damage has been done and now I have the chance to check everything out. I had no idea new machinery would need to inspected for hidden issues. Maybe I'm naive, but glad I now have the chance to inspect for it trouble areas.
 
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