Tips For Owners Of Rong Fu Rf-20, Rf-25, Rf-30, Rf-31 Mill/drills

[GreatOldOne]

Thanks so much for sharing -- especially the photos. Here are a few questions:

1. What is the diameter of the shaft and radial bearing? And are the shaft and bearing Thomson? Can you give us an idea of the cost?

2. How did you attach the blue angle iron that holds the bearing support block to the rear of the mill?

3. Any chance we can get a few photos showing the back of the mill with the blue angle iron?

4. What type of scales did you use for your TouchDRO. Have you been happy with the results?

Glad you're enjoying your mods!

1. It's 25mm diameter precision ground linear shaft, with a matching 25mm linear bearing in an aluminium pillow block. They're not Thompson branded - I'm in the UK, and wouldn't know where to get it from. I got what I used from an outfit called Zapp Automation:

http://www.zappautomation.co.uk/mec...ound-rail-385/sfc25-precision-round-rail.html
http://www.zappautomation.co.uk/sma25uu-linear-bearing-with-housing.html

I used 600mm of the round rail, so with tax and shipping it cost me £52. I'm sure similar parts could be sourced in the States for similar or lower cost.

2. & 3.
The blue angle iron is something I saved from the scrap pile when they replaced the lifts at work. It already had some slots and holes drilled / cut into it, and I reused these. The slots went toward the head casting, and the holes went toward the aluminium block the bearing was mounted on.







M10 bolts where used with washers - the bolt heads on the casting where turned down so as not to interfere with the motor mounting plate. The head and bearing block was drilled and tapped appropriately (M10 x1.5). The slots allowed it to self align once everything was assembled, and then they where tightened up.

4. I've used iGauging style scales that are available in the UK from http://www.arceurotrade.co.uk. I believe you can get them from various sources in the US. Yes, I'm very happy with it - once I'd moved from the MSP430 based interface to the Arduino based one, and used the custom sketch that is available from a guy called Rysiu M on the Touch DRO forums. I found that the MSP version a pain in the ass to upgrade when new firmware was published, as there's no Mac based firmware flasher available from Texas Instruments - that and I could never get the tach to work on it. Moving to an arduino based one allowed my to update the sketches without jumping through hoops, and the tach works. I was so impressed with it I built a second one for my lathe, and built another two for a friend.

 

[rick9345]

Quite feat turning a drill press into a mini mill.

 

[KenS]

1. It's 25mm diameter precision ground linear shaft, with a matching 25mm linear bearing in an aluminium pillow block...

Thanks so much for the additional information. This will be very valuable when I do the mods on my mill/drill.

 

[atlas ten]

Lots of good info here. I don't have much to add. I do like to keep a little pressure on the quill lock while feeding to stop any backlash from happening.
Jack

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk

 

[hrc118]

Awesome work!!!

 

[rbottos]

the taiwanese manufactured mill drills are very capable machines. Mine is my old mill replaced with a pm pm25v mill.
It was complete with sony dro's , kurt swivel vise, vertex 6" super spacer, align power feed, tooling , ETC. Actually made an extension for the pm 25mv mill to raise it 9 inches on the rong fu rf-30. It is too heavy for me to handle the components any more.

 

[Silverbullet]

Cuppa Joe , was one of the first YouTube videos I ever watched. In fact he was starting his side bar build then. He added about a hundred pounds of plate on top. He stuck with it too.

 

[KenS]

As the OP in this thread, I have just become aware of a Rong Fu Mill/Drill stabilization alternative now under development in Australia.

The project evolves in the following three threads, with the actual True-Line 88 product revealed in the fourth.

Rong Fu RF-30 Protoype Stabilizer -- Part 1....

Rong Fu RF-30 Protoype Stabilizer -- Part 2...

Rong Fu RF-30 Protoype Stabilizer -- Part 3...


And the soon-to-be-released True-Line 88...

I have no financial interest in this, and am only interested in the concept as an RF-30 owner.

It will be interesting to hear your comments.

 

[mikey]

Very interesting idea. It looks like the rear handle for the down feed needs to be removed. I would be interested in this for my RF-31, especially if they can show us how repeatable/accurate the positioning is. This device, like others of similar ilk, removes the one big disadvantage to a round column mill.

Thanks for bringing it to our attention, Ken.

 

[Silverbullet]

May not hold exact zero but I bet its close . If you mills trammed in and isn't off it should be within a few thou max.