Weiss E3 milling machine

1.5 watt motor- must be the energy saver model
LOL just kidding
Without seeing the torque curve you really don't know how it would perform in the real world
 
Sure, but torque is just one factor among so many, and a pretty easy characteristic to get right by a manufacturer, as electric motors are probably the most comoditized item, economies of scale are available.

I'm more concerned about things like spindle runnout, and tolerances (departure from straightness, squareness) for each axis.


1.5 watt motor- must be the energy saver model
LOL just kidding
Without seeing the torque curve you really don't know how it would perform in the real world
 
Sure, but torque is just one factor among so many, and a pretty easy characteristic to get right by a manufacturer, as electric motors are probably the most comoditized item, economies of scale are available.

I'm more concerned about things like spindle runnout, and tolerances (departure from straightness, squareness) for each axis.
Hopefully that's a typo, 1.5 watts is 0.002011533 HP. Probably more like 1.5 kilowatts which is almost exactly to 2hp.

Are you thinking about buying direct from China? Do you have a price yet?

What features are attractive to you with this one that aren't available on something like a PM-30?

John
 
The quoted price is $2590 USD shipping included.

I didn't see any feature on the E3 that could not be gotten with PM-30 or PM-727V

The attractive feature is the price ! But PM does have more "happy customer stories" out there. I'm trying to decide.

I also got dirt cheap quotes for a ZAY7045 mill from another chinese supplier (which seems to be what PM-932 is).

Stefan Gotteswinter has done interesting things to improve his ZAY7045 like mill, it wouldn't be dramatic if I had to do that.

So either I go with a more expensive mill "no tunnig required", or I pay less and have to tiker. As I'm a hobbyist, I'd probably be happy with either scenarios.

I'm trying to decide !


Hopefully that's a typo, 1.5 watts is 0.002011533 HP. Probably more like 1.5 kilowatts which is almost exactly to 2hp.

Are you thinking about buying direct from China? Do you have a price yet?

What features are attractive to you with this one that aren't available on something like a PM-30?

John
 
"no tuning required"

Sorry to hijack just a little but you raise an implicit question there that has just popped into my head when reading another thread.

Are PM's Chinese mills (and lathes for that matter) significantly more plug 'n play than say the Grizzly equivalents?

Obviously there'll be adjustments to make, and tuning to do on any factory fresh machine tool that has been on a container ship for a few weeks and then in a haulier's truck and we're not talking the 7x14's or mini mills here (PM don't sell those anyway) but are PM's offerings of a notably higher fit and finish, out of the box, than say a Grizzly equivalent?

I know you won't know necessarily, but I expect someone should be able to give a reasonably confident reply.
 
By "tunning", I meant things like scraping dovetails, gibs, redoing a quill lock, re boring bores, "creative tweaking", etc.

Perhaps I should have used the word "correcting". I use the word "adjustments for the thing you describe (English is my second language).

Not only do I expect to tune/adjust a new machine, I expect to do it every once in a while, after cleanup, etc.

So, what I meant was that I wouldn't mind having to do a bit of scraping, or doing more exotic/creative "corrections" with moglice, etc. IF the price is significantly lower. The ZAY7045 seems like the candidate mill for "user upgrades".

Of course "corrections" have their limit. A ZAY7045 will never "become" a Shaublin Bévillard 13 regardless of the work done to it !

My idea of an optimal price/quality tradeoff, is either "dirt cheap but clonky" or "high quality and expensive". Or stated inversly: with "mid price + average quality" you get the worst of both worlds.

In an ideal world, manufacturers would publish tolerances (for runout, straightness, squareness, etc), like for granite plates. Instead we have to interpret what vendors mean by "ultra precision".


Sorry to hijack just a little but you raise an implicit question there that has just popped into my head when reading another thread.

Are PM's Chinese mills (and lathes for that matter) significantly more plug 'n play than say the Grizzly equivalents?

Obviously there'll be adjustments to make, and tuning to do on any factory fresh machine tool that has been on a container ship for a few weeks and then in a haulier's truck and we're not talking the 7x14's or mini mills here (PM don't sell those anyway) but are PM's offerings of a notably higher fit and finish, out of the box, than say a Grizzly equivalent?

I know you won't know necessarily, but I expect someone should be able to give a reasonably confident reply.
 
Eh, votre Anglais est plus bon que ma Francais de lycee oublie

(and that was dragged kicking and screaming out of my very foggy 52 year old brain without looking it up in Google translate, so I bet I got some of the words genders wrong and the order of the words too and of courae it's missing the ecoutes and braves and all that ! :grin: )

Anyway I get what you mean. Yeah, if I had to scrape or lap a machine tool's critical sliding surfaces that I'd bought from Precision Matthews (and thus paid the premium) I think I'd be a little unhappy.

My little Weiss 7x14 on the other hand has had some of that sort of attention and will no doubt have more in the future.

That said, from my own personal experience fettling my relatively inexpensive Weiss 7x14, it appears that Weiss do seem to have paid a little more attention to the quality of tgeir work than what I've seen reported from the other Chinese manufacturers. It's notable that Warco (a long established and reasonable well respected UK machine tool seller) and Precision Matthews (whom you know) both chose Weiss as their Chinese manufacturer of choice.

If you enjoy the challenge, have the time and skills and don't mind a bit of a punt, I reckon going direct to Weiss might be quite fun. ;)

On the other hand, if something goes wrong, you are kinda on your own. PM's support is pretty legendary.
 
My little Weiss 7x14 on the other hand has had some of that sort of attention and will no doubt have more in the future.

Thanks, "lived experiences" from Weiss machine owners was what I hoping to get.

Did you do any measurements, like this:

Sumore is apparently another manufacturer that builds the better Chineese machines.

Did you order directly from Weiss ?
 
Thanks, "lived experiences" from Weiss machine owners was what I hoping to get.

Did you do any measurements, like this:

Sumore is apparently another manufacturer that builds the better Chineese machines.

Did you order directly from Weiss ?
I got mine from Amadeal in the UK.

Their AMA714B (which is a Weiss WBL1835).

I haven't yet. I have stripped down, cleaned, and stoned the saddle, cross-slide and top-slide (compound for non British people) contact surfaces and the saddle shear plates.

Hardly any deburring was needed and I didn't need to do that much in the way of stoning as the evidence of contact from printing was quite good, not beautifully Swiss watch maker good but better than I'd been expecting.

Of course I may have not done a great job of the printing but I've managed, with not massive amount of effort, to get a good, smooth, sliding contact on all moving surfaces (apart from the saddle which was a bit of a shimming marathon but I've got it nicely sorted now; more of which in another thread I'll post in a few days).

The only really notable issue has been the rack which was definitely warped (probably from rhe heat treatment) and so was binding on the pinion connected to the handwheel at certain points in the travel. I bodged a solution by shimming the apron's attachment to the saddle but my new rack arrived today so I'm going to refit this new decently straight rack so hopefully I can dispense with the apron shimming.

I will be bed levelling and headstock and tailstock aligning at some point but I wanted to make some chips and have some fun, so I'm going to delay that.

From the videos I've seen, it does look like I've needed to do a lot less fettling than some have had to do to their mini lathes to get a decently smooth, no-play, experience.
 
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