I bought a 150 inch pound Z axis power feed for the mill from All Industrial.
So I installed that today. Seems like the first step is to throw away the instructions. Horrible. I watched a couple YouTube videos, that gave the flavor if not the specifics of the installation, and you can take it from there. A summary is "nothing is really quite as it seems". What occurs as a major issue is selecting the right number of shims to space the large bevel gear from the small bevel drive gear, for smooth functioning and low wear. More or less you're on your own there, no help from the directions. One of the videos showed measuring the position of the large gear as a function of the number of shims and noting when the shims start taking effect. That's the trick, and it works well. Of course make sure the direction handle is in neutral or off when doing this, since the small gear is more or less locked when the handle isn't in off. It confused me for a bit, I have to admit.
The typical things happened...I snapped off a 1/4-20 tap. Must have been faulty.
The supplied key was a bit too big for the supplied keyway...of course.
The mounting hardware for the limit switch and stops is really strange. I would not have wanted to use it even if I could figure out how the designer, if any, intended it to work. It's easy enough to see what needs to be done and figure it out from first principles.
The last big step is drilling a hole through the crank nut and main shaft for a roll pin. I removed the crank nut and drilled it through, then positioned it back on the shaft, tightened up, and drilled through the shaft. Came out ok.
A friend with a similar shop helped out, and two heads were needed at a couple points. We'll do his X-axis next week.
The major components and drive, an Asong branded unit, seemed of quite acceptable quality. And the icing on the cake is that it really works well!
So I'm happy.
