Setting up a New PM-940M Milling Machine - Unboxing, Moving and Assembly

these giant crates showed up on a truck about a week ago let's open them up and see what's inside it's a new milling machine welcome back to cloud42 i'm james well in these crates there is a new milling machine for the shop those of you who've been around the channel for a while know that i already have a milling machine i've got a grizzly geo 704 over there that i've converted to cnc and i love that little mill it's great it does have a few shortcomings it is a light benchtop mill and it has a very limited y travel i think stock they're only about seven inches maybe a little bit more but then when you do a cnc conversion and you put a vice on that hangs over the back and you install double ball nuts on the ball screws you start to lose some of that and lose and get down to four or five inches that are really usable so that's one limitation the other is you know i just converted it and added a high speed spindle which is great for milling out aluminum and making small aluminum parts not so big for hogging out a lot of steel i haven't done a lot of work with it but i really would like to have something heavier in the shop that can handle larger parts and can hog out larger amounts of steel and so i decided to pick up a precision matthews pm9 40 yeah it's a pm 940m this is the gearhead drive 2 horsepower model and it is significantly heavier i think the grizzlies 350 pounds all up this thing's about 1300 1400 pounds all up installed comes in two crates the small crate is the cast iron base that it sits on that as shipped is about 400 pounds and then the large crate is the mill itself which is another thousand pounds and believe it or not you know this is a residential address where i had them delivered so i had to have lift gate delivery and believe it or not the guy showed up in the truck with that 400 pound crate on top of this crate and that's how they were loaded in the truck and all he had was a pallet jack and i just looked at him as i how am i going to get that down he's like i don't know they just loaded it this way so he actually loaded it off the truck stacked wobbling out onto the lift gate i thought for sure he was going to lose it but he got it down to the ground and then the guy was the guy was great i mean really with liftgate delivery all he had to do was drop it in the street but he um actually wheeled it back over to the truck and folded up the lift gate wheeled it back over and then the two of us were able to just muscle the 400 pound pallet off of the top of this dropped it about a foot onto the back of the truck and he was able to get him out with the pallet jack and haul them in here so here they sit let me go get a crowbar and a hammer and let's break them open see what's inside so so [Music] [Music] seriously seriously okay that's one milling machine and one stand and it's very large okay let me regroup here and let's take a look at what we've got okay along with the mill and the base of course i ordered some accessories or the clamping kit and it appears that it's in here such as it is so this is the clamping kit it has no latches i can see the latches here are broken off that's classy and inside we've got all of our half inch studs and nothing else because it appears they're all poured into the bottom okay nice i've got some boxes that had something in them i presume these contained the leveling feet which i also ordered and those are the leveling feet and then they have studs i presume these are the studs it would be nice if they were in the boxes two three empty empty one four okay good we actually have four feet i need four feet i plan on setting up the mill today and that looks like that is the ultra precision drill chuck that i ordered wow that is spectacular so that's a 5 8 drill chuck i am not happy at all with how that was packaged or how that traveled how on earth would you do that i mean honestly this thing is 400 pounds how would you bounce this hard enough to blow all of that to break the case blow all of that out of it all over the inside of this knock all of these out of their boxes do this to the drill chuck um i don't know i'm at a loss okay well i'll dig all this stuff out and get it all organized and i think the next step is going to be to try to figure out how to pick this thing up and put it in position got my friend jason here who came over to help me when i started moving the heavy stuff if nothing else he is here he knows how to dial 9-1-1 if something goes terribly wrong i will try to get it on camera so we've got the base here this is only about 300 pounds and the legs of my engine hoist this is just a two-ton harbor freight special engine hoist it won't straddle the pallet which is going to be interesting for the mill but i've got it in as close as i can and then we've just muscled this thing off the side of the pallet and we're trying to rig it with a couple of straps and lift it it'll swing out and then we should be able to wheel it into position so let's start with this side and i've got this engine hoist rigged with two separate hooks so that i can put four four ends of these straps in it and it's not centered but as soon as it starts to lift it should swing out and end up hanging under the hook so okay that went well so far no youtube gold i should be able to just pull this back okay and i don't know how well you can see that we've got a little chalk rectangle here on the floor that shows where we want it to land but before we land it need to install the leveling feet and this is just a matter of running them up through the bottom and tightening the the nuts down and then these have an adjustment in here so they can be driven down the the whole pad actually extends out the bottom when you drive the bolt in so they expand and lift the machine so we can level it once it's down on the ground let's get these installed i have seen many people say that there's not enough room in here and the manual says that you may actually have to cut the stud off to fit but it's got a little bit of clearance so i don't think it's going to be an issue in this setup so washer nut i'll just snug that down if we get to the point of actually needing to level it which i assume we will then you have to loosen that nut and then use the square drive on the top to drive that down but she need to put the other three on okay so i think all that's left is just to lower this down into position and this is the place where it always gets exciting try to do it as slowly as i can here but jason kind of position it try not to overcook it and drop it wow very good that's pretty good that's right where it needed to be get the slings off of it and roll this out of the way [Music] now let me see where we are for level i need to come up a little bit on that side and actually once i plant this foot there's a little bit of rock in this direction once i lower this foot a little bit it'll actually be very close in that direction and that direction is very close that is close enough i'll get a mill right level and level it once the machine's on but i think that is going to work now the manual that comes with the mill gives instructions for how to actually get this thing off of the pallet and unfortunately they're pretty much useless because they tell you to take your cherry picker take your engine crane in fact the photo they show is of this very model this is the two ton harbor freight one and actually straddle the legs over sit them on the ground and lift the machine up and then slide the pallet out from underneath the problem is that that works if you have it just sitting on this sheet you take the front rails off the sheet but it never comes sitting just on the sheet it's sitting on a pallet and so there's not enough room to get these over they don't clear so we've done here is we've got a couple of sheets of three-quarter inch plywood as a block to put the wheels on then one more sheet that then has like a two and a half inch hole drilled about halfway through it with a forstner bit so that the wheel will sit into that hole this is an idea that jason came up with we're trying to figure out how to keep it from rolling off of the blocks and so i think that will be secure enough so the goal is going to be rig the mill lift it off of the pallet we've already got the nuts that we're anchoring it down here free and off of the so it should lift cleanly probably have to slide the table back and forth we've already run the mill head down as instructed in the manual so we'll get that lifted clear get the pallet out then set the mill down onto blocks then we can re-rig the crane on the floor re-lift it and wheel it over and set it into position so i'm telling you that's what we plan to do so that when you see what actually happens you'll understand what we were trying to do so i think we just need to rig this and see so it should there's a pocket on the side there that has that the adjustment bolt in it and this should just sort of be in line with that i think is how the manual says to do it okay the weight's coming off yep and we're free and pretty level yeah okay let's take it up wow that's actually working pretty well yeah i mean you did say that out loud but there we go yay don't forget there's a thousand pound mill hanging there now of course we can't wheel this over to its final position because the engine crane is sitting up on blocks so we're going to lower it down on the ground but it can't go on the ground because there's not enough clearance under the table over the legs so i've got some blocks and these are two layers of stack two by eights i'll just lower it on lower it onto these okay you want to do it you can if you'd like just real gentle because it's going to go hey we are it's lower there we go okay so now we should be able to yeah remove the blocks let me just okay i think that's good um let's uh see if we can move it stop there okay we're clear i think okay let's try pushing it in and it's because this is way in the air yeah i know okay um we're hitting the light but it'll swing out of the way i need another inch your way uh actually yeah yeah okay now let me see if i can start putting screws in that's one end the more we can get in while it's still hanging the better okay and that's it that was the most terrifying part my heart rate is up oh 89 it's not that high oh yeah if i was worried about this tipping over i'm not now okay well it's landed it's in position i think the position is all going to work out of course if at some point we decide that it needs to move a little bit we can always sling it again lift the whole thing with the base shift it a little put it down not planning on doing that right away now this actually does have holes in the side of the casting and you're supposed to be able to put one inch steel rod 25 millimeter all the way through it and then on in two places and then slide a forklift under it and move this thing around with a forklift if you haven't you've seen most of my garage today i don't have a forklift so i think it's going to sit where it is i'm pretty happy with this and i think we need to get some coffee and go to the store and buy a 12 millimeter socket driver because i don't actually own one okay this mill doesn't come fully assembled there are a few things that would increase the total size of the mill and because of that they're left off so they can use a smaller crate and the first one is the z motor now there is a crank down on the side of the shaft for raising and lowering the head in the z-axis but it is a lot of work there's not a lot of clearance and takes a lot of cranking to move this up and down so they actually have a power power feed to raise and lower it i don't think you would use this for actual uh milling for like you know drilling or boring operations there's a separate power down feed on the head for that on the on the quill this is just for low or for raising and lowering the head and to install it there's just a keyed shaft and there's a key coupler in the top here and it just drops right in drops down and then there are four tapped holes for screws those all lined up beautifully just snug these down until they all make contact and then we'll go around and tighten them up okay that should be that let me turn the crank a little bit and just make sure this isn't all binding up nope still moves freely but i can still feel the uh i can feel the extra drag uh because the gear motor up here so that should be that now let's go down and install the x-axis power feed okay this mill also comes with an x-axis power feed and this is just the end of the table and you can see that they have removed the crank handle that would be here and installed a gear and then they have provided pre-wired uh power feed motor and this is just a normal power feed motor that would normally hang down vertically but in this case they've got it with a little spur gear that will a little pinion that will engage this gear and a couple of slots and a bracket attached to the end of the table with a couple of screws to just attach this so that the gears mesh now to set the gear lash you don't want these gears too tightly together they'll kind of go again as they run and you want them to run freely so they need a little bit of backlash so they recommend taking a piece of greased paper this is just oiled with whey lube and i'll put that there and then mesh the gears on that paper and then when we turn it it'll eject the paper and it should leave the right amount of gear lash so this should go right onto these screws the screws have washers and lock washers and these were pre-installed though one of them had rattled loose and i found it in the bottom of the crate so that was just a little bit tight it's kind of a hokey setup i'm not super pleased with it perhaps i will drill and tap the end of the table and do something better at some point but it's probably best to get some experience with the stock setup before i decide if it actually needs to be replaced okay so it's sitting on the gear so the gears are meshed with the paper between the teeth so i'll go ahead and snug these down now in theory if that paper trick worked then this should be the gear lash should be exactly right you go to the other end here turn the crank handle and run that paper out there it goes and i hear a little bit more sound from those than i like i think it might be a little bit too tight it's really hard to adjust though because i can't really hold one gear stationary and move the other one let me just loosen this and tap it up ever so slightly see if that changes it oh that's much quieter let's tighten it back down again i wish i could hold the pinion still and measure this just turning around checking it several positions make sure we've got good good engagement but still have a little bit of backlash and we do i'm happy with that sorry i know you can't see that but i think that is going to work unfortunately i don't think i can put it off any longer next thing to do is to peel off all this paper get out some wd-40 and some rags and clean all of the grease off of all the surfaces of this thing and then we can power it up and give it a try [Music] so [Music] well what just took you about a minute to watch took me about two hours to do and the machine cleaned up beautifully i'm very happy with the grind on the table surface it seems to be pretty flat i ran some precision flat ground stones over it now this machine has the hard ways option which has an induction hardened table surface and dovetail ways and the idea there is to make them more durable so they'll last longer though this is not going to be a cnc mill and this is not a production shop so for my use they'll last virtually forever so let me power this up and give you a tour so this does have the power z motor that will run the head up and down so that's up very happy with this it's nice and quiet definitely want to loosen the gib before you do that but of course it's powerful enough to overcome it even if you don't unclamp it and down and then it has limit switches to stop at the end of travel now the spindle on this is gear driven there's a little sight glass over here and it's an oil bathed gear train and it's got two knobs over here to set it to one of six speeds between 90 rpm and 1970 rpm so it's not a super fast spindle but it should have a ton of grunt for hogging out steel or running large face mills which is really what i was looking for wouldn't be appropriate for a cnc for that you would want the vfd version that goes to higher rpms but i've got it set right now to 690 rpm i got a half inch drill on the check and i'm pretty happy with it i've run it through all the speeds it runs nice and quiet i was afraid that the straight cut gears were going to be really loud but it doesn't seem that that's the case now this has the fine feed for the quill so you have the normal quill action pop the handles out and you have the fine feed handle and then this mill has the power down feed option so i can put this in gear and i can choose one of three down feeds .1.18 or 0.26 millimeters per revolution and that will tie the fine feed handle to the gear train so when it's running that spins and then i can just pull out the handle and the quill will automatically down feed and then when i reach the bottom and i want to retract slap the handle in and it comes right back up [Music] and so that'll be really handy for drilling operations or for boring in particular you get a boring head making a nice smooth bore with a nice consistent surface finish so the crank ways down here that all works really well the power x feed noisy but serviceable so i still need to get a vice for this machine the manual says that a four inch vise is appropriate uh i'm not buying it this is a life-size cutout that i made of a curt dx6 six-inch vise just for testing the fit and i think this is really going to be about the right size for this machine it fits nicely on the table it allows the full travel i might have to raise the uh the bellows here about an inch to get full travel to the rear and then the mill can also reach all the way even without doing that it can reach all the way to the full nine inch clamping range of the vise plus if i turn the vice sideways the holes are the right spacing to drop into the outer t-slots the other thing that this mill does not have is a dro there is a dro option it was back ordered and i opted to go ahead and get the mill and i have ordered a four axis dro kit from dro pros and that actually should be here in a couple of days and so i'll do another video when i get ready to put that on the travels on this thing end up being greater than advertised i'm getting about 14 inches in y about 28 in x and a full 20 inches in z and then there's five inches on the quilt so i ordered a four axis dro so i should be able to put a scale on the quill and on the z axis on the head and have them summed together in the dro so i can reposition the head and maintain the position of my dro and we will get to that when the parts come in if you enjoyed this video please give me a thumbs up feel free to subscribe to the channel and leave me a comment i'd like to know what you think thank you for watching [Music] you

Channel: Clough42

Views: 162,334

Keywords: Precision Matthews, PM-940, PM-940M, Engine Crane, Shop Crane, Lifting, Milling Machine, Rigging, Unboxing

Id: CzANed8YQEQ

Length: 32min 3sec (1923 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 19 2020