Post your AltMill assembly experiences here.
@Jens Here is your update. It took me about 8 hours to assemble by myself. Even flipping the table over wasn’t too hard. The instructions call out for (2) dust shields at assembly but my kit did not have them. I need to contact Sienci about that. The online instructions are very detailed and for the most part easy to understand. Kudos to the professionals that put them together. As someone who has created engineering drawings for machine tools for 34 years I upstand how difficult it can be to make a concise set of instructions. Especially when the skill level of the assemblers can vary widely. Here are a few things I ran across during my build.
- Table assembly (2) call outs for quantities of screws that didn’t match the pictures.
- The t-nuts for the legs are captured and when you get to that point you’ll be like WTH until you realize they roll in from the front. That wasn’t clear to me from the instructions given.
- It’s possible to assemble the X rail facing the wrong way. I got this right the first time but a side diagram of end plate in relation to the Y-axis motor would help clarify this.
- Make sure you have your spindle motor wire placed in the cable carrier and it reaches the control box before you snap all the covers closed. In fact do that for all the wires. You don’t want to have to pop all those things open twice.
- Look inside the X-rail for the parts stored in side the rail at shipping.
- I couldn’t find instructions on how the dust shoe is assembled. With trial and error I did manage to assemble it.
- The notches on my SLB cover for the wire access were difficult to use. I had to widen them on my laser to get the cover to go back on without forcing it. YMMV
There you have it. This new machine is a beast. I made some really cool stuff on my first gen LM and it was a solid machine for many years that I loved to work with, but the Altmill makes it look like a toy. I can’t wait to see what I can do with it. Now it’s time to add a new line from my dust collector and get a dedicated 20amp outlet installed and then start making stuff. Hope you get your machine soon.
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@Gassman69 Jason. I created this new category and moved your excellent posts here. Thanks much for writing this up.
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Thanks for the excellent write-up. Hopefully the powers to be will address your points and update the instructions. One question though - you talk about a 20A outlet. As far as I know, the Altmill should work on a standard 15A circuit. Could you clarify on the need for a 20A circuit? Is there something specific in your setup that requires the 20A circuit or is my understanding of the power requirements wrong and 20A is what is required for all installations of the Altmill?
@Jens from the Sienci website I found this:
“The AltMill comes with a 48V10A power supply, which can supply 500 watts of power. Users should dedicate additional power based on the spindle they choose to use, which can range from 1.5KW and above. This may require having two or three available breakers, or 220V available for your spindle.”
The way I read this is that the power supply for the SLB will be on it’s own 15A circuit and the spindle will require a dedicated 20A circuit. Based on my math of (1500W/110V = 13.6A) for continuous duty (≥3 hours) you only want to pull 80% of your circuits rated output. So a 15A circuit is only good for 12A Cont. duty. 20A is good for 16A Cont. duty. Disclaimer: I’m not a licensed electrician. Check with one if you are unsure of your needs
Related to this, I plugged my spindle into a 20A arc fault outlet and the breaker tripped after a couple test cycles. The spindle may not play nice with arc fault breakers. YMMV
My original plan was to use a step-down transformer to power the spindle. However, the input plug for the Amazon 5000w units varies, and none matches a 220v receptacle. I can’t imagine third-party cords are safe or compliant. As a consequence, I’ll have one or two 20A circuits/outlets installed.
Correct me if I’m wrong about the voltage transformers.
I am not sure why you are talking about step-down transformers unless you happen to have a 220V outlet handy in which case one could use that outlet with a transformer to avoid installing a 20A 120V outlet.
Regarding the input/output plug/receptacle, that should be an easy thing to change as required. Note that there are two kinds of transformers - one where the secondary is completely separate from the primary and one where there is only one winding but two taps. The latter would probably carry safety ground across but the completely isolated one might not. I would make sure that the machine is grounded properly.
Having said all that, I would be tempted to get a spindle that runs on 220V (probably 2.2 KW) and use a transformer to supply the controller’s 120V requirement.
BTW, all of this is assuming North American power setup.
Not a licensed electrician either so take the following with a grain of salt …
I agree with your 80% continuous load figure however I look at things somewhat different. Yes the spindle is rated at 1.5 KW however the chances of the spindle running at 100% power for any length of time is very remote. The same applies to the controller - yes it is rated at 500W but I doubt that you would see much above 200W for an average use. It would be interesting to put a power meter onto the mill to see what is actually going on.
Before putting in a 20A circuit just for the mill, I will attempt to use 15A circuit first and if that fails I will see if I happen to have another 15A circuit available that is reasonably close to the mill in order to run an extension cord to supply power to the controller.
If I need to install a dedicated circuit, I will probably put in a 20A 220V range/washer/dryer circuit which would give me a single 220V circuit or two 120V circuits from the same outlet. (or 220V and 120V at the same time)
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Thanks. I have a 220v outlet in the garage, which was historically used for the table saw. It was my dad’s workspace. Anyway, I plan to talk to an electrician this week, so maybe I’ll ask him about adapting the transformer. I’m very much a novice in this realm.
Upgrading to a 2.2KW spindle will have to wait.
Thanks again for posting your experiences. I have taken up your suggestion and am in the process of tearing up drywall in order to install a power outlet for the mill. As described in another post, I will be running a 3 conductor plus ground line which will give me two 20A 120V circuits which can be combined to give me a 220V outlet just so I can cover all eventualities.
While the shop is in complete disarray, I am also taking this opportunity to adapt my chip collection system for the mill.