Hoping that someone else has solved the vertical milling challenges on an Altmill. Wondering if you use a drop in jig or clamp below to the cross rails but concerned about rigidity. The fine engineering group at Scienci should anticipate vertical milling and perhaps make a ready to use drop in, I’d buy one! Suggestions appreciated!
@Rmaustin Welcome to the forum. If you search the forum, you’ll find a lot of posts on this topic.
You can do it in between cross rails, but you’ll obviously need to remove your spoilboard.
I think @Jens does it at the front of the mill but with a router attached to the spindle mount. The router, being attached to the front of the spindle, easily extends past the front.
I designed my spoilboard to do vertical milling between the rear crossrails. The last section of plywood is separate from the front. And my t-tracks are mounted left to right instead of front to back. Actually I designed it like this to surface the edge of thick material and not vertical milling. But I can use it for that.
I also have mounted a router to the front of the spindle mount, so I could do it in the front as well.
@Rmaustin huh, on re-reading your post, I see that you’re not even asking on where to do vertical milling but rather on clamping. @Jens’ post on the topic covers that as well if I recall.
This post here: https://forum.sienci.com/t/altmill-vertical-milling-thoughts
Thanks for follow and I did search but came up empty. I’ll build a drop in behind the front rail with integrated clamps. Width has to accommodate up to 12” so pics to come.
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New to the forum, but want to throw my support behind a request for a Sienci-produced Altmill vertical milling/work holding product that can be retrofit to existing machines. Would love for Sienci to add this to the product concepts they’re working.
I’ll definitely keep track of how members engineer their own solutions. Maybe I’ll have the spare time someday to try to build my own solution, but admittedly - given the option - I’d spend some money to have an ‘easy button’ solution.
I have an altmill 4x4. The ATC mounts in the back, and costs you 3-4 inches of Y travel. The installation calls for trimming the spoilboard flush with the last beam. I only have a 6 tool changer coming, which should take up about 23 inches of space on the right hand side. Which means if I create a vertical clamping surface on the other side, I can use that area for vertical milling area there.
The only problem is the flange, I REALLY don’t want to take my machine apart and flip that beam… but I’m thinking about it.
you can make a plywood packer to make it flush with the flange or see if any of the aluminum extrusions can fit in there
Thats what Im looking at doing right now. Unfortunately, the flange is just a bit wider than 3/4 plywood. That was a frustrating discovery!
That’s pretty neat! How is the experience milling with that piece?
The accuracy has been very tight and my primary goal was rapid indexing to avoid resetting XY while the Z remains constant between stock changes. If Scienci would make Z machining standard there would be little comparison when shopping for new machines. Hint.
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So, the flange is exactly 20mm, which works well with 2080 t-track. So I used that to create a frame to mount the vertical board. Not done yet, but looks like it will work just great.
nice find. post pictures i’ll be interested in doing the same. although i might need to trim my spoilboard for that