Author Topic: Dah Lih DL-VHR-GIF mill - a journey of discovery  (Read 10358 times)

Offline Joco

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Dah Lih DL-VHR-GIF mill - a journey of discovery
« on: October 25, 2018, 11:55:35 AM »
I have a new toy .. err .. tool ... yes TOOL.  I've been having fun with the BF20 but that is now in bits under going a CNC conversion and I wanted something that was a bit chunkier, a bit more solid, manual and yet not OTT.  So after a rash moment by SWMBO where the magical words "yes you can get another mill" were uttered I pounced.  Thanks to some excellent snooping by a good mate Bruce I have become the owner of what seems to be referred to as a "Small/Medium Knee Mill".  A Dah Lih DL-VHR-GIF. Compared to a BridgePort its definately smaller but for my workshop I think will work well.  It does have a few nice features: 6 speed power feed on X axis along with rapid, one shot oiler, horizontal and vertical milling spindles, and flood coolant.  This is an old mill but seems to be in reasonable condition with the previous owner getting the table reground and the completely redoing the bearings in the spindle.

I have some light restoration work to do with surface rust removal, some new paint and a few handles and the like to be replaced/fixed.  The biggest challenge will dealing with THREE motors in it all 3-phase.  I think I will end up with a stack of VFDs on the wall or hidden in the machine somewhere.

Anyway the beginning of a jouurney as I learn this vernerable old tool.


« Last Edit: October 25, 2018, 11:59:46 AM by Joco »
James
Wellington - NZ

Offline b.lindsey

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Re: Dah Lih DL-VHR-GIF mill - a journey of discovery
« Reply #1 on: October 25, 2018, 12:19:55 PM »
Congrats on the new mill Joco. Looks to be a solid machine and should offer the greater rigidity you want. A little paint, polish and TLC and she'll be good for another 50 years!!

Bill

Online Kim

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Re: Dah Lih DL-VHR-GIF mill - a journey of discovery
« Reply #2 on: October 25, 2018, 05:40:47 PM »
Looks like a pretty substantial mill!

Does it use R8 collets?  Or something else?  And did you get it with lots of extra tooling?

How fun!  A new toy!
Kim

Offline Joco

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Tapers, holders and motors
« Reply #3 on: October 25, 2018, 09:28:54 PM »
Another pic of stuff that came with the mill.   There are a selection of holders here for face mills, end mill, jacobs chuck, ER40 and ER of size to be determined.

There are two distinct styles of taper fortunately both styles are a 7/24 taper.
I have
- NT30 (or more correctly NMTB #30) tapers which I suspect is what the defaut is for this machine
- BT30 tapers (the ones on the right). Given these need an extra spacer on the drawbar that implies that while they fit they are not the style intended for this machine.

The other little joy from last night was the discovery of a 3rd motor tucked away in the back of the beast. In hindsight I should have expected it.  This motor is what drives the horizontal arbor. So another complication to the electronics.  I could certainly replace it with a single phase motor and maybe that is the better option. However at the moment I feel reluctant to walk away from the original 3 phase motor.






CHeers,
J.
James
Wellington - NZ

Offline Joco

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Re: Dah Lih DL-VHR-GIF mill - a journey of discovery
« Reply #4 on: October 26, 2018, 09:45:11 AM »
Had a close look at the horizontal arbor this evening and its clearly a BT30 taper and that arbor is absolutely original to the mill so BT30 is the originally intended taper.  :-)

James
Wellington - NZ

Online Jo

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Re: Dah Lih DL-VHR-GIF mill - a journey of discovery
« Reply #5 on: October 26, 2018, 09:59:48 AM »
Have you thought about keeping the three phase electrics and just buying a three phase converter? I have been very happy with my (big) rotary converter.

Replacing electrics with VFDs can be painful especially if there are power feeds and interlocks etc. You know where you stand with the original electrics and the manufacture provides a wiring diagram  :)

Jo
Enjoyment is more important than achievement.

Offline Joco

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Re: Dah Lih DL-VHR-GIF mill - a journey of discovery
« Reply #6 on: October 26, 2018, 10:16:20 AM »
Jo - a suitable 3 phase converter in NZ is going to set me back about half the price of the mill (2000 - 2500 NZD).  Where as I can get a VFD for each motor landed at ~$130 each. Having said that I think I might be able to get away with only 2 as I can never run both horizontal/vertical motors at the same time. So I should be able to use some simple relay setup to create the needed isolations.  I have an electrically trained mate who gets this stuff way better than I do to help ensure I don't screw it up massively.   :zap:

The other benefit of the VFD is I get some really nice control over speeds and forward/reverse that the original electrics setup just can not match.

Cheers,
J.
James
Wellington - NZ

Offline Joco

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Re: Dah Lih DL-VHR-GIF mill - a journey of discovery
« Reply #7 on: October 27, 2018, 07:55:56 AM »
Started cleaning things up today.  Got all the old swarf cleaned out, attacked the surface rust with some stainless syteel wool and Inox.  I removed rubber ways covers on the Z and Y as they were getting pretty tatty.  I'm thinking of replacing them with the BBQ liner that copes with the heat well. Otherwise it will need to be a trip to Skellerup to get some new rubber.
I'm also going to have to get some etching primer and a pot of the battleship grey used so I can start touching up some of the exposed redish primer as well as repaint where things have chipped away.

Other litte jobs done include:
[1] Working on the draw bar so that it has a nice sliding fit where as it was sticking badly before.  Now it can easily be removed and a space put on to allow the use of the NT30 tool holders.  I have a pic here showing the BT30 ER40 collet chuck in place.

[2] figuring out of the X axis DRO scale was faulty or of it was the reader that had died.  Looks like it is the reader as when I put a reader from another scale in it everything seemed to work fine.  Time for a replacement order from AliExpress.










CHeers,
J.
James
Wellington - NZ

Offline b.lindsey

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Re: Dah Lih DL-VHR-GIF mill - a journey of discovery
« Reply #8 on: October 27, 2018, 02:52:22 PM »
Slow tedious work, but it's looking good already.

Bill

Offline Joco

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Re: Dah Lih DL-VHR-GIF mill - a journey of discovery
« Reply #9 on: October 31, 2018, 09:47:43 AM »
VFD's turned up today.  These are neat little units that take 230V input and provide 380V output.  Just right for dealing with single voltage 3 phase motors.  I've done a temporary connection after checking and tweaking ever so slightly the VFD settings.  These videos show me mucking about really, just trying a couple of different ways to run the motor and see how it went.

At the moment I do not have DC braking on.  Once I get that setup it should stop stop much faster.  I do need to determine if I can and should use a braking resistor.  Given this is a mill I don't see a lot of built up energy in the spinning parts, at least not like a lathe with a spinning work piece on it.

Starting at 25Hz, using the dial to push to 60Hz then hit the stop button.
[youtube1]https://youtu.be/5w-YYausFpw[/youtube1]

Starting at 25Hz then using the forward/reverse button and finally stop button.
[youtube1]https://youtu.be/-BcKWyXWTr0[/youtube1]

Starting at 0Hz and using the dial to bring the Hz up to about 49Hz then back down to 0Hz.
[youtube1]https://youtu.be/XqYTn16AX_M[/youtube1]
James
Wellington - NZ

Offline Joco

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Re: Dah Lih DL-VHR-GIF mill - a journey of discovery
« Reply #10 on: November 02, 2018, 11:33:49 AM »
Some further testing and a significant improvement in the start and stop speeds.  Half the battle is deciphering the unclear manual. The next signifncant stage will be expanding the existing electronics housing to accomodate the VFDs (one for vertical spindle  and one for the horizontal) as well as the static converter electronics. Hopefully some progress pics from that after this weekends efforts.

Anyway, very short video of how quickly things spin up and down under VFD control.
[youtube1]https://youtu.be/8dAa5kJ4u0s[/youtube1]
James
Wellington - NZ

Offline Larry Sw

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Re: Dah Lih DL-VHR-GIF mill - a journey of discovery
« Reply #11 on: November 02, 2018, 06:57:14 PM »
Nice looking, and sounding, Mill.
Does it have an Outboard Support for running milling cutters on a long arbor ?

Larry S
Fort Wayne, IN  USA

Offline Joco

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Re: Dah Lih DL-VHR-GIF mill - a journey of discovery
« Reply #12 on: November 02, 2018, 08:04:08 PM »
Larry,

Yes it has a support on the back of the top "ram". To use the horizontal milling function you swing the ram around and setup the horizontal arbour.  This pic came from the garage of the previous owner, hence why the background is not consistent with mine.

Cheers.

James
Wellington - NZ

Offline Joco

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Re: Dah Lih DL-VHR-GIF mill - a journey of discovery
« Reply #13 on: November 09, 2018, 05:37:18 PM »
I’ve made some progress but it’s really temporary as I’m waiting on a number of parts to arrive before I can make things final. I made a little video just to show what I had gotten working and setup. I dont clam to be videographer so bear with.  :old:

I also did some tramming on the head using a DTI with 0.01mm markings. Front to back is bang on. No movement. Left to right i got to under 0.01. Given the level of movement in the needle I would estimate slightly less than 0.005. Pretty happy with that.

I did do a review of the wiring after this video amd fix a few bugs. Where things should have been running slower than they were in the video.  But you’ll get the gist of things.  :popcorn:

Cheers,
J.

[youtube1]https://youtu.be/FkHbNWa0Nw0[/youtube1]
James
Wellington - NZ

Offline Ye-Ole Steam Dude

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Re: Dah Lih DL-VHR-GIF mill - a journey of discovery
« Reply #14 on: November 09, 2018, 06:39:09 PM »
Hello J

Very nice machine and a neat video.

Have a great day,
Thomas
Thomas

 

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