Well, unfortunately due to the holiday rush and extreme weather we’ve been having on the West Coast, I didn’t get the new quill in time for the break. I’m disappointed but given the weather – we’ve got 2-1/2′ of snow on the ground in a city where 1″ of snow is a big deal – it’s unavoidable. I’ve been house-bound for the last 8 days as my car can’t negotiate the snow in the alley and is getting high-centered as it plows under the bumper.
Anyhow, here are some pics of the new quill from Mike. Pretty space-age in appearance, and he measured less than 0.0007″ runout at the tip of the dop. Now that’s much better than the original 0.0055″!
I hope everyone is having a good Christmas break!
-Allan
Custom Stainless Steel Omni Collet Quill with Wrenches for Tightening
Custom Omni Quill with Proper Press-Fit into Bearings - No Wobbly Machining!
Custom Stainless Steel Omni Quill with Collet - under 0.0007" runout at tip of dop!
Hi there – I gather you have had some spare stainless steel quills made. I might be interested in one. How much would it be?
Thanks,
-Michael from London.
Hi Michael – I’m still waiting on pricing from the machine shop. I’ll be posting the price and delivery details as soon as I know.
Thanks!
-Allan
Alan,
You mentioned in your blog that you also replaced the standard Omni quill bearings with higher precision bearings. I wonder how much of a role the new bearings play in the improved quill runout measurements?
I am interested in trying the new quill just to get rid of the silly set screw.
Out of curiosity, have you received any kind of feedback or comment from Jersey Instruments about the upgrade? The upgrade would surely invalidate the warranty on the machine.
Hi there – the bearings I replaced the stock 6000RS bearings with are ABEC-3 tolerances. The difference is in the overall dimensional tolerances as well as radial runout – the one I was interested in.
ABEC-3 tolerances reduce the radial runout from 0.0004″ (4/10,000 of an inch) to 0.0003″ (4/10,000th of an inch). While percentage-wise it’s a big change (25% better) it’s a very small amount overall – probably improving the quill runout by 1/10,000″ or so.
Using higher-tolerance bearings might improve that more, but the real problem is the way the quill was machined and the fact that two stacked ball-bearings are not effective at keeping the radial runout low. A proper design requires a set distance between bearings in order to allow them to provide radial support to prevent any runout/wobble.
I had the bearings replaced just because I had the opportunity. Given the difficulty of removing the old ones it’s probably not worth the cost and effort. You get much greater bang-per-buck replacing the quill.
For example, replacing the bearings gains you 1/10,000″ runout improvement. My original quill was out by 35/10,000″ and is now 7/10,000″. The bearings probably contributed 1/10,000″ to that reduction of 28/10,000″ improvement.
And yes, this upgrade probably voids your Omni faceting machine warranty. I’d much rather have a faceting machine that actually can do the job it’s supposed to than a warranty on a very expensive and almost useless chunk of junk.
Hope this helps!
-Allan
hi thanks for the website
i have buil t mostly with the gearloose plans a 5/8 aluminum base with solid walnut frame. 1 inch mast. i have purchased an e 5 encoder fro mus digital. they are just across the river
in vancouver wa.can you tell me which receiver or power supply or readout which goes with this.
i also would like to build the mast with the 1/2 inch travel for height adjustmen. do you have or
know of how to do this. the omni has it and so does facetron.
many thanks for your help
keep up the good work
chrisherold
Chris – sorry, I do not build faceting machines nor do I design them. I have no idea what you require to connect to your encoder. I suggest you contact US Digital as they are the manufacturers and would be able to assist you with their product.
Good luck with your efforts.
-Allan
can you tell me if the coarse angle (large blue knob) is a single piece with a shoulder on it
or is there
some sort of washer or spacer of nylon or plastic next to the blue knob
many thanks
chris