Upgrades to bench mill
 

hello all
I bought a BusyBee bench mill back in the spring. I was getting
lousy finishes and went about tightening everything up, checking
backlashes etc. Didn't seem to help. Plus I was getting a lot of
vibration and noise from the top cover. I finally got feed up and took
the sheet metal cover off. This helped a bit and definetly quieted it
down. This is when I noticed the drive belts. The two belts squirmed
around like a couple of garter snakes :-) Obviously some serious quality
issues at the chinese rubber plants :-) I checked the pulleys and they
are fine, so I took a trip down to my local auto parts supplier and
started looking for some better quality belts. Luckily I had done some
research a couple of years ago into various drive belts for a buddy
wanting to use a belt drive from a vw diesel to a large generator. I
ordered some Gates BX belts(double check the belts off of your machine,
Mine were an inch shorter than marked on the belts) and this made all of
the difference in the world. Runs much smoother and the cuts are much
better.

Next I am going to make up a spindle brake and lock to make changing
tools a little easier.
--
James P Crombie
Slemon Park, PEI
Canada
Machinist - 3D Cad Design - Amateur Astronomer

http://www.jamescrombie.com

Upgrades to bench mill
 

(double check the belts off of your machine,
Mine were an inch shorter than marked on the belts) and this made all of
the difference in the world.

This normal if you use one of the belt measuring devices. They can only
measure the inside length of the belt. The actual size is )I think) measured
on the PCD. There should be a correction factor for different sections of
belt.

John