Recently, I have been noticing that my 770M has been cutting strange. At first, while using a face mill, the left side was cutting noticeably deeper than the right. Also when using a 123 block to set the reference height for the probe length, I was noticing it touching one side of the spindle first. So I decided to figure out what’s wrong. After indicating the table while attached to the spindle, it seems that my machine is .015" out of parallel with the table across 16". Can I fix this myself with common tools and an indicator or do I need someone to come do service on the machine?
Frustrating because this machine is new, I’m probably barely past 100 hours on it.
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If it’s a new machine open a tormach ticket.
You can do it but you need to figure out if it’s the head the table or the spindle or the machine leveling / casting twist. (In my case it was all 3) That’s the hard part. I had a similar issue on a new 1100mx. You will need a good machinists level and a good dial indicator or two. (Stuff you need anyway). I would also get a couple cheap feeler gauges to use for shims, (not too cheap as if they rust your going to end up with more problems) shim stock is expensive.
If you look through my previous posts you can see some of the things I went through to figure it out. Mine finally ended up being a combination of the spindle needing a shim, the x axis needed some jib adjustment and the table level needed more leveling.
The table level is the first step. I had a nice starette machinists level $300 that shows level along both axis, but it wasn’t enough to get the last few tenths of a degree of adjustment that my machine needed. The tech brought out the $1500+ model. Readjusted the gib, shimmed the spindle (actually removed the shim I had placed and measured and put it back in the same spot after agreeing with my solution).
Causes, this is just educated guessing but I think that because my garage floor was dusty concrete when the mill was installed the mill level changed slightly over months of settling. Also early on I had the spindle replaced due to some taper issues and it’s really difficult to align the spindle.
In the end it was an 14 month journey.
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@Joshua_Klapperich have you seen the Commissioning and Calibration Guide and the Commissioning Series - Leveling and Squaring Your Mill video cover the steps to square your mill against its stand.
0.015" is more than I would expect for this procedure but it is a good starting point.
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I would check and adjust the Z gib if need be.
Put an indicator on the head and tug on it. If the play there isn’t reduced then everything else will read incorrectly. Can’t get rid of all of it but knock it down.