TRT70 workholding, Xin Dian mini self centering vise.

[mhajicek]

I got a gently used TRT70 trunnion from EMTech here a couple months ago, and just plugged it in and tested it out over the holidays. It seems to be working well, and it's really fast, fast enough to jump off the floor if I rapid it 90 degrees while it's sitting loose.

It came with an adapter plate for a 5th Axis D05125 dovetail fixture, so I'll probably get one of those. But many of my parts would be better served by a self centering vise, so while I was saving up for the trunnion, I looked far and wide for one that would fit within the 4" swing. I found a couple options for several hundred to over a thousand dollars, and then lucked upon these, which I've mentioned before:

Self-centering vise electrode fixture Machining Tool 8-55mm, 50-75mm - RobotDigg

Self-centering Vise EDM Machine CNC 3R EROWA Positioning Self-centering Vise Electrode Fixture Machining Tool Standard 8...

www.robotdigg.com

They're surprisingly tight and well made for $60, and for that I can afford to get several to try things out with. I'm thinking of making a 4th axis fixture with a solid body, hosting three sets of jaws on the top, and three more on the bottom.

I modified one to mount directly to the TRT70, locating with a 3/8" dowel, and holding down with four 10-32 screws to the pattern on the platter. The trunnion has a rated max weight on platter of 3.0 pounds, and the Xin Dian vise is 2.25 pounds by itself. My modified one, shortened and lightweighted, is 1.29 pounds, leaving more headspace for the workpiece, and also dropping it lower toward the CoR.

 

[alek95]

Honestly I've seen these things in the past and have been curious if they are any good

 

[DSMWerks]

I hate to say it but they are actually pretty nice. They are tight and solid. I paid $108 for mine on ebay so $60 is smokin cheap. I'd like to see a picture of it mounted on the TRT70 if you could?

 

[mhajicek]

I hate to say it but they are actually pretty nice. They are tight and solid. I paid $108 for mine on ebay so $60 is smokin cheap. I'd like to see a picture of it mounted on the TRT70 if you could?

Dowels and screws should be here Wednesday.

 

[EmGo]

I hate to say it but they are actually pretty nice. They are tight and solid.

You guys are gonna be so sorry you didn't pay the $80,000 for a Schunk. How will you face your friends in the morning ?

 

[TAIWA NUMBA WAAN]

If those are being sold by a US retail website for $60, they probably bought them for like $30. So the manufacturer probably made them for $20.
Anything is possible with LockDown™ Labor™ in China.

 

[EmGo]

Anything is possible with LockDown™ Labor™ in China.

Stuff it, idiot.

btw, Taiwan was worse. Don't want to mention that tho, eh ?

 

[mhajicek]

If those are being sold by a US retail website for $60, they probably bought them for like $30. So the manufacturer probably made them for $20.
Anything is possible with LockDown™ Labor™ in China.

They might have made way too many, and now have to offload them. Warehouse space costs money.

 

[TAIWA NUMBA WAAN]

Stuff it, idiot.

btw, Taiwan was worse. Don't want to mention that tho, eh ?

Taiwan never had lockdowns or mandatory anything, except masks on public transport. I never got welded into a gulag apartment by white jumpsuit minions. You may be surprised to hear this, but non-communist countries actually have this thing called "freedom".
The reason these Chinese made vises are so cheap is because labor costs $1 or maybe $2 an hour and the citizens/subjects are not allowed to leave factories and travel to their hometowns during holidays.

@mhajicek How is the squareness on those vises? Do the jaws lift or skew when tightened? It looks like you did some weight reduction on them....Did that distort the flat surfaces?

 

[EmGo]

Taiwan never had lockdowns or mandatory anything, except masks on public transport. I never got welded into a gulag apartment by white jumpsuit minions. You may be surprised to hear this, but non-communist countries actually have this thing called "freedom".

Sometimes I think they should require an IQ test to get a passport ...

There were several reasons Taiwan did will in the epidemic. None of them are related to "freedom" (or freedumb, in your case).

One, it's an island. A fairly small island, with very limited access.

Two, they had a difficult time with both SARS and MERS so they had set up a scientific group of people in government, with power to prepare for the next epidemic. They set up a bureau with the power to control everything in the entire country and activated it in late January.

They were among the very first people to warn WHO that this was bad shit. The WHO ignored them, as well as the PRC, natcherly. The US and Europe, esp Italy, did the same.

However, Taiwan immediately instituted pcr testing of every incoming passenger. Not just the ones with foreign passports, and their tests did not involve a piece of paper you signed saying, "No, I promise I'm not sick". They had real tests, mandated by force, which everyone had to take upon entry.

Shortly after the initial news came out they also cut off all the visa-free entries and they instituted -- wait for it ! -- quarantines for returning Taiwan passport people. Yes, enforced quarantine. The fine for breaking quarantine was ~ $5,000, roughly three months salary for most people. (Average wages in Taiwan are about the same as the cities of the PRC, which some people seem to think is $1 or $2 an hour).

Taiwan quarantined some 150,000 people. They had home quarantine for low-grade cases and centralized quarantine for sicker people.

But the best part of this "freedom" campaign was that Taiwan has socialized health care. Everyone has a medical ID. The instant covid became a concern, that ID became a 24/7 tracking device, keeping track of where every person in the country went via their smartphones; who they met, if they bought medicine that might be for the virus, if they visited the doctor, if they reported flu-like symptoms. 97% full-on surveillance of every person in the country, their location and contacts.

Now I am not opposed to this during an epidemic but here's the thing - it's definitely not what anyone who has enough brains to fill their hat would call "freedom".

Taiwan did do well (so did Korea, New Zealand, Australia, China) ... but they achieved this by using ruling communist party draconian authoritarian methods. "Freedumb" was nowhere in sight and had absolutely nothing to do with it.

The reason these Chinese made vises are so cheap is because labor costs $1 or maybe $2 an hour and the citizens/subjects are not allowed to leave factories and travel to their hometowns during holidays.

To quote Randall "Tex" Cobb, you're so full of shit your eyes are brown. Wages between the two countries are about the same. Taiwan bosses tend to have a bad reputation because they are often bigger assholes but that's about the sum total of the difference.

If a person were living in Tainan or Taizhong and were whisked into Fujian (same climate) in the middle of the night while they were asleep, the only different you'd notice when you woke up is, PRC people tend to speak better and the girls are prettier. Otherwise there's not a nickel's worth of difference. Only indoctrinated fucknuts from the US are dumb enough to cling to that "ruling communist" crap.

(References, because maybe there's a few people who care about the facts, and I don't epect anyone to believe me, I just arfing live here)

UK gov site, discusses quarantine and entry requirements etc

Coronavirus - Taiwan travel advice

Latest FCDO travel advice for Taiwan including on entry requirements, safety and security and local laws and customs

www.gov.uk

a Taiwan person's recent experiences, pretty similar to what has been going on in prc, same time period, interesting

Taiwan COVID-19 entry requirements: Entering is like being stuck in Squid Game

Taiwan, along with China and Hong Kong, is one of the last remaining outposts in the world to require quarantine for all international arrivals.

www.traveller.com.au

(when she said "somewhat deep", no kidding, same in shang, I never knew the brain was directly connected to the nose before)

oh for joy,

Don't use or carry illegal drugs, including prescription medication. Penalties for drug offences are severe. They include the death penalty, life in prison, long jail terms and heavy fines.

Freedom ...

A proposal for a nation-wide health code in the US similar to Taiwan's for epidemic prevention and control. Oh that's gonna fly, ayup ...

Learning from Taiwan about responding to Covid-19 — and using electronic health records

Shoring up the U.S.'s digital health infrastructure will help improve routine care in the long run while empowering us to better respond to future infectious disease outbreaks.

www.statnews.com

Some interesting data and informatio, the kind of thing our boy with the big hat doesn't seem to have a taste for - still a bit propagandistic but there's numbers inside, use your own judgement.

Taiwan's Reponse to the Coronavirus « Economics# « Cambridge Core Blog

Despite Johns Hopkins’ team predicting that Taiwan will have the second most COVID-19 infected cases in the World after China, a little more than two months lat

www.cambridge.org

Again, interesting how the authoritarian, draconian methods worked and worked well. The major difference between Taiwan and the PRC is size, the health system that Taiwan already had in place, and the reporting in the western press. China also did an excellent job, 1,000 times better than the US or Europe. "Freedom" has nothing to do with it.

Hurts, don't it ?

 

[DSMWerks]

You guys are gonna be so sorry you didn't pay the $80,000 for a Schunk. How will you face your friends in the morning ?

Funny but I am actually a 5th Axis distributor and bought it for $hits and grins to check it out. I've never used it and refused to sell them with my MoresideFixtures that I build and sell. Just cant bring myself to it. I like MoresideFixtures to be able to say "Made in USA". But that being said if its what someone can afford and it keeps a small shop profitable I understand.

 

[gkoenig]

You guys are gonna be so sorry you didn't pay the $80,000 for a Schunk. How will you face your friends in the morning ?

If the Xia Dain vise fails, it isn’t taking thousands of dollars of cutters, holders, and even spindles with it.

That’s the part you didn’t get in the other thread- when complex, Rube Goldberg automation gear fails, it’s capable of taking a LOT of stuff with it. Spending money on a Schunk KSP is about saving money on catastrophic failures.

The Xia Dain is a known quantity- I know a couple of high-end shops who love them in pallet systems.

Schunk has the KSC Mini for $600- someone needs to crank out an Xia Dain vise, not made by slaves, for $150.

 

[DSMWerks]

@mhajicek How is the squareness on those vises? Do the jaws lift or skew when tightened? It looks like you did some weight reduction on them....Did that distort the flat surfaces?

I'm surprised he didn't struggle to cut it. I can't get a file to make a mark in the one I have! Maybe its case hardened. And there is no jaw lift on them. Tight and solid. And yes I would love to see someone in the USA crank out a copy of them for $200-300 range. Its compact and would be great to use on tombstones. I've not seen another small vise that uses serrations to hold the jaws in.

 

[pat pounden]

I got a gently used TRT70 trunnion from EMTech here a couple months ago, and just plugged it in and tested it out over the holidays. It seems to be working well, and it's really fast, fast enough to jump off the floor if I rapid it 90 degrees while it's sitting loose.

It came with an adapter plate for a 5th Axis D05125 dovetail fixture, so I'll probably get one of those. But many of my parts would be better served by a self centering vise, so while I was saving up for the trunnion, I looked far and wide for one that would fit within the 4" swing. I found a couple options for several hundred to over a thousand dollars, and then lucked upon these, which I've mentioned before:

Self-centering vise electrode fixture Machining Tool 8-55mm, 50-75mm - RobotDigg

Self-centering Vise EDM Machine CNC 3R EROWA Positioning Self-centering Vise Electrode Fixture Machining Tool Standard 8...

www.robotdigg.com

They're surprisingly tight and well made for $60, and for that I can afford to get several to try things out with. I'm thinking of making a 4th axis fixture with a solid body, hosting three sets of jaws on the top, and three more on the bottom.

I modified one to mount directly to the TRT70, locating with a 3/8" dowel, and holding down with four 10-32 screws to the pattern on the platter. The trunnion has a rated max weight on platter of 3.0 pounds, and the Xin Dian vise is 2.25 pounds by itself. My modified one, shortened and lightweighted, is 1.29 pounds, leaving more headspace for the workpiece, and also dropping it lower toward the CoR.

View attachment 382902

how did you get thru the robot digg maze to actually ORDER one??

 

[mhajicek]

@mhajicek How is the squareness on those vises? Do the jaws lift or skew when tightened? It looks like you did some weight reduction on them....Did that distort the flat surfaces?

I haven't inspected it for squareness, but it's fairly tight and smooth, even after lightweighting. By hand I can't detect any wiggle in the jaws, but even if it did lift a thou or two it would be fine for first ops, which is what it's for.

 

[David_M]

how did you get thru the robot digg maze to actually ORDER one??

They are all over eBay for good enough prices.

Vise

I bought 4.

 

[Milland]

The peer pressure was too much, so I bought four.

At least the jaws are claimed to be a 440C @ 58RC, but the base looks like hard anodized aluminum. mhajicek, what's your thought, did it machine like a hard stainless when you cut the base?

 

[pat pounden]

They are all over eBay for good enough prices.

This one is from China. Apply the USA filter if you want.

I bought a couple.

thank you!..it says jaws only for 60-double that for vise,...being cheap af will try to find the $60 ...

 

[David_M]

thank you!..it says jaws only for 60-double that for vise,...being cheap af will try to find the $60 ...

I fixed it on the original post, I think.

 

[Milland]

David, I think it still points to a somewhat misleading offer where the only "cheap" listing is jaws only, with the actual base unit being ~$116 or so.

My purchase of four was for ~$73 each (two "inside jaw" and two "outside jaw"), but all the others I see are more than that, and my vendor only had the four total.