USA Mini Self Centering Vise - Development Progress

[Stirling]

Why would they ?

Okay, read the US newspapers and you might see some reasons but honest, this is all coming from the US. All this stuff in the Washpost and so on ? It's dogshit. Total fucking worthless dogshit. And outright lies in many cases - remember when they were peddling the "millions dying now that Xi dropped his draconian authoritarian decrees on covid !!" thing ? There's seven or eight hospitals within walking distance of my house. Since i was being told corpses were littering the streets, I walked around and took photos. Nobody at the hospitals. NONE. It was emptier than usual 'cuz no one wanted to go and get sick. All that crap was straight-up lies. Of course that didn't help, people seem to believe what they want to believe, no matter what the photographic evidence is, but I did my best.

(I have the photos still if anyone wants confirmation. I'm not making this up)

The people here and the governments here are busy doing their thing. They don't look at the US and go "oh wow a potential enemy !" Guys chase girls, girls want stuff, everybody cheats on their taxes, food is top of the list for interests, kids go to school, grandparents nag, they don't even contemplate all the crap I read here. I don't know what's wrong with you guys but this hobby of geopolitical gamesmanship ? It's weird, and pointless, and wrong. It's so nice to talk to people and not be beat up with some weirdass conspiracy theory, instead we can talk about the new ice cream store up on wanhangdu lu or did you see what miss bing was wearing to work yesterday ? yowza !

It's not going to change anything but lemme tell ya, youse guys are wacko.

Seriously.
All the “news” bs trying to stoke anger and fear. It’s ridiculous and just causes problems.
Everyone needs to chill and enjoy life and neighbours.

As for making in our countries. There needs to be a political shift that wants manufacturing vs stacking taxes and costs that kill buissness

 

[Milland]

I'm suggesting the Acme for the side "dovetail", not the screw. My thought is that like a leadscrew in a mill or lathe, the Acme form has less friction and greater strength/wear characteristics. As a tapering form, I think there's still the ability to dial-in the fit to the mating part.

 

[plastikdreams]

Right before I go back to work I'm gonna order 1 or 2....of the cheap, good Chinese versions. If I want something better I'll look at system 3R and get bent over by the sweeds...or do what they used to do...make it

 

[mhajicek]

I'm suggesting the Acme for the side "dovetail", not the screw. My thought is that like a leadscrew in a mill or lathe, the Acme form has less friction and greater strength/wear characteristics. As a tapering form, I think there's still the ability to dial-in the fit to the mating part.

There's already very little friction on the ways. Acme's have less friction when used as a lead screw because the force is closer to normal to the flank face. That doesn't apply here.

 

[Houndogforever]

Why not just make it with a single dovetail rather than those thread looking grooves?

 

[mhajicek]

Why not just make it with a single dovetail rather than those thread looking grooves?

You could, but it would use up more of the width of the material, and be a heavier cut with a larger cutter. You should be able to do it in one or two passes (plus maybe a skim) with a multi-form threadmill.

 

[Mebfab]

Speaking of china.... just came in a few hours ago. 20k spindle. 4500lbs of epoxy

 

[DavidScott]

Speaking of china.... just came in a few hours ago. 20k spindle. 4500lbs of epoxy

As in on your shop floor??

 

[Mebfab]

Yes, power tomorrow.

 

[mhajicek]

Cool, I've been hesitantly considering one of those, but I'm not sure it can handle my tolerances. Please do up a review once you've gotten to know it, and let us know about it's capabilities and foibles.

 

[DavidScott]

Yes, power tomorrow.

It doesn't just plug into the wall?

You do have to start a thread on this, with videos.

 

[Orange Vise]

I got my hands on a couple of the aforementioned vises. Over the last few months, quite a few people have reached out asking if we could make something with a similar form factor.

Not a bad little product. Granted, some specs are a little exaggerated, like hardness. Website said HRC55. We tested closer to HRC25-30 on the jaws.

Why not just make it with a single dovetail rather than those thread looking grooves?

It's mainly for space constraints on such a small vise. Using side serrations isn't new, and is actually common on robot grippers (take a look at Schunk's PGN+). Grippers often use coarser, trapezoidal serrations, but the gripper bodies are aluminum for weight savings.

A small, steel vise should hold up fine with 60-degree V-thread serrations, especially considering a manual vise will never see the same amount of open/close cycles as an automated vise or gripper.

tries to copy it to sell for six times the price.

Yea I think a more appropriate price for a well made, American product in this form factor and style would be $125-150, depending on the type of jaws included. I came to this price point by scaling our existing vises. For example, our 4" x 6" self centering vise is about 5X bigger, so 5X the cost in materials, heat treating, cycle time, consumables, etc, and the 4x6 is priced around $600. Things don't scale down linearly, but they're not that far off.

Several design changes could be made to better suit the intended market, i.e. milling (the original was meant to hold EDM electrodes). This could facilitate more jaw options, mounting options, and length choices.

What does the community say?

 

[604Pook]

Speaking of china.... just came in a few hours ago. 20k spindle. 4500lbs of epoxy

Let us know what you think of it. I have been looking at those machines since they popped up on instagram 6 or 7 years ago.

I could use a small machine with a high speed spindle at a reasonable price.

 

[Stirling]

design considerations,
it would be nice to have the screw sit below the vice bed, the hump in the middle is a pain when using it as a traditional vice

It would be nice if the jaws where 0.005" thinner than the vice body for when your gripping the little vice in a larger vice to set it at an angle. (i will skim mine, but nice if i did not have too

if it was a tiny bit larger one could also ise it with 52mm quickpoint spacing. that would be handy

 

[Stirling]

Speaking of china.... just came in a few hours ago. 20k spindle. 4500lbs of epoxy

review please, what was the pricepoint like delivered? they are an interesting compact machine.

 

[implmex]

Hi All:
Those of you who run a 5 axis machine routinely...how often do you hold your blanks by a dovetail?
I ask because if the answer is "mostly" what do you even need the vise for?
If you make a simple wire EDM cut fixture and just always make the dovetails on the stock the same and centered on the stock, why would the vise still be any better than the simple, cheap, rock solid dovetail fixture?

When I still had a business partner (he LOVED his 5 axis machine) we went through this argument and I was never able to convince him to even consider my point.
He built himself a few very nice self centering vises, swore by their superiority and was happy.
I did the wire work in that partnership, built a bunch of dirt simple dovetail fixtures and could wire my stuff just as nicely as he could mill his stuff.
I never missed the self centering doomahickey for a moment.
And yeah, as his got some use, he had more and more trouble with the accuracy, up until he was probing everything just like I was touching everything off on the wire.

So I'm having a hard time seeing the point of a self centering vise unless you have no plan to dovetail anything.
Cheers

Marcus
www.implant-mechanix.com
www.vancouverwireedm.com

 

[Garwood]

Hi All:
Those of you who run a 5 axis machine routinely...how often do you hold your blanks by a dovetail?
I ask because if the answer is "mostly" what do you even need the vise for?
If you make a simple wire EDM cut fixture and just always make the dovetails on the stock the same and centered on the stock, why would the vise still be any better than the simple, cheap, rock solid dovetail fixture?

When I still had a business partner (he LOVED his 5 axis machine) we went through this argument and I was never able to convince him to even consider my point.
He built himself a few very nice self centering vises, swore by their superiority and was happy.
I did the wire work in that partnership, built a bunch of dirt simple dovetail fixtures and could wire my stuff just as nicely as he could mill his stuff.
I never missed the self centering doomahickey for a moment.
And yeah, as his got some use, he had more and more trouble with the accuracy, up until he was probing everything just like I was touching everything off on the wire.

So I'm having a hard time seeing the point of a self centering vise unless you have no plan to dovetail anything.
Cheers

Marcus
www.implant-mechanix.com
www.vancouverwireedm.com

Everytime I see this little self centering vise stuff come up Wheeliekings old thread where he made vises from solid aluminum bar by drilling and cutting a deep slot to form a hinge and a capscrew closed it to grip the part.

Could do the exact same thing, but with dovetails. I bet it'd work great.

 

[boosted]

Hi All:
Those of you who run a 5 axis machine routinely...how often do you hold your blanks by a dovetail?
I ask because if the answer is "mostly" what do you even need the vise for?

Almost never. Good serrated jaws are a lot more common than they were a decade ago.

Even with hard metals, we just clamp and go 99% of the time.

 

[DavidScott]

Dovetailing the blanks takes time and another setup.

If you take a look at the Syil website those machines lose a lot of their luster IMO. I am most curious how accurate, stiff and reliable they are/will be, and how you are going to get support and parts in 10-15 years.

 

[mhajicek]

Hi All:
Those of you who run a 5 axis machine routinely...how often do you hold your blanks by a dovetail?

I'll dovetail hard materials, but aluminum and plastics I'll just rely on the jaw serrations. It saves a lot on programming and setup time, since I'm low volume high mix; lots of short run prototypes. When I dovetail the hard materials for use in the vise, I don't have to worry about how wide the dovetail is, and don't need to cut a locating slot like the dovetail fixtures want. It's just a matter of speed and convenience. Since it's for 1st ops, it would have to slop and shift quite a bit before I'd have to probe or make other allowances.