Post up your latest new or used tool purchases

I have only had a cheap chuck inflator and decided to spoil myself. Purchased from Napa, it’s import but what isn’t these days.

I like how the head locks onto the valve stem, I thought it might be hard to read since the gauge runs from 10-120psi but it was easy!

300sniper said:

Guess I don’t need to be in any huge hurry to grind the vise. The top right corner of the magnet is sort of weak. I’m wondering iffin’ that is why that corner seems to be high. Maybe the chuck is flat but the washer didn’t get pulled down as tight.

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I’ve seen guys surface grind the face of the magnet down flat too.

bgaidan said:

The rigging and trucking is probably going to cost you 50x what you paid and you'll still have a screaming deal. Bet there are enough salvageable parts on it that even if it doesn't work and isn't repairable that you could still make money.

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I can put a little update in on the machine. A built nest in the Control cabinet, unfortunately. I wasn’t really expecting to find anything like that in there. I spent the afternoon cleaning up all of that and applying deoxit to all of these boards and the connectors. Our first power up it was lockdown in SKBIF – 2 mode. Eventually fingered out that was related to the batteries that for the memory going dead. I ordered the kit from Haas to replace that as well as they gave me a back up on the parameters and settings machine.

Powering it up again with the batteries were replaced and still was unhappy camper. I noticed the back light on the screen worked a lot better when the keyboard was not connected. I was able to split the layers of the keyboard apart and remove water from between them. It took a while of stumbling through the process after that, but I eventually got the parameters loaded, time set and everything happy again.

$103 purchase price. $1400 for transport. $99 for the battery kit is my total investment so far. That battery kit hurt pretty bad as I was doubling the price of machine.

Landslide said:

I’ve seen guys surface grind the face of the magnet down flat too.

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I should have said "chuck" not "vise". Right now it's close enough for anything I plan on doing.

Bacho said:

I can put a little update in on the machine. A built nest in the Control cabinet, unfortunately. I wasn’t really expecting to find anything like that in there. I spent the afternoon cleaning up all of that and applying deoxit to all of these boards and the connectors. Our first power up it was lockdown in SKBIF – 2 mode. Eventually fingered out that was related to the batteries that for the memory going dead. I ordered the kit from Haas to replace that as well as they gave me a back up on the parameters and settings machine.

Powering it up again with the batteries were replaced and still was unhappy camper. I noticed the back light on the screen worked a lot better when the keyboard was not connected. I was able to split the layers of the keyboard apart and remove water from between them. It took a while of stumbling through the process after that, but I eventually got the parameters loaded, time set and everything happy again.

$103 purchase price. $1400 for transport. $99 for the battery kit is my total investment so far. That battery kit hurt pretty bad as I was doubling the price of machine.

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$1600 into a machine that's probably worth $30-40k. That's how you do it.


There's an SL-10 and a mini mill up for auction from a local-ish high school. Their starting price is too high and they likely won't sell in the first round, but I'm keeping an eye on them and really tempted to ditch the Fadal and Mazak for them. Biggest downside is they don't have any loading assistance so i'd have to monkey them on to my tilt deck.

bgaidan said:

$1600 into a machine that's probably worth $30-40k. That's how you do it.


There's an SL-10 and a mini mill up for auction from a local-ish high school. Their starting price is too high and they likely won't sell in the first round, but I'm keeping an eye on them and really tempted to ditch the Fadal and Mazak for them. Biggest downside is they don't have any loading assistance so i'd have to monkey them on to my tilt deck.

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Don't you have a pile of forklifts?

bgaidan said:

$1600 into a machine that's probably worth $30-40k. That's how you do it.


There's an SL-10 and a mini mill up for auction from a local-ish high school. Their starting price is too high and they likely won't sell in the first round, but I'm keeping an eye on them and really tempted to ditch the Fadal and Mazak for them. Biggest downside is they don't have any loading assistance so i'd have to monkey them on to my tilt deck.

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Most of the time these places will help you out with a forklift when it comes down to it. And just renting one for the day really isn’t too bad in the scheme of things although it’s never come down to that for me. I’ll probably have to do that to move this machine to my shop. Currently, it’s at my dad’s place.

Dethmachinefab said:

Don't you have a pile of forklifts?

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Yes, but I can't legally transport any of them, and even then, most places wouldn't let me bring my sketchy **** on their sites. The mini mill and TL10 I could probably manage with a pallet jack and then winch them on to my tilt deck. Much bigger than those, I'd want a lift.

When I brought the Fadal and Mazak home, I had to rent a 12k lift because my 6k wouldn't touch them. The "new" 8k Lull might handle them, but I'd have a hard time maneuvering it in front of the shop without moving a bunch of other ****.

Bacho said:

Most of the time these places will help you out with a forklift when it comes down to it. And just renting one for the day really isn’t too bad in the scheme of things although it’s never come down to that for me. I’ll probably have to do that to move this machine to my shop. Currently, it’s at my dad’s place.

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Most of the RB/govplanet sites will load anything for free. It's 50/50 on govdeals. A lot of the smaller facilities don't have lifts for anything too big. You can use that to your advantage a lot of the time too.

I bought a safe a couple weeks ago for $18 because people were afraid to move it. I knew it had wheels that you couldn't see in the pics. I dragged it out with a pinch bar and then manhandled it on to my trailer in about 10 minutes.

And at the same time, I bought 3 diesel zero turns from a school district. Usually with those, even though they say they won't load, you can talk them in to it after the fact. This dude would not budge. I ended up having to rent a mini skid on the way so I could load them....and then shoehorn everything on the trailer so I wouldn't have to make 2 trips. Sketchy as **** with mower decks stacked 5 high. All because they couldn't spare 10 minutes with a forklift to help me out.

Bacho said:

Custodian said it’s been outside for a year, but he didn’t think there’s anything wrong with it.

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Bacho said:

I was able to split the layers of the keyboard apart and remove water from between them.

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I always cringe when I see stuff like that. Ok, I understand they have to get it out of their way, but WTF do people just put stuff like that out in the rain without any protection? As for "he didn’t think there’s anything wrong with it" - well, until they sat it out in the rain for a year...

PAToyota said:

I always cringe when I see stuff like that. Ok, I understand they have to get it out of their way, but WTF do people just put stuff like that out in the rain without any protection? As for "he didn’t think there’s anything wrong with it" - well, until they sat it out in the rain for a year..

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Are you new to how the government handles tax dollars? Unfortunately, with the battery going dead, it wiped out how much time is on the machine. My lunch money said the machine had hardly any use on it.

My mini mill that I bought a couple years ago ultimately, I found it had less than 40 hours of spindle time on it. By some quick math that’s over $1000 an hour the state paid for education on that thing.

Bacho said:

Are you new to how the government handles tax dollars?

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Unfortunately, not just the government... I see people who drag stuff out of their basement and just sit it in their backyard. Of course, they're also the "I know what I got" sort too... Well, you know what you HAD...

The guy I got my Bridgeport from, it had been his father's and he had no interest in it. He was days away from breaking it up and hauling it to the recycler to get it out of his way... Unfortunately, I missed his lathe that he hauled out to his front yard to get ready to take away and someone driving by asked what he wanted for it and he said to take it to get it out of there.

But I agree on the government - and not just for trashing good equipment by not protecting it. The stuff they buy, never use, and then sell for pennies on the dollar... It means nothing when it is someone else's dollars...

PAToyota said:

I always cringe when I see stuff like that. Ok, I understand they have to get it out of their way, but WTF do people just put stuff like that out in the rain without any protection? As for "he didn’t think there’s anything wrong with it" - well, until they sat it out in the rain for a year...

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Maybe one of our resident ******s who happily brags about doing that sort of "not my job" **** will show up to answer your question.

bgaidan said:

Not as cool as Bacho's buy, but I picked up a Tormach PCNC 1100 from a surplus auction. Came from VA Tech and appears to have pretty low hours. I was told it was purchased for some joint venture program. Only downside is that it didn't come with a control....which is effectively a simple PC with a motion controller card. Gonna call Tormach tomorrow and make sure I'm not missing anything, but it looks like I can buy the latest version of the Pathpilot control for about $900 and that should be all I need. Also looking in to some other options that can use a cheaper PC and a $140 mesa card. Either way, paid about $5k for the machine and shouldn't be more than another $1k to get it running. Most likely going to flip it, but kind of want to run a few parts on it and get a feel for the control first. Should be able to get $12k+ for it if everything works like I expect it to.

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Update on the Tormach.....


I ordered a copy of Pathpilot from Tormach - $42 shipped
Orderd a 7i92TH from Mesa - $123 shipped

I loaded Pathpilot on to an old NUC I had laying around - $Free?

And that's where the fun began. I could see that the PC was "talking" the the Mesa card, but it would not connect to to the machine. After talking with the guy at Mesa, and then a support ticket with Tormach, I was almost convinced the the main board in the machine was toast. But then I was also getting some feedback that the "T" versions of the 7i92 (i.e.: 7i92th) used a different set of chips and were not a direct replacement for the old ones without Tormach adding new firmware and drivers to Pathpilot. When I asked Tormach if that I updated, they would only tell me that they only supported the card sold on their site.....which is a 7i92T in a fancy enclosure for 3x the price.

In the meantime, one of the guys from Mesa on the LinuxCNC forum chimed in and said the had a "scratch end dent" original 7i92 that had a bad i/o header, but it wasn't the one Tormach used so it would work for me. He threw it up on their site for $10 + $15 shipping so I grabbed that.

And then today, someone on the Tormach forum chimed in and said "Tormach has added suppor for the "T" cards. Make sure you have the jumpers set correctly for the EEPROM IP address. " ****ing hell. I thought I had verified that, but I read the diagram in the manual wrong and needed to move one jumper. As soon as I did that, it fired right up and connected.



While all of that was going on, I was also finding some ****ery in the wiring from the previous owners. There was second 110v plug that hard wired to the switched side of the main contactor. Not knowing exactly how this thing was supposed to behave when powered on, I noticed that the contactor wasn't closing like I expected it to and thought that might be my control problem. So when I manually actuated that contactor, it managed to connect the two legs of the 240 circuit together - it just happened that the 110v leg they used to jump the contactor was the opposite leg from the one coming in to the upstream side. So I had to order some fuses from Amazon.

New main fuses in to the main 220v circuit and had most power back, but that contactor wasn't actuating like I expected it to. I found that I could jump two fused circuits on the main board itself and get everything to power up, but that's wasn't right. I was troubleshooting all of this at the same time I was trying to figure out the PC/Mesa stuff and I wasn't sure which problem was causing which. Turned out they were completely unrelated. After some more probing, I found a .75a fuse on the output side of the control step down transformer. That was the line that fed that contactor. More fuses ordered and BOOM - working like it should.

There was also some ****er with the e-stop switch. They had it wired backwards so "out" was actually in e-stop and in was normal. Fortunately I found that before I got the control working so it didn't leave me confused when I got it powered up.

And then finally, once I go the Mesa thing sorted out today, I found that the X and Y limit switches were wired wrong. They had added a door open switch, which apparently gets wired in to the limit switch circuit to shut the machine down if you open the doors while it's running. Somehow the managed to **** it up where Y worked, but when you homed X, it would trip the Y limit too. I couldn't actually figure out how that door switch was supposed to be wired, so I pulled it out and wired the limit switches back to normal. I don't need that safety **** any way!

So, probably 4-5 hours of trouble shooting and about $200 in hardware and software and it's all working. I'm ordering some tool holders tonight so I can actually try it out and make a few parts on it, but ultimately I'm probably going to just flip it and make a couple grand for my troubles.



Best I can tell, this thing may not have any hours on it at all. I'm guessing it was purchased for a program that never happened. Someone else at the school got ahold of it and possible added the enclosure - which is when the e-stop and limit switches got wired wrong and probably when the little fuse popped and then they tried to troubleshoot it and made it worse.

eBay score, bench top linear power supply, it'll do 30 V at 5.3 amps. 5 amps into a glow plug makes a sizzling sound and stinks when you accidentally brush your palm across it.

Thank goodness for callouses.

Lee said:

eBay score, bench top linear power supply, it'll do 30 V at 5.3 amps. 5 amps into a glow plug makes a sizzling sound and stinks when you accidentally brush your palm across it.

Thank goodness for callouses.

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Ok, what’s that to be used for?!?

Whelp, I didn’t want to drop this much coin on a saw but this thing is top notch over the rest except maybe the green German made stuff. But there’s things on their saw I do not like at all so there is that.

I wanted a 12” saw that I could mount closer to the wall vs the long DeWalt saw I have… which I want to sell now… but they don’t have any resale value… so I figure something else out for it instead

I mounted the new saw on a portable stand for now but it’ll get mounted in a more permanent location once I build a new miter saw work bench set up.

Landslide said:

Ok, what’s that to be used for?!?

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Lots of things, but mostly the nipples of captured enemy combatants.

Landslide said:

Ok, what’s that to be used for?!?

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Clearly, for burning yourself on glow plugs.

Five amps is a bit low, but it's nice to have a benchtop power supply to test things out. I think I'd want at least 15A. I keep meaning to get one, but haven't found one that makes me jump on it.

PAToyota said:

Clearly, for burning yourself on glow plugs.

Five amps is a bit low, but it's nice to have a benchtop power supply to test things out. I think I'd want at least 15A. I keep meaning to get one, but haven't found one that makes me jump on it.

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Stuff starts getting pricey as the amps increase.

I've had a 1.5 amp 12 V fixed power supply for years, but have needed higher and lower voltages for tinkering on stuff more and more often.

This will do most of what I need. I wouldn't be mad if it was higher amperage, but it was one of those eBay, "make an offer" deals that the seller actually accepted my low ball offer on.

The glow plug was just the first thing I found to use to test a load on it with.

Lee said:

Stuff starts getting pricey as the amps increase.

I've had a 1.5 amp 12 V fixed power supply for years, but have needed higher and lower voltages for tinkering on stuff more and more often.

This will do most of what I need. I wouldn't be mad if it was higher amperage, but it was one of those eBay, "make an offer" deals that the seller actually accepted my low ball offer on.

The glow plug was just the first thing I found to use to test a load on it with.

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What stuff do you test with it besides burning yourself?

just used mine to charge a stupid li-po4-fegbtq battery someone handed me
it was strange, you give it 14v and it doesn't take any current, you give it 8v and it draws 4 amps, then when the current drops you bump up the voltage slightly and it'll then take 3a again, rinse and repeat

kinda funky, since with lead acid you just give them 14v and they figure it all out on their own

^^
I used mine last week to bring 8 Milwaukee 18v batteries back to life. They were brand new but sat on the shelf for the pat 2+ years and none would charge on the standard charger but could give them a little boost with the power supply to get them some voltage and then throw them on the charger and they'd be fine. Still have 1 M12 that I haven't been able to revive.


Other than that, it's hand to have a infinitely adjustable power source on the bench for random electronic projects. Sometimes I need 5v, sometimes I need 18v and it's all there with the turn of a knob.

mine usually lives in the bathroom powering my face hair trimmer thing, the batteries in it died, but 4a of 3v makes it continue to run
woulda stuck a wall wart on it, but didn't have any with the balls to start the motor

Landslide said:

What stuff do you test with it besides burning yourself?

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All kinds of electrical tinkering and testing. Powering automotive electronics outside of the vehicle, powering random PCBs that friends and family hand me and say, "can you fix this?" Mobile audio, I've been on an ammo can boombox kick lately.

bgaidan said:

^^
I used mine last week to bring 8 Milwaukee 18v batteries back to life. They were brand new but sat on the shelf for the pat 2+ years and none would charge on the standard charger but could give them a little boost with the power supply to get them some voltage and then throw them on the charger and they'd be fine. Still have 1 M12 that I haven't been able to revive.


Other than that, it's hand to have a infinitely adjustable power source on the bench for random electronic projects. Sometimes I need 5v, sometimes I need 18v and it's all there with the turn of a knob.

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I think the one we have at work has two knobs. Just like a CC/CV welder you can either adjust the volts or the amps (or at least limit the amps so you don't smoke stuff).

Lee said:

Stuff starts getting pricey as the amps increase.

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That's the large part of what keeps me from buying one.

I’m all about steel drawer storage units like vidmar and that.

This guy popped up on FB MP for $100. It’s not as heavy built as a vidmar but it’s beefier than a file cabinet. Maybe it’s an old one but a can’t say I’ve come across in the past. Anyway, it’ll work good for my purposes.

Picked up a couple items at the local antique mall

Old big wood timber chisel needing TLC, outside dividers needing a tad bit of love not much and a Stanley angle finder which I’ve never seen one before. It’ll come in handy with steel fabrication but I think it was made for wood working tool the quarter is for size reference

Picked up one of these tubing sanders. It works well.

Belt Sander Attachment Grinder YSJWAER - Adapter Angle Grinder Sanding Attachment Polisher 5/8-11 Thread Amazon.com

Smithy said:

Picked up one of these tubing sanders. It works well.

Belt Sander Attachment Grinder YSJWAER - Adapter Angle Grinder Sanding Attachment Polisher 5/8-11 Thread Amazon.com

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I've been eyeball ****ing one of these for a while now. I'll probably have to buy one once I start back into doing some tubing work. I remember checking out the Dynabrade belt tube sander but it was $$$$$$$$