Modding SIEG SX2P Mini Mill cheap work light mod

The last week I have been mainly turning cheap £15,-- IKEA NÄVLINGE desk clamp LED lights into work spotlights for my mini mill. As you can see, they are almost ideal for the purpose:



So I started with cutting some 30x30x35mm aluminium blocks, and squaring them off on the mill:





Then marked them out:



And drilled out 13mm holes:



And then rounded the corners on the mill and drilled and tapped M6 holes:



Which will have tightening thumbwheels turned from 22mm aluminium bar:



And here is the result so far!



Next came the drilling and tapping of the M4 mounting holes, and knocking up some countersunk mounting braces from 3mm aluminium:





Next was to drill 4.5mm holes in the case of the mill. This casing houses the electronics, and is (somewhat disappointingly) made from plastic, hence the mounting braces to give some structural integrity to the mountings, which you can see on the inside of the casing.





And the results of the height-adjusting clamps holding the IKEA lights in place:





Those familiar with the SIEG mini mill will have noticed that I also changed the black plastic handles of the quill feed hand levers for 20mm diameter knurled aluminium handles (turned on my own lathe, of course). Other mill mods are a gas strut height dampener spring (much better than the blade spring), and a reverse switch.

More pics of the mounting:









And there it is! Not bad result. The warm white LEDs are fully adjustable, bright and easy on the eyes.

 

Sweet - looking pretty pro there Nexxo

Does this mean there will be an Ada update soon?

 

...maybe.

Some time soon. Ish.

 

Loving your work, @Nexxo !

Those IKEA lights are pretty nifty. If I remember rightly, you did something similar with a whole stack of those flexible IKEA USB LED lights and your lathe. This is even better

 

Yeah... it's kind of like that.

 

Thanks! In the end I changed the lights on the lathe because vibrations kept making the magnetically attached power supply slide. I took an IKEA JANSJO table LED light (now discontinued) and made an adapter bit out of brass so I could screw it on a magnetic mount:



The magnetic mount (which is a solid square heavy base with a switch that activates/deactivates the strong magnet):



The brass adapter bit:



The result:



On the lathe:



Of course, I have made mods to the lathe too, like better, brass gibs on the saddle, a metal gears upgrade kit (the originals are acetal) and aluminium turning wheels --also a kit, although I could probably have turned them myself. I also upgraded the rather stubby plastic tailstock locking handle --this is a part I turned myself from 20mm aluminium bar:



After:

 

Jeez, that metalwork is fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.

 

There seems to be a chuck key in a chuck without a person on it

 

Yes, but the transparent cover has a safety switch that will allow the lathe to power up only when it's folded down --which prevents the scenario of the chuck key burying itself in your forehead because you forgot to take it out.

(This is something that totally would happen to me.)

 

Thanks! A really skilled metalworker Chris from Clickspring made a similar adapter for an IKEA JANSJO LED light...

But in a personal communication he said that he liked my version better. I felt much honoured.

 

That youtube lot are a bad crowd to get involved with, Nexxo. Next thing you know, they've pressured you into adding rocket engines.

 

I wasn't going to add any rocket engines. Nope.