Rent Mill & Lathe DVDs at Smartflix | Great aluminum & steel prices at OnlineMetals

Enco 20" 1PH Square Column Geared Head Mill Drill (aka Rong-Fu 45 Mill Clone) - Inspection On Quality

One of the frequently-asked questions when first looking at purchasing these China-made RF45 mill/drill clones is "How's the quality?"

In this article, we'll take you around the nooks and crannies of this mill/drill to hopefully provide some additional insight.

Before we forget, let's also take a look at the accessories that came with this mill/drill. As you would imagine, there's no Kurt D688 vise packaged in with this mill/drill and if you've ever purchased other mainland China machinery, you're used to the blackened steel finish of the wrenches and other miscellaneous hand tools.

When you first crack open the accessories box, you get the following:

It comes with a bunch of handwheels, cranks, a 24mm wrench for the head mounting bolts, a face mill and an angle vise. The Enco version provides a copy of a copy of a copy "instruction" manual which can be downloaded at the Enco website. Don't expect it to resemble that of the Grizzly's X3 manual.

As you may have experienced, the quality of tooling coming from Mainland China varies greatly. There are some really nice quality tooling and then there's the stuff that falls apart with minimal use. We have a feeling that what we've received is the latter.

Here's a look at the entire boxed contents:

It also comes with an R8-J33 taper shank for the drill chuck. The angle vise is good for the drill press which is where it will go. Don't expect arruracy here.

The 3" face mill is a shell arbor type with a 1.375" (1 3/8") arbor:

The four inserts don't look like HSS and they certainly aren't ground for immediate use. We'll be using the shell arbor. The face mill will be replaced with something from eBay.

Here's the look at the arbor:

That's that for the accessories. Bottom line: go back to Enco for some cheap, quality tooling using there monthly Free UPS Ground shipping coupons.

Now, onto the mill/drill!

Let's start from the top by looking at the motor plate specs:

It comes pre-wired for 1-Phase 220V service.

Single-Phase Double-Voltage Asynchronous Motor
Model number YL-90L-4
220/110V 60HZ
7.8/15.5A 1.5HP
1720 r/min IP44 B
Cw 35uF/450V-AC Cst 400uF/240V-AC
Date 2007

We'll take apart the head and take a closer look at the geartrain a bit later. For now, we move to the RF45 nameplate:

What's of interest here is the designation "45" which essentially means it's the 45 series of the Fong-Fu nomenclature. The actual model number is ZX7045. We've also seen ZAY7045 (like those sold by Lathemaster and others). We'll look further into the nomenclature at a later date.

There are two gear levers to change gearing from 120rpm to 1970rpm (H-M-L ranges with I-II). The actual speeds are 120rpm, 210rpm, 345rpm, 670rpm, 1180rpm, 1970rpm. Basically, you won't chuck a tiny end mill or engraver bit in this machine.

We find the ruler useless for precision work, so a cheap DRO scale will be mounted here.

Looking underneath the head behind the quill shows two things: 1. it uses the same rack and pinion system as our round-column mill/drill and 2. there's overspray everywhere. The yellow paint looks like a protective coating over the brownish-colored casting. The raised circles and supporting sides appear to be the bottom of the H/M/L and I/II gear shafts.

At this point we can confidently say that the Grizzly's G0519 must have a nicer finish than this model.

The right hand side of the head shows the two leaf-type handle on the Z-axis gib lock. Pretty cheap stuff here. The degree ruler is common to any of the Chinese machines (even the Taiwanese) - good for ballparking. A true tramming will get things right.

On the other side of the head we have what we call a casting "booger". This looks like remnants of slag or something else that they didn't try to grind out. Instead, leave it in there and expoxy/paint over it.

The booger doesn't interfere with wrench clearance but sure does show how quality control is handled at the factory that makes these machines for Enco.

Next up, the same side of the head, this time showing the casting between the leaf spring and quill lock lever:

There must have been enough clearance around this hole such that the nut could fit. It just very may be epoxy or Bondo-like products.

Now let's look at the electric switch for power/forward/reverse. The top and its connections:

The bottom and its connections:

There's no emergency stop "e-stop" switch here like they have on the Grizzly. It's nice and simple. The quality of the switch itself? Let's just say that we foresee replacing it sometime in the future.

Another question one may pose is how they protect the cast iron parts for transport? Lots of that reddish cosmoline grease. The table had the bulk of it. The dovetail column also had quite a bit:

Since we're here at the column, let's take a look at the inside from the bottom:

A closer look at the right-angle geartrain for raising and lowering the head:

It looks like exposed thrust bearings that's commonly found in these machines.

The top of the column reveals some interesting yellow "fuzz". It's again probably just some protective paint that's covered the rough, fuzzy inner casting:

The front view of the bottom of the column shows the gearbox that'smounted to the actual column. Loosening these four allen head (socket head cap screws) bolts is not a good idea especially with the head still mounted.

Underneath the gearbox are the two screw holes for securing the way cover. Looks like the paint didn't have enough time to cure prior to them mounting the way cover and shipping it out.

The interface between the column and the base is quite interesting. First, we show that when the column is removed, the Bondo filler and put, as you would imagine, tears apart. No surprise here:

We wish we could show you with a more close-up view of the base where the column mates, but what it's supposed to show is the rough grinding performed (the whitish strokes) to get the surface flat. We won't know for certain how trammed this grind produced until we walk down that path, but for now, it seems a bit disconcerting. We expect that shimming will be required.

Moving towards the front of the machine, we see a close-up of the Y-axis clearance hole for the leadnut. Notice that the flashing around the casting is much nicer than the ragged situation on our round-column Dayton RF40 mill/drill.

If you've had questions as to how to increase the Y-axis travel of these machines, this is how to do it. Just grind or mill away the front of the clearance slot. At an existing travel of roughly 7.5", attempting to reach a claimed 9" of the Top-Tech DM45. Without comparing the actual base dimensions, it's difficult to come to some sort of conclusion as to how this extended travel is acheived. Either the base is longer than the Enco or they've cut out a longer slot for the Y-axis leadscrew to clear.

Here's a view of the leadscrew and nut on the Y-axis from the top of the mill/drill.

Standard issue here.

From the bottom side we see that the Y-axis leadnut is of the split-nut variety. Tip! If you're making your own stand, make sure you have an ample-sized hole cut out for easy access to adjust the nut. If you have the pre-made stand like we do, the only way to do this is to cut it out.

This shot of the Y-axis dial shows that the painting of the bearing block occurred after the "0" indicator was mounted. No masking tape used here.

We're almost there...

Let's take one final look at the mill- this time at the end of the table. This close-up shows the rough casting in the well area of the left hand side of the table:

Usually the ends of the T-slots are ground flat perpendicular to the face of the table and a chamfer is created as well such that there's no abrupt jagged end to the T-slots. Even our old, used Taiwanese clone of a full-sized Bridgeport knee mill had this.

And yet another close-up.

We hope we didn't drag this out too long. The point we're trying to make is that in this case, you do get what you paid for. One must then ask themselves if paying a bit more (something like $200+) for a regular-priced Grizzly G0519 is worth it compared to the sale price w/free shipping of the Enco. Our take is still that this sale price with free shipping was too good a deal to pass up. When the Enco goes back to its regular price of $2000, we think you should take a good look at the Grizzly G0519. The Wholesale Tool version and the Penn Tool version are most likely similar quality-wise as the Enco. If you really wanted a Rong-Fu at over $3000, there's that option too.

Bottom line: if this Enco mill/drill performs (we'll test that later), it's the best deal out there. If you're concerned about quality finishes, the Grizzly G0519 should live up to expectations. If you're a gambling man and are sold on the 9" Y-axis travel of the Penn Tool Top-Tech DM45, that's the way to go.

Check out the mill/drill running...

If your R8 collets don't fit in your spindle, check out what we found out about this issue.