I brought in a new drawbar (Enco calls is an arbor bolt) for the mill. I was able to use one of the collets and an end mill from the box to make some small Aluminum chips.
So I think the mill is online. 
It appears that the small keyway in the spindle was destroyed in the previous adventure, but you can still use the R8 collets. We could investigate a repair of the spindle.
I have some energy to bring the mill to better condition. Paul has built the Digital Read Out (DRO) main board. Looks awesome!
We need to get some scales to talk to the board. I would like to propose getting one 6" scale for the Z axis (about $50) and see if we can at least get things talking. We would probably need to get some misc parts (plugs, etc.).
I would also like to get some basic mill tolls (edge/center finder, 1-2-3 blocks, etc). I made a wish list on Amazon with some ideas.
http://amzn.com/w/3DJTYGFW84LB0
I put some end mills on the wish list but I’m not sure how we want to handle that. Some basic ones would be nice, but you can certainly go down an endless rat hole of expendable parts.
I’m a little concerned that if someone uses a really dull mill they could mess things up (again).
I would like to spend some time cleaning up the mill and the space around it. There is a bunch of old electrical parts in the lower cabinet, I would like to use that space for mill stuff. I’ll box them up and label the box.
I’ll bring up this in the Tuesday meeting.
Hope the Detroit Faire is fun. I’m heading out to do the afternoon shift at the Faire in Batavia.
Thanks,
Bradman
P.S. I’ve been doing some research and this mill has quite a lot of history. They are still importing a slightly newer version, and there is a lot of information on capability and upgrades. If you are willing to take it slow it can produce some good parts.
(of course making it full CNC would be awesome . . . . )
Thanks for getting the mill up and running again brad! I don’t think anyone would mind you moving the box, but I’m not in that area too much to say for sure.
Thank you for putting the mill back on track! I think DRO, are nice for teaching. People see more easily the distance when it is display on a screen than reading marking on a cylinder.
For mill tools: we have at least one edge finder. I also have 123 blocks from little machinist shop that are nice.
For endmill: The hive is not buying any end mills for the two CNC that we have. Right now, if you want to use these machine, you have to bring yours. But that maybe a thing to discuss… we also have some end mills in the black craftsmen box on the CNC shelves.
For turning the ENCO mill into a CNC: It will require a few expenses for it. We already have a control system (KFLOP+Kstep), and a software. We only will need 3 stepper motors:
http://www.omc-stepperonline.com/dual-shaft-nema-34-cnc-stepper-motor-85nm1204ozin-34hs465004d-p-277.html
a PC and limit switches boards (around $25 for 6 boards+ components). But the most important thing is someone taking care of this project! We can talk about this at the next meeting.
Julien
Darn, I wanted to respond to this earlier.
While the mill does “work” I’d like to ask that no one use it for a bit longer.
The inside of the spindle is all chew up and you will ruin collets if you try to put them in the mill right now. We already have two collets ruined from this I think.
The three scales that would work for this machine area here btw:
It seems like you already figured this out though Brad. 
I’m definitely all for turning this in to a CNC mill!
Yes I was wondering how the inside of the spindle looked.
I also could not find the arbor for the Jacobs drill chuck. I wonder if that was the “victim” of the previous adventure?
Let’s talk more tomorrow at the meeting.
Bradman
It was a victim, I can show you tomorrow. It is in the scrap bin for a reason.
I removed the draw bar temporarily in case someone missed my email and tries to use it. No need to ruin more collets yet!
Jon