Rotabroach Element 100 advise

[Tally]

I am thinking of buying this to replace my 42mm evolution mag drill.. Has anyone got one of these and willing to share their thoughts on its pros and cons?

im upgrading as i feel i need more power for my twist drill bits and i need some speed control as drilling 22mm drill bit at 400 rpm is pretty bad as you can imagine so i need a drill with a wide range of speed control and could do with some tapping capacity.. can you power tap m20 bolts with this ? or should you still treat it as a hand tap?

I also want some clarity on the morse taper inserts as i want to buy some twist drill bits for it but not sure what size i need? and is the cutting fluid system delivery decent? the one on mine sucks and normally have to add it manually

 

[Country Joe]

I am thinking of buying this to replace my 42mm evolution mag drill.. Has anyone got one of these and willing to share their thoughts on its pros and cons?

im upgrading as i feel i need more power for my twist drill bits and i need some speed control as drilling 22mm drill bit at 400 rpm is pretty bad as you can imagine so i need a drill with a wide range of speed control and could do with some tapping capacity.. can you power tap m20 bolts with this ? or should you still treat it as a hand tap?

I also want some clarity on the morse taper inserts as i want to buy some twist drill bits for it but not sure what size i need? and is the cutting fluid system delivery decent? the one on mine sucks and normally have to add it manually

I don't know about tapping threads with it, but mine's only an Element 40.

As far as I know, all of the Element range use the same "19.05mm weldon shank", to fit the cutters, and to fit a jacobs-type chuck to as well, I think, mine definitely does, and this page seems to agree.

The "Cutsmart" part of things just seems to monitor downward presuure on the cutters, and expects you to stay in the green area.
It doesn't take all that much extra pressure on the handle to push it through the yellow & into the red area too, though!

The lubrication, whenever I've used it seemed just fine, but having said that, I tend to do the lubrication manually, as I find that if you use the top-mounted reservior, then most of what you thought was empied out, is still swilling all around the inside of the case, making it a bit of an oily surprise for the next time!

I tend to just use Rocol RTD, the fluid, and also a paste version of the same stuff.

I've got this little "rig" that I use with it, if I need to drill something smaller, or held in a clamp - but it always feels much safer clamped directly to the work-piece that you're drilling - as you'd expect.

All the Best,
CJ

 

[Agroshield]

...I need some speed control as drilling 22mm drill bit at 400 rpm is pretty bad as you can imagine so I need a drill with a wide range of speed control and could do with some tapping capacity.. can you power tap M20 bolts with this?

Have you tried going to Rotabroach's own website and reading the specs. of the machine in which you are interested?

https://www.rotabroach.co.uk/magnetic-drills/element-100/

Inter alia, it tells you it has a native Morse 3 taper and is supplied with an arbor to take standard 3/4" Weldon shank cutters. It will also tell you that it has tapping capacity up to M30.

As for cutting speeds, start here and look up the suggested surface speed for the material you are interested in:

https://www.itc-ltd.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/drilling_speeds_and_feeds.pdf

then go here, where you can see a chart for rpm and diameter at that surface speed:

https://www.ruko.de/assets_ruko/downloads/RUKO_Table_of_cutting_speeds_for_twist_drills.pdf

You do not say what you are drilling, but if it is standard structural steel, 400rpm for 22mm dia. is quite conservative.

 

[Tally]

Its obvious i have read the specs of the drill but thats not what i was asking mate.. i was asking peoples personal experience of weather its actually a decent drill for the money

 

[Tally]

I don't know about tapping threads with it, but mine's only an Element 40.

As far as I know, all of the Element range use the same "19.05mm weldon shank", to fit the cutters, and to fit a jacobs-type chuck to as well, I think, mine definitely does, and this page seems to agree.

The "Cutsmart" part of things just seems to monitor downward presuure on the cutters, and expects you to stay in the green area.
It doesn't take all that much extra pressure on the handle to push it through the yellow & into the red area too, though!

The lubrication, whenever I've used it seemed just fine, but having said that, I tend to do the lubrication manually, as I find that if you use the top-mounted reservior, then most of what you thought was empied out, is still swilling all around the inside of the case, making it a bit of an oily surprise for the next time!

I tend to just use Rocol RTD, the fluid, and also a paste version of the same stuff.

I've got this little "rig" that I use with it, if I need to drill something smaller, or held in a clamp - but it always feels much safer clamped directly to the work-piece that you're drilling - as you'd expect.

All the Best,
CJ

Yeah the smaller ones seem to have the weldon shank but the large ones use a morse taper it seems and im was wondering what size it actually was so i can look up some large twist drill bits. Yeah i made a rig to use mine as a bench drill as well which is incredibly handy but as i found out mine cant handle the twist drill bits as it spins way too fast for a 22mm twist bit. And the yeah that monitor looks really handy to maintain feed pressure on the larger cutters

thanks for the help )