Re: Advice/recommendations about new equipment for our machine shop
 

on low budget, a lathe is probably the best way to spend your money. It's really nice to have a mill, but you really don't need one to make a good robot... you may want to look into getting a waterjet sponsor or something along those lines: then you can design the parts you need and get them done for you (and maybe get a nice tour as well).

if you end up getting a mill, Tormach is good

Re: Advice/recommendations about new equipment for our machine shop
 

The first things you should have in your shop in terms of heavy machinery are a good lathe, and then a good mill. Everything else is dependant on your requirements but I've never seen a robotics team that wouldn't benefit the most from having a quality one of each of these first. Next up would probably be a CNC router so that you can do all of your own gussets/sheet metal in house when you need them.

Re: Advice/recommendations about new equipment for our machine shop
 

What does your CAD look like for your current swerve modules? By the time you get tooling, you'll likely exceed your budget. I would venture to say you will want CNC for making parts, especially once you start removing a lot of material at angles and arcs.

The HF mini mill is too light duty in my opinion. Putting that $500 into another machine would be better spent. It most likely doesn't have enough working envelope to do what you want and will be even more limited when you want to add workholding equipment.

One thing you can do is build a small (2' x 2' or 2' x 4') CNC router table with a water cooled spindle. You can accomplish this within your budget using extrusions, ballscrews, and linear recirculating ball rails. Don't consider the Shapeoko. It isn't robust enough to be considered for doing work in metal.

If you can find a used South Bend / Atlas / Clausing / LeBlond / lathe without uneven bed wear (don't worry about backlash at this point), you can get an excellent platform at a very reasonable cost. Something like a South Bend 9" or 10" (10L "heavy ten" being a heavier duty lathe with larger bore) would be good. A Grizzly G0602 or PM1127 would be a good new machine for FRC purposes.

Buy a bench grinder and high speed tool blanks and you will have most all the lathe tooling you will ever need. You can use the lathe to make boring bars for holding small HSS cutters. You can use a lathe to make keyways. You can use a lathe to make custom threaded rods and nuts. You can use a lathe to make a lathe! Learn how to use a 4 jaw chuck properly and you'll just have fun with seeing how round you can make something. Don't forget to get dial indicators and magnetic bases.

As for mills, you want a knee mill or, at the very least an RF-45/IH (Industrial Hobbies) such as the PM940 or Charter Oak 12z. DRO is nice.

For your current budget, I would think that if you could only get one machine, it would be a lathe. Combined with a hand drill to make mounting points for work holding in a lathe milling attachment, you could actually do most of the precision machining of your swerve gearboxes with an end mill in the lathe in a collet. You can also chuck your sheet/plate part in a 4-jaw and use a boring bar to make bearing pockets.

Find sponsors - you'll be amazed at what you can get! I see you're already sponsored by Pratt & Whitney and UTC. I would bet that they can get some contacts if you need them! They may even have some machines sitting around unused in tool rooms that need a good home (and a tax writeoff).

Re: Advice/recommendations about new equipment for our machine shop
 

Also see if you can get some of their older tooling. We have quite a few reground end mills in our shop that are really weird diameters but still work nicely.

Re: Advice/recommendations about new equipment for our machine shop
 

Last summer we invested in a DIY 4'x4' (ish...) CNC router. We spent the summer/fall building/integrating it. We then decided to replace the MDF it had with 1" thick waterjet aluminum, and man that upped its precision at a reasonable expense. We finally got it calibrated in Week 2 with first production parts in Week 3. It changed everything with how we design now versus how we did in Week 1 & 2. Precision plates that used to take an hour now take 20 minutes and are lighter. Swapping out different materials is a breeze - take one 4'x4' sheet off and put another on. It really cuts down on material waste and saves a lot of time.

We manually apply cooling fluid via paint brush and manually vacuum as the piece is cut rather than after. We're able to reliably get 1/16" depth clean cuts per pass, so 1/8" stuff is done in no time.

Point is, with the right know-how it's easy to not have to get extremely fancy with a CNC.

P.S. no one is a machinist by trade on our team. It took 1 mentor's drive and the rest of us to follow in order to pull it off.

Re: Advice/recommendations about new equipment for our machine shop
 

To be honest I am not sure which is more important, a mill or a lathe. I think our mill actually had more run time this year, but the lathe did things that would have been difficult to do any other way.

Don't let the search for perfection get in the way of usable. The referenced HF lathe is in a class of 4xX mini lathe, most all are from one or two factories in China. While not production level quality, they are quiet capable & have a large support group to learn from. I would get one that has a longer bed if going that route. Get the heaviest mill you can afford / have space for. Knee mills are nice, but other styles work too. Stay away from the small ones that use a chuck rather than a collet. Look at this as a multi-year project. The tooling often will transfer to the bigger machines. We recently added a Project Lead the Way CNC that was gathering dust in our school. It is smaller than I would like, but it will machine the pieces that will fit on it. It is just slower that a heavier industrial version.

Youtube is a great resource for learning how to (&not to use these machines).
mrpete222 is a good place to start.

Re: Advice/recommendations about new equipment for our machine shop
 

Any ideas on how to learn to use these tools should we buy them? Whether a lathe, a CNC, milling machine, or whatever, we don't have any mentors with experience using these tools.
Example: Off the top of my head, I can't figure out what I would do with a lathe that I couldn't do with a drill press and a bit of patience. Based on the posts, there's obviously something else they're good for.
Are there any on-line tutorials that cover use of these tools, or will each turn into a high-priced coat rack unless we find a local person who can teach us to operate it?

Re: Advice/recommendations about new equipment for our machine shop
 

The internet has a lot of great resources, from documentation, to video tutorials. For example, here's the go-to document for learning to use a lathe for years and years: South Bend's How To Run a Lathe. This plus documentation specific to your machine should get you going.

Re: Advice/recommendations about new equipment for our machine shop
 

What ever you get make sure that it is really useful, having a CNC is really nice, If we had it running earlier then I wouldn't have had some much trouble with the drivetrain( I messed up on it like 3 times using a horizontal mill :l ). Also, don't go over board and spend a ton of money, there are plenty of good brands which are cheaper. ie: Grizzly