Need some recommendations for tooling
 

We just received $4,000 from our school and have to spend it within 2 weeks.
Because of this limitation we have decided to spend it on tools.

Currently our shop has
2 drill presses (One large one and one portable one)
A bench grinder
A chop saw
A miter saw
A finger brake (has to be refurbished)
and a bunch of basic hand tools + handheld power tools.

We also have this mill although its never been used as it was installed in a different room. Since then a lot of its included accesories have been lost (Stuff like handles) and we will have to buy replacements. In the end we estimate $400 for all the basic tooling and replacement parts we need to get this mill up and running. We will need pretty much everything including a vise. We do not really know much about what we need exactly so any help is appreciated.

Our want list of tools goes like this

1st on the priority list is a table saw as we plan on building a 50% field for our shop and possibly even a 100% field to host a week 0 competition next year although this is dependent on hoping next years field is a lot simpler to build then this years. We allotted about $300 for this and plan on getting a portable Dewalt model.

2nd is a basic CNC router like an X-Carve. Although I would love something a bit more powerful as we would really like something we can cut gussets on regularly. We also plan on using it for belly pans.

3rd is an Arbor press with a hex broach. Would love recommendations for something decent that will work with the Andymark broach.

4th is a small bench top lathe. We are looking at something basic from harbor freight at least for now.

Last is a belt sander although we probably will not have enough funds left over.

Id love to hear your recommendations on what we should do. I have a few peoples input but would like more as we want to make sure we can best utilize the money.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Fully depending on how your school allows you to spend money-

Craigslist could be your best friend for the Arbor Press, Lathe and Belt Sander. These might allow you to save some money in order to get everything on your list.

A Craigslist buy might also turn into a good 'project'. This would also allow you guys to be able to take apart the machines you buy for any maintenance they would need after purchase. I think it's very important for students to be able to not only know how to use these machines, but maintain and repair them as well.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

I will verify but I do not think it's possible to buy things on Craigslist. Although I agree if this was my money that would be the first place I would go.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Maybe you didn't mention having some, but precision measuring equipment?
The best machines can make plenty of scrap and you don't want to wait until practice time to find out. Calipers and maybe some mic's too.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

If you can, I would look for a used Bridgeport or lathe. With that money you can probably pick one up and buy tooling for it. I'm sure RoboChair and Cory will have some more ideas when they catch wind of this thread :). Also, IMO that mill may not be worth fixing as the money you put in to it you might be better off saving it for a Bridgeport.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

I should mention a Craiglist deal is almost out of the question. The money is from our schools budget and has to be spent pretty particularly. Even ordering from Amazon is very difficult.

I found a used Bridgeport on Craiglist for $2,500 that a business has and I am currently trying to convince them to donate it to us but I doubt they will bite.

It would be a shame to throw out something we did spend over $3,000 on albeit around 6 years ago. Even if we just skimp on tooling and end up using it as a slightly glorified drill press.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

The lathe is going to be much, much more important than the CNC router. I would prioritize even a crummy Harbor Freight benchtop lathe over a hastily bought router. You can buy all sorts of gussets these days, but making custom shafts, spacers, and all sorts of things is more necessary. I'd put that over anything else on this list.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

1. Table saws are good, very useful and you have selected a reasonable price point. Remember that carbide blades will cut aluminum with great care.

2. I have no recommendations for you at that price range really, I have heard good things about the X-carve and shapeco and those should be in the range you need. One of them 2 has full cad of the machine free to download so you could get the minimum and beef it up and/or make another with the first.

3. A nice arbor press in that range will be around 400-700, plus 200 for the broach. The cost of entry sucks but a good arbor press is a very useful tool for FRC teams even more so when paired with a lathe and mill.

4. The Harbor Freight one will be enough to start you, I have a few upgrades to suggest.
Buy some digital scales for the X and Y axis (and your mill) here and here
A Quick Change Tool Post
I would suggest a set of cutters like this as well

5. Harbor freight has a 1 inch belt sander for around $50, not fantastic but it helps.

Shars.com
littlemachineshop.com
micromark.com

All those sites have good stuff for cheap, let me know if there is anything in particular you are still looking for.

EDIT: Chris is me has a good point about the lathe

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

I have had people tell me that but I just do not see my team using it that much. Its probably just a tool a will learn to love and see uses for but currently I see a cnc router as much more useful for our team.

I am not a big fan of the gussets on the market as most lack cross support and are on the thinner side. I have ones that I designed last year (were cut by our waterjet sponsor) but Id prefer to do it in house. There is also some time a nice custom designed gusset would have suited our needs better then cots offerings.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Yes and no, it depends on what you are buying. Tooling is tooling for the most part and can still be used in a later machine. Just keep in mind that the goal should be to upgrade it in the future and your tooling should be useful for the new bigger machine.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

This is very helpful thank you.

Also, do you have any particular recommendation for the arbor press. Not to sure what I am looking at and how to figure out which one is better.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

We have this one: http://www.jettools.com/us/en/p/ap0-...r-press/333605

It's a 1/2 ton and really small so you can't use it for much, but the overall quality of it is pretty good and they make bigger models.

Edit:

Some more on this. Our school bought a Shapeoko 2, the predecessor of the X-Carve, two years ago. We have spent the last 1 1/2 years working on it and trying to make it function well. We've had many problems, and have successfully only cut 3 things out of plywood with it. IMO, take a look at Carbide 3D. They are led by the inventor of the Shapeoko that split off from the project to start his own company. The Shapeoko 3 looks to me to be superior in build quality and rigidity, and they have great technical support, and it is light years ahead of the Shapeoko 2. PM me if you want more specifics of the Shapeoko troubles we had.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

+1

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

If I were buying a lathe today it would probably be something like this.
http://www.grizzly.com/products/8-x-...campaign=zPage or this G0765

We own a G0752 and it has worked well for us for several years and honestly we haven't really had to push it to it's limits very often and the G0768 is a bit smaller but also $700 cheaper.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

My advice is to stock up on all your consumables for the next couple years. Tape, zip ties, zip tie mounts, taps, blades, bits, rivets, VexPro parts, electronics like the PDP, RoboRIO, motors, batteries, zip cord, and motor controllers.

I would also recommend a good set of Hertel HSS bright finish screw-machine length drills from Enco.

That $4k is going to disappear in the blink of an eye. If you are going for something big, I'd focus on getting on a good one if that rather than a sucky one of multiple things.

On table saws, SawStop might be a good idea for students. They aren't cheap, but far cheaper than a missing finger.

Or you can forget all this and just prepay your FRC registration. Then if you get another sponsor later on and you have a balance with FIRST, you can get it regranted back to you to spend however you please.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

I would put a lathe way up your list of tools.

For your budget, I would suggest this Lathe with Tool stand. This size lathe could really accomplish any future machining needs you might have.

With a lathe you can quickly make custom drivetrain axles, make spacers, Standoffs, etc.

I would also order additional tooling including:
Typical carbide cutting tools
Cutoff tool
Grooving tool (multi-blade set) for E-clips and C-clips
A Drill and Tap set
If you don't have a micrometer and calipers already, I'd add that to the list as well.

I've ordered tooling from www.use-enco.com in the past, and can recommend them.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

We actually do have access to a Sawstop down in the middle school. It is a very nice tool but I think its overkill for what we are doing.

We actually just did the whole stockup thing with our remaining school budget. (The way our school budget works is that the money disappears once the school year ends) Which is the same reason why we can not use the money for a second regional.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

You will need a 4 or 5 ton arbor press to get one with enough working height. You can make a smaller one work, but it's not easy or convenient.

Enco has this one for $550

http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INSRIT?P...PMAKA=805-1045

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

10/10 would highly recommend that you buy an Evolution Power Tools RAGE3. Here is a link to the Amazon page but I am sure you can buy it elsewhere too.

https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Pow...=1&*entries*=0

We have used this saw to cut all of our 2x1,1x1, angle, and almost anything you can think of needed for frc except for sheet (we use a jigsaw). Last year we cut 90% of our robot out with the rage3, and were very, very happy with how it performed. We would not be able to function with out it. It is far cheaper than some of the nice horizontal bandsaws and it makes cuts that are very comparable to them as well. The cuts are very very smooth and will provide a surprisingly flat surface for when you are riveting things together which is important for good joints.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Also, I forgot to mention. A CNC router although seems like it will be more useful than a lathe, our team could absolutely not live without a lathe. There are so many things that we do on the lathe that no other tool can substitute for. We have been fortunate enough to have one since our team began, and I can say it has easily become our students favorite tool. We did majority of our plate parts on a drill press with some calipers and a center punch with printouts of the part 1:1 and had very nice results. We use a Porter Cable Jig Saw, and a Cheap Ryobi Belt sander, and Ryobi Vertical Band saw to clean up edges and finish our parts.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

You can give the money to FIRST now and have them hold it for next year. You can use the money for a second regional if you really want to.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

I own a RAGE2 saw. It's awesome for cutting steel, but terrible for aluminum. The blade clogs. The vise on this model is not the greatest either. I wonder if the RAGE3 is any different. It seems like a nicer saw.

For aluminum, I prefer a Dewalt DW716 12" miter saw with a Freud Diablo 80T blade for box tube, and a horizontal bandsaw for bar stock. If you don't have a good 12" miter saw with a nice Freud Diablo blade, I'd recommend getting one.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

A very strong +1 from me. We have the same setup, albeit a 10" saw and blade, and it is fantastic.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Hi so, I started making the list. It needs to be finished tonight.

For the CNC Router I have chosen the Shapeoko Xl kit with the Dewalt router.
I also put down about $140 worth of ball cutters and flat cutters from carbide 3d

For the lathe I have taken everyone's suggestion and went for a better lathe. I still feel like we wont use it too much but I am willing to believe the people with experience are right (it hasn't failed me yet). So I put the Grizzly G0768 lathe on the list.

I put down the original table saw on the list which is just a Dewalt compact job site table saw

The unexpected purchase of the day was the rage3 miter saw. I watched some videos and I am sold. We have a chop saw made for steel and a crappy miter saw made for wood but I think investing in something this nice is worth it.

I also just decided to go with a cheap belt/disc sander combo from Harbor Freight.

The only thing left is tooling for our mill and lathe. I am not sure what to buy and I am not sure if Robochair's links are still applicable so if anyone could please help linking me to everything we need I would be very thankful. We want some DROs for both. Along with some measuring stuff. All we really have is a pair of digital calipers and a pair of manual calipers.

The only thing I have put on the list so far is this http://littlemachineshop.com/product...ProductID=3969

So, that leaves us at about $3,545 including shipping on the Carbide and Grizzly stuff.

After tooling we are just going to buy a smaller arbor press. (I think giving up broaching is going to have to happen).

Thanks for all your help!

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

You should do this instead of rushing into a purchase for budget machinery that hasn't been thoroughly researched and may be a huge compromise on what you actually need it to do. FIRST can hold money for you, has no fiscal year rollover limits, and will re-grant it back to your team upon request so that you can buy machinery on your own timetable.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

As much as I would like to do this it probably won't make our school very happy as we already told them we were going to buy tools. It is our money and in all technicality we can do what we want but we have a very good relationship with our school and do not want to hinder it. (They have given us $7,000 this year alone on top of the $7,500 they always give us).

We do realize they are budget tools but right now its probably all we can afford/will be able to afford for a little while. We also have no machining mentors currently and the way I see it id rather start off with a cheaper tool.

Although, I totally see your point.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

I don't have any experience with it myself, but you might want to consider rotary broaching with your mill. With a quick search I found this:
http://www.polygonsolutions.com/rota...h-tool-holder/
http://www.polygonsolutions.com/rota...rotary-broach/

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Has anyone successfully used a rotary broach on a round column mill? They just are not very rigid, even for milling.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Same tooling and scales should do you fine. PM me if you have more questions and I can give you my phone number and talk directly if you would like, I don't sleep.

BTW you can broach with a smaller arbor press (3 ton) if you drill a hole in the arbor, but you should have a team with a big lathe do it for you so it's nice and straight.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Like so. There is an entire 1.75 inches of the broach up in the arbor of this thing. I'd be happy to do it for you, but shipping the arbor would cost more than finding a local team.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

With those prices, it would make more sense to just buy a larger arbor press.

Nevertheless, I would still like an answer to this question:

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

I am getting in a little late but.. for any serious new manufacturing equipment 4k is very little to work with. If you decide on a lathe try and get one with a DRO. ( we had students standing in line to use our lathe this year). It is a sharp. Fixing up the little milling machine may be good. Figure out what taper it has and get a set of collets, get a keyless chuck, some endmills 2 flute HSS is good for alu. We use our Milwaukee portable band saw all the time. Do you have a good tap and die set. A small sheet metal shear is nice. Maybe a plasma cutter (requires a good air compressor ) personally I wouldn't get a cheep CNC . In that market you get what you pay for.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

In terms of FRC use, what could you do with a plasma cutter that you couldn't do with a vertical bandsaw?

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Like I said, it was just a quick search. Here is a cheaper option for the holder: http://www.polygonsolutions.com/rota...FcNlfgodmAsOmg

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Generally, it can cut larger peices, like belly pans, and is able to cut complex shapes in the interior of material. A plasma cutter would be significantly more efficient in machining gussets to a decent accuracy in large quantities than a bandsaw and drill press.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Are you referring to a CNC or manual plasma cutter?

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

I think you're rationalizing a purchase you've already decided you want, rather than thinking this through fully. Why would your school be more happy rushing several different purchase orders through multiple vendors in about 10 days time, vendors they might not have a prior relationship with, rather than a single check to an organization they pay every single year already? Think about it. You can just use next years' registration money on tooling, with time to research it or potentially the ability to buy better quality used tooling.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

I would guess this is more dependent on your teams design habits than anything else. For instance, we always design to use COTS shafts and spacers (or shaft collars), but often find the need for machined tubing or plate aluminum for gearboxes and the like.

It seems to me like having the freedom to design a gearbox or sheet metal that requires machining saves a lot more time than having the freedom to use custom shafts/spacers but having to fit your geometric design to COTS parts. Machine geometry is the big time sink for us, and a CNC mill/router would alleviate that a lot more than a lathe. Would you agree?

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

That's how I feel. I have never felt the need to make a custom spacer and really I see no advantage over cots offerings. But, being able to precisely make something like a drive train rail is going to be amazing.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

We have a CNC router, and we love it. It is quite a bit more rigid than a ShapeOko, but not nearly as rigid as some of the "built specifically for aluminum machines" some teams have. Just understand there is a learning curve as you get to know your machine and what tolerances it has.

For example, if you want to do a drive rail, you need a way to mount it to the bed to mill. You need to do this perfectly square to the direction of travel, or your holes (lets say, bearing) will be shifted to one side of the rail or the other. You either need a bit that can reach all the way through the tube to mill both sides (many don't reach, you need to run small diameter bits at router speeds, but the deflection on a 3/16" bit with 1.25" of stickout starts adding up). If you flip the rail, you need a way to maintain your index, and your error can get flipped as well, so if you were 0.010" high on one bearing, you could be low on the other, leading to a non-perpendicular shaft. IMO this is worse than having one that is a few thousands off in the X/Y direction on a rail, but milled through square on a manual machine.

Long story short (and that is just one of MANY personal experiences with a router), it is an amazing tool, especially if you have a fingerbrake, but it isn't magic. Don't expect to hold gearbox/bearing tolerances out of the box with little experience... but I still recommend getting one eventually. Many people recommend CNC plasma, which does have some advantages, but I'd argue the disadvantages over a router stack up for an FRC team. If nothing else, the ability to do polycarbonate (which is underutilized by many teams).

I struggled with wrapping my head around "why lathe" too... However, I spend more time on my lathe than my mill. Even in a gearbox, you focus on the plates, but having standoffs between the plates, stepped shafts to hold the gears, yada yada... all really nice to have. For basic lathe work of center drilling ends of shafts, turning down 1/2" hex, etc, a cheap $500 HF lathe isn't a bad place to start.

Rotary broaching is interesting, but I think you'd be happier with an arbor press and push broach. You need an arbor press anyway to press in bearings if you don't have one already.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

I recommended buy the lathe.

In parallel, reach out to local machine shops and find a sponsor to make your rails/plates/whatever other fancy, mostly flat custom parts you think you need.

The sponsor will be able to make your custom flat parts better than you will (maybe even faster!), and it doesn't cost any money to pick up the phone book and start calling local shops! ;)

-Mike

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

We have a waterjet sponsor with a very nice machine. He had made a few really high tolerance Parts. But, he doesn't seem to be too happy to do work for us and we are just not that comfortable asking him to cut stuff for us.

In the end we are buying the nicer lathe and the nicer router but forgetting breaching for the most part.

This lathe better be useful :rolleyes:

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

I could see a lathe being more useful if you have found a sponsor for milling with fast turn around times. Not sure how fast Sperkowsky's team gets part, but for us was a ~3 week turn around time for 6 plates this past season. At that kind of speed, parallelizing by CNCing additional parts ourselves could create a distinct advantage for us.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

One thing I'd love to see, keep telling myself I'll make time to do, and never find it high enough on my priority list... is to make some videos showing "how we work". Specifically, what tools we use for what jobs in the shop, and what problems you can solve with those tools.

Some of those (<10% as a wild guess) require an engineer's level of knowledge to explain, but 90%+ of it is just "good shop practice" by good teams.

As far of what you are doing with F4, perhaps you could do a segment where students explain how their teams use tools. Both from the "top end teams" with high levels of machining resources, to explain what problems you can solve with the right tool, as well as mid tier teams that might have clever work-arounds to get good results out of cheaper tools.

As a start, you could use it as a way to get people to help explain the many uses of a lathe in FRC ;)

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

We actually have an episode like that scheduled on July 3rd. We are going to have someone from 5202, 4159, and 997. So a good mix of people.

A bunch of people on the chat were also yelling at me to get the lathe.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Turn around time is pretty critical, I agree with you there!

We eventually found a laser cutting sponsor who will do our bellypans/gussets with 24-48 hour turn around.

Our CNC Milling sponsor is more like 1-2 weeks.

If you don't like the turn around times you are currently getting, it could be worth it to either:

1. Plan ahead more with your current sponsor to communicate turn around times and scheduling needs
2. Keep calling and find more sponsors with better turn around times ;)

It is impressive how many shops in our area we still haven't even reached out to, simply because all of our teams mfg needs are met at the moment.

-Mike

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Ok, I'm seeing a lot of debate here on what to purchase tooling wise. But I don't recall seeing a very simple question answered:

What is the purpose of this money?

Is it to enable your team to teach more students how to fabricate parts?

Is it to bring some CNC fabrication into the school?

Is it to improve performance of the school robotics team?


What's your goal?

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

I'd say a good combination of all of it.

We Will probably do better with help of these tools. There is times especially early in the season where we want to build a specific part but just plain can't.

By having a working mill, lathe, and router people will probably learn a lot more about manufacturing then they do with our still press.

Its also going to be cool to bring cnc manufacturing to the school. We generally do help other clubs and teachers so once they figure out we have this machine We will probably receive quite a few cool projects.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Worst case, pay them.

An hour or two of waterjet runtime is fairly cheap,and can be a LOT of parts (easily an entire robots worth) if you don't crazy with design.

Also, the router you referenced above really isn't something you want for production FRC.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

It looks like his budget for a CNC router is around $1,000 - $2,000. Is there a CNC for around $2,000 that you think is reasonable for FRC?

Unless you just mean the DeWalt router he is getting for the Shapeoko, in which case, whoops.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Unfortunately no, there isn't for meaningful production.

You can with a good deal of work potentially make something, but there isn't anything close to a turn key machine in that price range that will make real quantities of gussets, gearbox plates, etc...

The good news is the with some smart design, $1-2k can pay for 3-5 seasons of waterjetting and buy time to raise money for a useful machine.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

I still see some usefulness to even a very lightweight benchtop CNC router. If nothing else, it can teach students how to do CAM, which can help them better understand and design parts they send out. You can do fun little projects out of wood and plastic reasonably well. I have seen evidence, read posts, etc. that you CAN do aluminum... sorta... maybe... frustratingly...

I just wouldn't get my hopes up thinking that I'm going to keep 0.001" tolerances on the envelope and get a meaningful material removal rate on a $1000 machine. You certainly aren't just going to slap a piece of 1"x2" extrusion on the bed and get perfect results. In my experience, it could even be significantly worse (time/accuracy) than just doing it in a drill press.

The first year we got our gantry mill (CNC Router Parts Pro) before we had it dialed in, I think I was doing sheet aluminum at ~0.02" DOC and maybe 50IPM. With such a poor material removal rate, some of the larger parts for the robot required 1-2 hours of cut time, which is tough on bits, and we were manually feeding coolant to keep the bit from instantly destroying itself. Turns out, some of this was poor feeds/speeds, some was poor workholding, some was backlash due to a loose pulley setscrew on the X axis. All these poor conditions wore out a router that wasn't intended to do this kind of work, increasing its runout, which accelerated the issue. Every mistake was a $25 bit, and we were lucky to have them last more than an hour or two with our very poor cutting conditions. Truth be told, we would likely have been better off with a bandsaw and paper templates.

So, my main point is to just set appropriate expectations for the equipment. Also, try to get as much experience on it as possible in the fall, and make sure your spring is spent on robot design, not fighting with a new tool. Even with purchasing a CNC router, taking the advice about finding a flat parts machining sponsor or paying to have the work done until you can afford a more rigid machine ($7-10K) is probably good advice.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Pick one and do it well.

If the goal is teaching students about CNC perhaps partner with your school and, instead of spending $2k on a mediocre tool they will be able to work with you to purchase a better system and support you with a class on it. I'd be surprised if there's no grants for high tech manufacturing in schools these days.

If it's teaching machining - fine, then I'd argue you'd get far more out of fixing up your existing mill, getting a decent lathe, and investing in materials and tooling. Oh, and again, work with your school to find some educational support.


If the goal is improve your performance - prototyping parts. You can buy drives, you can buy gearboxes. And in the short term I'd argue it's substantially cheaper to do that than to invest in the capabilities to make them yourself.

Any of these WILL result in your team being more effective at FIRST's mission. Two of them could provide benefits for years to come if set up properly.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Every FRC team should watch Clickspring

His manual fabrication skills put me to shame, just so good with so little

Machining is 10% skill 90% knowledge, a little knowledge will take you farther than a little skill.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwo...Sx6R6-BnIjS2MA

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Not really, you get a way straighter broached hole with a rotary broach, with way less work (assuming your machine isn't a POS, which a round column mill is).

I'd be more concerned about radial alignment than anything with rotary broaching on a manual mill. That's going to be difficult. rotary broaching is much better suited to lathes and CNC mills.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

We currently have only one tool that cost more than about $200 new - a nice (though roughly used) floor-model drill press. We have a couple of peripheral mentors with some milling and lathing experience, so we could probably get some hand-on lessons if we started early. (None of our core mentors has used a mill, one has some experience with a lathe, AFAIK.) I also know an artist who does his work on a wood lathe I could probably get to teach us a bit, so I'm definitely interested in getting a lathe big enough for axles and shafts. As I went through some of the recommended posts, then backed a way a bit, I noticed some combination lathe/mills for only a few hundred dollars more than the lathes. Example. Is this something we would likely find to be more useful than a straight lathe, or is this a "catdog" type device that is no good at either function, or what?

Also, If buying a ~1200 lathe or ~1600 lathe/mill, (probably 8" x 16") how much additional budget should we set aside for initial tooling, calipers, and so forth? (I expect that those are two different numbers.)

Edit: Or is there some other tool or set of tools we should be looking at ahead of a lathe?

Edit2: Our goals are basically twofold - primary is to expose the students to additional experiences, and secondary to improve our fabrication capability to improve our robots, increasing inspiration through increased competitive success.

Edit 3: We are also slammed for space this year -- as far as we are certain, we will be working out of a "portable" building with only a a few 20A 110 circuits, other than the window unit A/C. Drive practice will be in a parking lot.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

I don't have any experience with them, but here is some wisdom from Cory on the subject.

https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/s...4&postcount=12

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Yeah they are total crap. Save your money up for 2 good standalone tools. You're going to end up wishing you'd done so anyways once you use one of those abominations.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

Thanks, I suspected as much, but had to check. Money is less of an issue for us than space right now. We may wind up working out of a 24'x32' space with a floor about 3 degrees off level this year, for build, programming, web, chairman's, sponsors, everything. We can also store stuff in our 16 foot trailer. We're down about 30% on "dedicated (storage)" space and over 50% on "dedicated + worktime" space from last year.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

seconded.

Re: Need some recommendations for tooling
 

+1 for a lathe.

One of our cnc mills was donated by a local company that was upgrading. You would be wise to develop a community relationship... you might be surprised what would happen. I became a mentor after being approached to machine some parts for the team. I toured their shop and decided I'd give some of my time. A lot of shops push old equipment off into a corner thinking they may need it someday... maybe they could now use the space. ;)

No for rotary broaching on your mill. I rotary broach hex shapes at work. You need a very rigid setup to get good results. It is great for blind hole broaching and production. For one off I use an arbor press. For key ways I always use a press. The key is a good arbor press with a ratchet and enough throat to accommodate the broach. A 1/2" hex broach is 11-7/8" long so ideally your throat needs to be that plus your material thickness. A quality set of keyway broaches should last a lifetime... some of mine are older than I am. ;)

Here's some press details from duMont to guide your decision. The import arbor presses are a squeak too small in the throat, in my opinion. You can use them but you may have to "seat" the broach prior to putting it in the press.
http://dumont.com/bushings-shims-and...arbor-presses/

I have a Dake 1-1/2C (3 ton) with a 17-1/2" throat and it handles all nearly all my broaching except the really big stuff.
http://www.dakecorp.com/products-det...atchet%20Lever

For FRC you'll need a 1/2" hex broach and likely a few keyway broaches.

One of the issues we've encountered is the end of the year rush to spend left over dollars. That has definitely made for some poor decisions. What we've done lately is to develop a list of needs as we go so we have a need based buy list... and we can make a decision that isn't last minute. Otherwise you're buying tools you either don't need or don't have the skills to use.