Quote:
Originally Posted by DonRotolo
My personal opinion is to shy away from the CNC portion and buy the better mill. While CNC is indeed a valuable learning experience, a manual mill is just as capable and you get to learn how to run a mill as well.
CNC conversion takes away some of that learning, replacing it with a "Multi-Purpose Magic Replicator" instead - make it in software and let the MPMR pop it out.
The small mill you mentioned is moderately capable, but that's the best that can be said about it. Look at the reviews at Grizzly.com for more info. Replacing the nylon gear with the belt system, and the torsion spring for Z, are both good ideas - there are a few conversions around.
The next size up (or two) will be a far better machine. None of these is turn-key, you'll need/want to take the machine apart, adjust and polish and lubricate everything properly, to produce good work. That will also teach you what is important and what isn't, plus you'll really know the machine.
Tooling can cost as much as the machine, so research that as you make your decisions. A quite beefy vertical mill without DRO or CNC can be had for $2.5k, and later converted to CNC and/or DRO. See this thread, especially starting at Post #27. |
Thanks for the info. I'll definitely read that thread as soon as I get time. I searched before starting this thread, but for some reason it didn't show up for me...
Part of the idea was that we don't have a lot of experience with machining on the team (though we just picked up a new mentor that did some experience), so we were hoping to overcome some of our lack of knowledge with technology. I agree that in the long run, we'll be better off by learning basics, but thought we'd get more short term benefits from CNC. We were being kind of intimidated with our lack of experience and finding some comfort in technology (and seeing all of the cool machine work on many of the robots in St. Louis made us want some of that too)...
After putting together a spread sheet estimating the costs, I'm starting to get it. Starting to question the wisdom of throwing 2-3 times the cost of the mill at it to convert it to CNC and in the end having a low end ($600) mill with a small table with relatively limited usefulness...