Quote:
Originally Posted by dlavery
Team 116 bought one of the Industrial Hobbies mills last year. We bought the CNC upgrade kit this year, and are currently in the process of installing it. The mill is an absolute beast, and wonderful to work with. It is twice as heavy as the Rong-Fu RF-30 or RF-31 mills (or all the Rong-Fu clones that are out there from Grizzly, Enco, HF and others), and much sturdier. The square column is very stiff, and I could not find any measurable flex under heavy machining loads. The stiffer design helps with better surface finishes than we can typically get on the smaller mill-drill machine we have without a lot of extra work. Unlike the smaller mills (which can use 120-volt single phase), you will need 220-volt, 3-phase service for the I.H. mill. The 30" table travel envelope is larger than any other machines of a comparable size, and that has already proven to be useful. The I.H. mill uses standard R-8 tooling, so if you have already been collecting tooling for any of the typical mill-drill machines, it will transfer right over. Otherwise, you should plan to easily spent as much for tooling as you will for the mill. Having the head tilt option is one thing that we have not yet had the opportunity to take advantage of so far, but I have a few plans...
My only regret is that we waited for as long as we did to get the I.H. mill - I wish we had bitten the bullet and purchased it it at least five years earlier.
-dave
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We did the same thing last year. We used the CNC upgrade kit to retrofit a mill from Industrial Hobbies. Its a great mill and I would recommend it to anyone.
But I would NOT, under any circumstances, ever, recommend that anyone try and upgrade the mill themselves. Both the mechanical and electrical challenges we faced were extremely daunting, and we lost much of the accuracy the tool would have had had we left it in its original condition.
My father and an electrical technician (who mentors our team) spent all summer wiring the speed controllers and getting it running. Along the way we fried many components and broke a lot of stuff - not because we were incompetent, but because there was very little documentation on the process.
Add to that the fact that Industrial Hobbies changed hands and most of the technical assistance was temporarily lost
If you do chose to buy an Industrial Hobbies machine, buy one that is already built for CNC.