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Re: pic: 3 Hour Chassis + 2 Hours
6061 loses its temper when it's welded, so your 6061T6 becomes 6061T0, which according to wikipedia is an 80% loss in strength, which is what I've noticed/experienced with the welding and mechanical testing I've done.
Welding two aluminum alloy's together hasn't been an issue for me. Most, if not all, aluminum alloys will weld fine with the same filler material, so there shouldn't be much of an issue welding different alloys.
Haas CNCs are pretty good machines, I used one in college. Tooling, though, shouldn't be confused with the mill itself. You could have the best CNC on the planet, but if a low-quality HSS endmill is chucked up it'll run like crap. Look into solid carbide tooling, if you're CNC'ing plates you could easily get away with a 1/4" end mill, or maybe smaller. McMaster: 8829A19 about $24 for an end mill that will make you many a robot frame. If you have good compressed air for chip clearing you could get a 4-flute which is even less expensive.
IMHO, if you want to weld the chassis together (which I heartily approve of) you should CNC your side plates from 5052 (which has no temper and won't lose strength when welded) and then use AndyMark/KOP extrusions for your cross-bracing. It'll be a little less expensive, and you'll get tons of 1/4" mounting holes. My team's most recent chassis was made from CNC'ed and bent 5052 TIG welded to the KOP frame. I did the welding and found the 1/8" 5052 to be a very forgiving material to TIG. We dropped 3-4lbs in fasteners IIRC.
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