Advanced tools in the workshop (Mill, Lathe, Welder etc.)

[sanddrag]

We have a small round column Jet mill at our high school, and while it's certainly useful to have, it's not our go-to place to make something. I'd say we use it only about 10 times over a season (mostly for reworking), as most of our parts are made by sponsors, with larger, more advanced CNC equipment. Probably fewer than 10% of the parts we design/make are practical to do on a manual mill.

Having a lathe is very useful. I'd recommend a lathe as one of the first purchases. I've had this lathe at home for 4 years, and although it's small, I'd say it can do about 90% of the parts a typical FRC team would need. If your budget allows it, they say to buy the biggest machine you can afford.

For milling, there's a few teams who have the Tormach CNC mill, which seems to be a good value and size for an FRC team. To be serious about making anything by CNC, I would not consider a machine smaller than this. A lot of the parts on our robot could probably be made on a machine like this, but definitely not a machine smaller than this.

Even if you have a CNC mill, a manual mill can still be useful for one-off parts and simple parts. Not sure how the used machinery market is over there, but if you can find a Bridgeport, (or similar knee mill) that would be a good choice. I've also heard good things about the Industrial Hobbies mill.

For tooling, plan on spending up to half of whatever your machines cost, just for tooling. Vises, chucks, collets, end mills, blades, drill bits, boring bars, tool holders, etc really add up fast.

Do you have a good way to cut bar stock and plate? I think some good saws are essential. I would recommend at the least, a 14" band saw. And if you can get a horizontal band saw, and/or cold saw, and miter saw too, even better.

Do you have a good sturdy drill press? What about an arbor press and a set of broaches? I'd say an arbor press is a must-have item. And howabout a belt/disc sander too.

Having a TIG welder at school would be most useful. This year we spent a full week straight, of 7-hour days at a sponsor shop welding. And then another two 3-hour days at another sponsor shop.