Our team is looking for a CNC mill/router for under $12,000 for manufacturing our swerve drive and tank drive. We have a sponsorship with an Manufacturing company who usually cuts our parts. But we were hoping to buy a CNC so we can cut them ourselves. By $12,000 it does not have to include the bits.
We were looking in to ShopBot Desktop Max, Tormach PCNC 1100. It would be great if the cutting dimension would be at-least 34" x 6" because our tank drive’s plate is 34". But ofcourse we can redesign to meet our requirements.
I’m not on my PC so I can’t whip out the relevant threads but there is a ton of threads from well known teams on the machines they use. You just need to use the search function.
Recently I’ve been looking at this machine and it’s been recommended by several teams.
Code Orange bought a Velox CNC router last year for about $7,000.
The model number is VR-5050
It’s treated us very well and we are able to prototype quickly and effectively.
Good luck with your search!
Quick tip, you don’t actually need a machine with 34 inches of travel in X you just have to set it up and program it such that to can move the part over, re-center, and begin the cut again.
We run an SR-44 with just about every upgrade except vacuum table from this company and love it.
You will notice it is much beefier construction than many of the CNC routers you will see. It is more of a production machine. We machined pretty much our entire robot on the machine this year. Transmissions and all. Surface finish with the right endmills is excellent as is dimensional accuracy with any wood, plastic or aluminum.
We’ve been using the Tormach 1100 for the last few years on 228, and it’s handled everything we’ve thrown at it. It’s even capable of some HSM stuff, as long as you’re aware of it’s HP limitations.
We have a PCNC1100 from tormach and love it. I am sure you know but there is a huge difference between a mill and router. They both have their advantages and disadvantages so you have to decide. If you want to mill aluminum consistently then get a mill. A mill will do aluminum like a router does wood. A mill could also handle steel which a router cant. You can probably cut steel on a router, but not properly because of the speeds and forces required.
If you want to do plastic, wood and occasional light aluminum and have a larger work envelope for the cost then a router may be better. I have had both and realize that they both have their place.
For Small parts a mill can do what a router does and more. Fore larger pieces the mill is limited in travel but the router is limited by material.
We use their controller and software with HSM. We have not a single issue. Tormach says to use their controller because of the processor interrupts and the constant axis calculations need to be uninterrupted.
With High Speed Machining (Master CAM calls it Dynamic Motion) it is relatively easy to overload the spindle motor by removing material at too high of a rate. This is a limitation of the horse power of the spindle. I think HSM (the CAM program) calls the high speed machining operations 2D Adaptive Clearing.
if you were serious about tool life, reducing feed rate would be an issue. At the rate that an FRC team would likely go through cutters the reduced tool life is probably not a big deal.
Do you know what a typical cut recipe ends up being?
In general the 1.5hp limit of the 1100 isn’t the first limitation I run into with the machine. Working with 6061 aluminum, carbide tools, high speed machining tool paths and not pushing anything hard you can expect about .4 cubic inches of material removal rate without getting aggressive; pretty good for FRC world.
A quick cut recipe that I use as a starting point for roughing small parts in aluminum;
1/4" 2 flute carbide tool, .75" stickout, .25 DOC, .2 WOC, 5100 RPM, at 17 IPM. That yields a MRR of about .87 ci at about .2hp from the spindle, and a chipload of .0017" per tooth, which is enough to keep the tool happy. Naturally YMMV, but this seems to be a happy area for my series 3.
The limiting factor is usually spindle speed; you just run out of RPM for most cuts, hence the higher spindle speeds of the 440 and 770 models, and the various options for getting more RPM out of the 1100.
Another quirk of the 1100 to be aware of; peak torque comes at about 3000RPM in high gear.
I hear good things about Velox, so not trying to dissuade.
3005 has a CNC Router Parts Pro series 4’x8’. In retrospect, i would have done a 4’x4’ unless you have an excess of shop space (we don’t).
The machine has had a few hiccups and learning curve moments, some due likely to being assembled quickly, being on a base that isn’t perfect, etc. Some are due to Mach 3 and a few little oddities in the control software. Some are true design issues.
All that being said, roughly a season and a half after we got it, I’m pretty pleased with the results. We’ve upgraded it to an eBay 2kW spindle and added a vacuum for chip clearing, air blast for chip clearing and some cooling, and either manually follow with coolant or dry cut depending on the material.
With proper CAM to do roughing and finishing passes, I can do acceptable press fit bearing holes in aluminum. On 6061T6, we cut at ~40IPM on a 3/16" single flute bit at ~0.05" per pass. We can hold a 3/16" drill bit into the router (jobber length) to get acceptable rivet patterns (might get carbide soon). 5052 aluminum (for bent parts) is a bit more troublesome and we have to stay on the coolant, but it works. Polycarb/acrylic/wood/etc all cut just fine with lots of margin of error.
One big lesson learned for us (and any router) is how important work holding is. The preferred method to cut aluminum is with an upcut bit to clear chips, but it also lifts the material. If you don’t have adequate work holding the material will bend upwards and vibrate and rub against the bit. We have a sacrificial MDF table, and we layout our parts with screw holes every 5-6" inches around the edges of the part, then screw it down tightly. A vacuum table would be a better solution, but we don’t have the time/money to retrofit.
Talk to them about the “DIY” electronics kit that has the same components as the pre-built ones. If you can do your own enclosure and wiring, you say ~$500-750.
Team 701 uses the CNC masters Supra. It works very well and gets the job done. I have had zero issues with it. It comes with a mastercam package but I prefer to make the CAM files in inventor then export to mastercam.
Team Fusion 364, was able to buy a VR50X50 with a 2.5 HP Spindle last year and we absolutely love it! We machined all of our custom parts for this years robot with it.
Also, they great customer service, I highly recommend. We got our entire machine with a starter bit set for approximately $13K, we made our own table though.
We got a Tormach 1100 CNC mill this year, it works great and we only had to pay $9,000. A company named EDSFUND allows applications for a $6,000 grant where they pay $6,000 and you pay $9,000 to get the Tormach 1100 CNC mill which is $15,000. We completed this grant this year and it is awesome. Check out their website and our grant proposal below.
