New hardware to show off!

M

marjamar

Well-known member
Well I went out with my son today to look over some small CNC mills and lathes.  We spend half a day in a little metalsmith's shop just south of Denver.  Very nice and knowledgeable owner showed us alot of really nice tools for metal machining and CNC work.

My son had already spent many days on the web and on CNC forums over the past month or 2, so he had a pretty good idea of what we needed.  Turns out we were able to find just the stuff he and the owner/mechanist thought would work well for some start up equipment.  He had some $30,000+ suggestions as well, but we sort of dismissed that pretty quickly.

Anyway, we bought a nice CNC mill to work up to 12"x6"x6" (I think) pieces.  We also bought a very small CNC lathe (my son is playing around with it now) that can turn up to 4-1/2 by 16" long stock.  We still have to order the stepper motor as we wanted some faster/better units my son heard are the best for the money.  Should have them in early next week and up and running by weeks end.

Now, just to learn!  Been 30 years since I've done machining and then only on a couple of beat-up lathes.  Milling will be all new to me and of the CNC will be new as well.

Here's a pic of the CNC Mill.  Next week I take a couple of pics after we setup stuff with all the CNC gear install and working.

my_new_cnc_mill.jpg


This could be fun ;D.

-Rodger
 
Re: New hardware to show off!

Hi Rodger ! Looks like a nice piece of machinery. IF you have any trouble with the operation, maybe i can help, email me. My real job is a CNC operator where i work. Hope you got a shop-vac !
 
Re: New hardware to show off!

That we've got -- couple even, but what I need is a couple of machinist tables, splash trays and recirculating lubrication systems. Since its CNC, I want to be able to setup the piece and not have to stand over and squirt lubricant by hand while the computer does everything else.

Also, looking at alot of software. I think I'm going to use Surfcam for CAD, but for CAM I don't know yet. I have about 1/2 dozen or so I'll be trying, but since I just got the equipment, I haven't been demoing much of that yet.

Already thought of a bunch of stuff to make. Actually bought the lathe for my sons R/C manufacturing business to branch into brushless motor manufacturing. He's already prototype a couple of designs and they are really nice. So, if we like making them and they sell well enough, these smaller CNC machines will most likely either expand rather quickly or grow into bigger versions.

Looks like it's going to be fun though regardless.

-Rodger
 
Re: New hardware to show off!

Rodger.. I hope if I am in your neck of the woods anytime in the future you will let me come over and play :)

How much? if you dont mind me asking. Im getting really tired of this turning the wheels by hand stuff.
 
Re: New hardware to show off!

is there only one axis there or is it an optical illusion?
 
Re: New hardware to show off!

The mill has 3-axis plus the rotary table for a total of 4, all CNC.  The lathe is only 2 axis - very small, but very well built for small work.

The mill will be around $3000 by the time we finish getting the stepper motors, but we also bought a bunch of attachments which includes the rotary table and controller.  The lathe with be about $1600.00 with stepper motors and controller.

Before we finish spending, we most likely will have about $6,000 or so in the pair.  But for this amount we hope this will include all the necessary support stuff and software.

If you every get into Colorado, make sure to let me know.  Matter of fact, I will be most likely needing a good DP for a couple of days if this book trailer think ever jells up.  You can play around with the equipment all you want when your not shooting ;D.

Here's a website (not were we bought) that show the mill and some other stuff.

http://www.super-tech.com/root/taig/ServoMill/default_main.asp

Edit - Here's another link on that same site which shows a little of what this mill does.

http://www.super-tech.com/root/cnc.asp?p1=HowTo-Relief-Engrave

-Rodger
 
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