They have some good looking stuff there. I may get in touch with them for
some pricing.

"Mike Henry" wrote in message
...

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ster.com...

Bob La Londe wrote:

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ster.com...

Bob La Londe wrote:

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Bob La Londe wrote:

"Karl Townsend" wrote in message
anews.com...


Where do I start? I looked at adding a CNC kit to a mill
myslef,
but
most affordable mills are to small to do some of the work I
want to
do.
Am I back to looking at the rotary tool on rails setups?

Mills with obsolete CNC controls can be found for scrap price.
Look
for
a
knee mill with a BOSS (Bridgeport) or Bandit control. If you're
near
the
left coast, there seems to be a lot of Shizouka mills, one of
the
best
choices.

Refit the machine with the PC based control Mach 3, This is a
bit of
a
job
but there are several NGs to go for advice. CNCzone.com is one
of
the
best.

Good luck

Karl

I have been reading CNCzone and some others in my spare sit down
moments
all
weekend. There is just too much information to absorb.

Pickup a copy of Home Shop Machinist and look over the Tormach and

Tormach is nice looking, but when you look their basic CNC pack is
$9,500
software not included. Basically back at that ten grand plus I was
talking
about. Not a price range conducive to a hobbiest. Well atleast not
this
one. Might be able to knock it down some by setting up your own CNC
on
it,
but then that kinda defeats the purpose, and the base price for their
mill
is still $7,500. Still a lot.

Smithy ads, both offer turnkey packages with mills large enough to
be

Smithy looks to be in the same price range at a quick glance.

able to handle your 12" square AL molds.

Actually two different things. 12 x 12 engraving and aluminum molds.
Its
starting to look like it might be cheaper to buy two different
machines
for
this.

If as you indicate there is too
much information to absorb on CNCzone,

I've been reading CNC Zone for two days. Its pretty hard to wade
through
the bits and pieces of scattered info from people of different
knowledge
and
skill levels to get to a good getting started point. Putting
together a
machine doesn't look that difficult when I just go look at the
components
and manufacturer's information. There is a ton of info on CNC zone
and
if
you know exactly what to search for that's great, but gettign a grasp
of
the
big picture and finding a starting point is not easy.

you probably won't want to spend
the time and effort to do a CNC retrofit yourself.

The retrofit doesn't look like that big of a deal depending on the
machine.
The toughest things seems to be coupling the motors, and calibrating
them
to
match your software. Some of the small mill manufacturers offer
their
mills
with mounting for motors for a minimal extra charge. Like I said.
It
might
be cheaper and more effective for me to get a small mill to convert,
and
an
engraving router.

When you add up the costs of getting a mill to retrofit, getting new
steppers or servos large enough, fabricating mounts, buying couplings,
stepper or servo drives, power supplies, fitting limit switches if
needed, etc. it adds up real fast. The PC end is the cheap part, most
any $500 new PC and the $150 Mach3 will do the job there.

The big decision is really whether you want a six month retrofit
project
or want to get on with your other projects. The real advantage of the
retrofit comes if you can get your hands on a "real" CNC mill with a
dead control that is just a bit too old to be worth fixing. If you get
such a machine cheap, then you can get a much more powerful and solid
machine, that already has the limit switches and many other reusable
components and you can minimize the retrofit cost.

Lacking such a lucky find, you'll end up spending close to the same
amount of money to get the same capabilities as the Tormach or Smitty
units, without a warranty and after spending a substantial amount of
your time and effort.

Hence why I think I may be better off to get two different machines for
the
two different projects I want to do. A CNC router for engraving, and a
much
smaller working area mill for the mold making.

Well, a larger machine will do the sign stuff fine. A smaller machine
that is beefy enough for the molds, should be able to do the sign stuff
ok in a couple setups working in smaller blocks. Find that great deal on
a real CNC machine and you might get ATC as well

The Tormach's Y-axis travel is 9-1/2 inches so that's smaller than the
12x12 engraving requirement. Another product to consider would be
Industrial Hobbies - they sell manual bothe turnkey CNC mills as well as
CNC retrofit kits.