Inexpensive tool for MILLING Blocks? 360.

[leathersmt]

I saw a while back someone said that milling machines are expensive, will this work? If it does, and you use it, please let me know how much you will sell me a couple of your first blocks for my puter please..........lol, and bty I am not affiliaded with them.
anyway , fun and request aside, here it is
http://www.scientificsonline.com/EC/Products/Display.cfm?categoryid=193177
PS, also found this for you water blockers.......
worried about condensation
http://www.scientificsonline.com/EC/Products/Display.cfm?categoryid=193175

[NeoMoses]

man, that thing looks tiny. it MIGHT work for aluminum, but I think it would be a total waste of money if you're thinking about milling copper. Copper is a pain in the bum to machine.

I'd rather use a dremel than that little machine. At least you wouldn't have paid $400 on it.

[Molybdym]

That 'water magnet' thingy is pretty darn cool, and at only $10US, it's even better :)

[Dug]

The moisture absobing stuff is just silica. You know those little bags that come with shoes and HD that say don't eat. I don't think they will last very long before they need to be heated.

[Nick C]

for 400 bucks you could buy that mill JFettig has... (which is a NICE mill)

[frostmeister]

I'm looking at buying a milling machine at the moment, and will add my concerns about this milling machine's capability. It is 12,000 RPM though, which will help. A "proper" milling machine generally will have a top speed of 3000 RPM, but has a 1KW motor, 40 times as powerfull as the one above. I wouldn't go so far as to say a dremmel is better, as you get a bunch of tools that might be quite handy. Yes though, copper is hard to machine, as I've found out, unless you have a pillar drill with NO play and a mounting vice the same, you'll get chatter and skip, making your straight lines go all over the place and reducing your accuracy to something like the nearest millimeter. A mill keeps the milling bit firmly - and I mean very firmly, they use collets and arbours, not a drill chuck - in place, so you can cut sideways without the line you're trying to mill going from side to side. Good find though :)

[Frodo Baggins]

are milling machines that expensive!?! I saw one at cdn tire for 90bucks (albeit a cheap one)

[JFettig]

holy crap, my mill costed 399 and its a real nice one! wow. homier.com has them but youll need a bunch of other stuff and end up spending around 600 on it at the least

[NeoMoses]

Originally posted by Frodo Baggins
are milling machines that expensive!?! I saw one at cdn tire for 90bucks (albeit a cheap one)

yep, they are. I've got about $4000 in mine right now, and still spending more! the mill itself isn't that expensive (good ones can be had for less than $2500) but the tooling is what gets you. Buy a good vise($400), endmills($100+), collets, parallels... It all adds up quickly.

And just like with computer equipment, you get what you pay for. You wouldn't expect a $30 PC-Chips mobo to perform as well/overclock like an Abit, now would you?

[frostmeister]

The milling machine I'm going to get will cost something in the region of $3000 (£2000) but it's a square column mill with power feeding capability, and the head rotates clockwise/anticlockwise as you look at it face on, as well as going up and down. The machine table does the left/right forward/backward thing. Nice mill though... A 10mm tri flute end mill cost me £27 locally - about $37. Dollar prices in this post assume a $1.40 to the pound exchange rate - I hope that's fairly current...

edit: dollar exchange rate 03/december/2002 - $1.57 to the pound. mill=3140 10mm end mill=$42

[HighFlowRod]

Originally posted by Dug
The moisture absobing stuff is just silica. You know those little bags that come with shoes and HD that say don't eat. I don't think they will last very long before they need to be heated.


Yeah, just find a dessicant. Any will work.

[LiquidSquirt]

Originally posted by frostmeister
The milling machine I'm going to get will cost something in the region of $3000

Man, for $3000, I could buy another nice desktop mill and convert it to CNC ....and forget about the power feeds!
You could spend about $1500-2000 more than the one your getting and buy one already converted to CNC.ANd just sit back and watch your machine do all the work:D

[LiquidSquirt]

JFettig.....when you going to convert that little mini mill? It can be done.
I have a Grizzly mini mill that I bought a while back just before I built my own mill, and for the heck of it, I converted it with ballscrews.It was a PITA, but after about 2 weeks I did it and the little bugger works great. Tough little mills.

[country_3030]

Smithy make darn good machines I or should I say my grandad has one. It cost around $1900U.S. and comes with most the stuff you need it can machine just about any metal mill, drill, and lathe.
The link is below
http://www.smithy.com/midas1220xl.htm

[frostmeister]

Looks like a handy machine. My opinion though, is that it's not heavy duty enough. Although it has a lathe, drill and milling machine combined, you find that circular column milling machines will have a tendancy to twist around the column when milling out your work, leading to non straight edges. Even though it might be a very small amount, square column milling machines will still eliminate this by not being able to twist the milling head as much, if at all. Also, the square column milling machines, being that much more expensive, will have taper bearings that cut out play on the arbour / chuck that you're using. I'm not saying you need to spend all that amount on a milling machine, as I've acheived acceptable results on a pillar drill and cross vice. It's just taken me ages to get the results I was after. I also snapped several milling bits in the process as the play in the vice - a millimeter or so at the most - allowed the bit to dig into the waterblock too much and snap the head off the end mill. Leaves marks on your block, breaks a milling bit, and sends shrapnel flying at the same time - not needed.
I've included the pic of the mill I want to get sometime in the near future...

[Frodo Baggins]

uh...maybe that wasn't a mlling machine, drill press? Drill press different?

[frostmeister]

The original "inexpensive machine" posted up top is a lightweight milling machine and drill press, albeit a small one, but what do you want for $300? If it's useful and it does what you want, then no problems. The problems start when you try and mill copper or some other PITA material, and come unstuck. If you want it to mill a plastic prototype, then I'd think it'd be great. A drill pres by the way, can be turned into a lightweight milling machine, but then a drill press is only meant to go up and down, not to be milling in the X and Y directions, as that knackers the bearings pretty quick. Also you get those twisting problems I said about. Which is why a "proper" milling machine is made the way it is, with stronger column support, taper bearings - cylindrical shaped rollers in, rather than balls - and other adjustments and enhancements. It's a bit like using a flat blade screwdriver as a chisel - it'll work, just not as well as a chisel, yada yada. Drill presses and milling machines do have a basic element of operation in common though, as you can see.

[country_3030]

My grandad has milled parts for motorcycles on it a many times. He has had no problem and it doesn't twist. It works fine for what i plan to use it for but i realy want to get a cnc machine.

[JFettig]

Originally posted by LiquidSquirt
JFettig.....when you going to convert that little mini mill? It can be done.
I have a Grizzly mini mill that I bought a while back just before I built my own mill, and for the heck of it, I converted it with ballscrews.It was a PITA, but after about 2 weeks I did it and the little bugger works great. Tough little mills.


you converted it to cnc? thats cool! i wanna see pics!
the 2 mills are basicly the same, Mine has diff dials and stuff, and it uses R8 spindle instead of the m3 i think it was. R8 is much easier to get ahold of collets and such. I saw this mill, same one converted to cnc on ebay the other day, it looked mad cool! went for like 2grand, that woudl be an awesome setup! and the conversain kit costed 800 bucks, it wasnt a true cnc or something, but it could be used as a true cnc with 1 program I guess. forgot the program, I do want to either convert this one, or get a bigger mill when I have the cash and convert it, Like neomoses is doing.

[country_3030]

i think everyone should post pics of there machine.

[JFettig]

when I make a stand for my mill and get everything set up, sure, I will do that.