CNC advice please

[worn thumbs]

I agree completely with the previous post and would add one further point,if/when something does go wrong you won't be faced with the considerable cost of calling out a service engineer.If no warranty applies you can expect to pay a hefty hourly rate from the moment the engineer leaves the premises until he returns.For a hobby machine it may differ from a commercial version in that you could possibly crate up the machine and send it back to the UK distributor.Who might-or might not-have the ability to repair it.Which will cost you for transport,parts and labour and the loss of production over the entire period.If you have the team that built it on hand,it becomes a DIY job.

 

[bilboburgler]

We have a couple of issues which will delay our project, the major one is that we don't have the space yet to hold this unit. We believe we will have space by the end of 2024 so that is our target date. Our second issue is one of money. All our kit is bought from membership income and we have just bought a new large 3D printer so waiting for the coffers to fill up (fortunately about the same time scale depending on membership increases or decreases). In the meantime we have most of the bits to build one of these Introduction to The MPCNC - V1 Engineering Documentation .No way is this able to do what the other ideas can do, but it gives us a chance to play and hack the basic tools and should be moveable so it will not get too much in our way.

 

[Ollie78]

This will be good for learning and fun to make.

 

[ToolsToday]

I'm working in a Maker Space in West Yorkshire. In our 2024 budget we aim to have £3-3.5k set aside for a 3 or 4 axis cnc portal miller for wood cutting. Since we have multiple users of varying skill ranges we need a fair bit of rubustness built in and would like proper slideways and ballscrew drives. Assuming that extraction, bench and any shielding was covered by other budgets and we wanted to be able to cut at least a 750x750mm area what machine would you look at?

Onefinity
Shapeoke
Bulkman
any other

At ToolsToday, we sell all the popular small format machines in North America, however, we can't sell them in the UK market. However, one of our vendors is i2rCNC, which is basically the highly popular Axiom range sold in North America. Contact Stoney CNC in Ireland, who do sell the i2r machines in the UK and Europe. You won't find a better pound for pound machine on the market, and Stoney give fantastic service. i2R A CNC Systems | Stoney CNC

 

[sploo]

At ToolsToday, we sell all the popular small format machines in North America, however, we can't sell them in the UK market. However, one of our vendors is i2rCNC, which is basically the highly popular Axiom range sold in North America. Contact Stoney CNC in Ireland, who do sell the i2r machines in the UK and Europe. You won't find a better pound for pound machine on the market, and Stoney give fantastic service. i2R A CNC Systems | Stoney CNC

Looking at the 915mm x 610mm model (because it's the same size as my old K2CNC 3925, and has very similar specs in terms of motion); my gut feel is that the price is fair (considering what I paid for the K2, and factoring in ~17 years of inflation).

 

[bilboburgler]

Interesting, I'm not sure where the Felder Hammer HNC would sit relative to it. But either way, out of our price range. At £4400+ it was borderline to investigate

 

[Ollie78]

Interesting, I'm not sure where the Felder Hammer HNC would sit relative to it. But either way, out of our price range. At £4400+ it was borderline to investigate

Not particularly good value for money and generally not well regarded which is a shame because Felder do make some good kit so when this was released there was an expectation that it could be really good. Not a "bad" machine as such.

 

[Phill05]

We have a couple of issues which will delay our project, the major one is that we don't have the space yet to hold this unit. We believe we will have space by the end of 2024 so that is our target date. Our second issue is one of money. All our kit is bought from membership income and we have just bought a new large 3D printer so waiting for the coffers to fill up (fortunately about the same time scale depending on membership increases or decreases). In the meantime we have most of the bits to build one of these Introduction to The MPCNC - V1 Engineering Documentation .No way is this able to do what the other ideas can do, but it gives us a chance to play and hack the basic tools and should be moveable so it will not get too much in our way.

I think this one MPCNC would give you the wrong ideas/working of a cnc in a making place where you have people from different disciplines wanting to use.

I think you would need to get something like the conventional i2R cnc shape but not at that price I think that is over priced for what is a basic cnc, don't forget all the extras you will need to run that.

Chase down some prices for linear rails, ball screws, ally extrusions, 2.2kw water cooled spindle, ucnc software, computer.
Do you have some guys into engineering/metalwork in the maker place that could share the making of one, what better place than a maker space to make your own machine, I wish I was closer and fitter I would have jumped at the chance.

 

[bilboburgler]

I agree, we have ability to do it properly, we don't have the funds or space yet, but we should do in the next 12 months. Hence this is more a play thing to let the arty members of our team get to grips with CAD CAM and other features of milling. We do this a lot using small machines to get ready and develop skills for larger machines and it works well, rather like scaffolding in computer games. Since we already have most of the bits it is almost a zero cost toy.

 

[worn thumbs]

Is there anybody within the group with sufficient experience of CAD and CAM to give informal guidance?A couple of evenings of looking over somebody's shoulder could cover some useful basics and watching a simulation could be helpful.

 

[bilboburgler]

Yes we have a few people who are very familiar with machining, with CAD and CAM plus we are pretty good at onboarding both new members and new processes. In fact every major item in the place has either a video or a manual to compensate for the terrible things provided by manufacturers. We also offer one to one advice for free to members on projects and on only two machines do we insist on this training, our laser cutter and our lathe.

I'm not worried about that, more looking for the best basic ideas of where to source equipment and I'm building up a nice file on that thanks to you guys.

 

[user 43593]

Is Open Builds on your radar?

 

[bilboburgler]

Is Open Builds on your radar?

No, thank you

 

[user 43593]

No, thank you

You are welcome.

 

[Phill05]

Is Open Builds on your radar?

Should this be in the joke thread.

 

[Jester129]

I think you're right Phil certainly la-la-land prices!

 

[user 43593]

Should this be in the joke thread.

It is not an absolute that the user must use the open builds site. What the site is very good for is listing the components that may be helpful and then one can find them elsewhere, e.g. Open Builds lists a 1/32" (0.025mm) carbide ball end bit for a sale price of £40.97 for the 'Shark' brand, which I do not know, but assume it to be an off brand Chinese item. That is very expensive for a bit that may easily break upon a knot or when set to a speed which is outside of its design parameters. The same Cutter on AliExpress is listed as being £3.39 Amazon sell many similar products at prices ranging from around £8 to about £66 for Amana brand.

For all of my cutter needs, I shop British and get great quality from the Rennie Tools company who manufacture a whole range of good quality tools and sell them very reasonably. I pay £12.71 for the TIALN coated cutter under scrutiny and get a good 6 ~ 9 months work out a single cutter. I know what quality I am getting. It comes complete with feeds and speeds recommendations and all of the important physical dimensions. People then have a choice but the Open Builds site will help- a person create a shopping list of things that they need to roll their own CNC machine.

Rennie Tools - AliExpress - Open Builds

 

[Ollie78]

I don't think the prices are the main issue with the open build. More the machine design itself. I also like Rennie cutters and CMT are very good as well.

Ollie

 

[Phill05]

It is not an absolute that the user must use the open builds site. What the site is very good for is listing the components that may be helpful and then one can find them elsewhere,

This is my main point take a look at the 1010 build there might be on the best side of £200 worth of ally extrusions, £2 worth of chipboard in the bed, £120 router, it all runs on little wheels on top of the extrusions, maybe £500 would be a realistic price,
This is what I mean by giving the Wrong advise out as to what a cnc is, now if you wanted to give your little child something for Christmas to keep him from under your feet then this would fill the space for two days.

I have used expensive tooling from UK, from USA and have settled on using Carbide End Mills Associated Production Tools yes china made but you try these cutters and tell me they are rubbish, they certainly work well for me in Wood, Metal, and stone and are a good price (disclaimer: I am only a customer of this company)

People then have a choice but the Open Builds site will help- a person create a shopping list of things that they need to roll their own CNC machine.

Shopping list to build a cnc: (disclaimer: I am only a customer of this company)
www.wmh-trans.co.uk

 

[user 43593]

I don't think the prices are the main issue with the open build. More the machine design itself. I also like Rennie cutters and CMT are very good as well.

Ollie

I have not used CMT but they do look to be comprehensive... AFAICT from their web pages