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Home built CNC Mill - Gonna make a 1911


StraightUp_OG

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I would check out Novakon for their CNC machine. It's a little bigger than the Tormach You get more bang for the buck. I just got mine and love it. It has a bigger work table incase you want or need to make something a little bigger. The customer service has been awesome. Send me a pm if you want to know more.

Did you buy the servo mill? Do they have reps in the USA?

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No I have the stepper motors and it does everything I need it to do, but I have thought about buying the servo's. It's not bad to update.

They have people in the US, where are you located? When I bought mine I was even able to talk with the owner of the company, pretty much unheard of these days.

I would be glad to introduce you to him or help you in any way. Don't get me wrong the Tormach is a great machine, but not the only one on the market that can do what you are wanting to do for around the same money.

Really what sold me was the support, the power of the machine and the size of the table.

Let me know if I can help in any way.

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I guess i should have specified, the smaller pulsar (newest model) is what I have at the spindle on it is 4500 compared to 10k on the 770 tormach. good to keep in mind if using small tools or alot of aluminum since when you rpms cant get high enough it limits your feed rate.

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For most hobby users the feedrate isn't the issue it is with highly competitive job shops. My high spindle speed is 3500. I do a lot of aluminum and I'm not having any problem getting work out the door. One job I did a while back used .015 end mills going a 1/4 inch deep in Delrin. Got that done OK too. The high RPMs are nice, but there are a lot more important features involved in getting parts made than spindle speed. A of of people just burn up drills and endmills with too much RPM anyway.

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What are wanting the G0759 to do that you can't do with your HF? Do you plan on making this a CNC also? I was looking at that model and the G704 also but now I'm thinking of just going to the 770. Would the G0759 do the same as the 770 when you complete all the upgrades? Thanks

Edited by gng4life
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770? Do not know what that one is. I want the belt drive kit to run some of my tools at a faster spindle speed and it is easier on the ears and no plastic gears to break. The table on the HF is maxed out for a G24 or 17L slide length and makes it just a little tuff to get things done. It does the short slides just fine and does everything else great too. I did the belt drive upgrade on it too and wow what a difference in the noise and speed. My hobby is turning more to a business now instead of just here and there so I wanted to upgrade while my wife said yes lol.

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Yes, the Tormach 770 is already a full benchtop style CNC whereas the Grizzly can be upgraded or so. I know it's more expensive to go with the 770 but it is ready for CNC out of the box. I'm still doing a lot of reading. Just not sure if it would be better to go with a G7XX mill and upgrade or just bite the bullet and put all the effort into a ready made CNC. Just looking for advice and thanks for all the help so far.

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You can't compare the G0XX to the Tormach. If you are already looking at the 770 then you have arrived. Unless converting a mill to CNC is part of the hobby for you I would just bite the bullet and buy the Tormach.

One day an 1100 will grace my garage but not until I can convince my wife that we really need it. (Good luck to me!)

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I am a LONG way from knowing CNC so my work is all going to be manual. From what I can see so far is the head tramming for the 759 is diff that the HF and such but I am excited to get the new machine to give a bit more travel to make the slide work a touch easier. BUT everything I HAVE WANTED to do or CAN do lol I should say I have been able to do with my little HF

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Recirculating is the only thing that works. You drain it back into the bucket it came from. You can make a filter out of brass or other screen wire (even cloth) and hose clamp it to the return line going into the bucket. You can also use a kitchen sieve or colander to separate chips from coolant. You can buy a ready made system on eBay or other places, but it's cheap and easy to do your own.

Edited by Toolguy
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What is everyone using for engraving software and tooling?

I have a couple of form 1s, a SBR and a Silencer, that will each need my name and town engraved to ATF specs.

minimum depth of .003 inch and in a print size of the Serial number shall be no smaller than 1/16 inch

I'm planning to go deeper and bigger than that so that it's more forgiving of my setup and accuracy. Maybe 0.250" tall font 0.010" deep or maybe more on the silencer.

The SBR is hard anodized aluminum and I'm planning on the Silencer using a 1.5"x.065 tube of 304L.

I had an earlier SBR engraved by a local trophy shop that absolutely butchered it. Turns out they drag engraved it and when they said hard anodized Al was no problem they had never actually tried it before.. So this time I'm going to either do it myself with a live tool or send it out to someone who knows what they're doing.

I have been hand coding all of my G-code except for a little tinkering with FreeCAD and MeshCAM. I'm pretty sure MechCAM would be an epic fail at engraving so I'm hoping to find a simple piece of software that will just convert text to G-code in any reasonable font.

I don't want a new project so am hoping to do this without a secondary engraving spindle. My mini-mill can do about 4k rpms. Any suggestions on a bit and if this has any hope of success with a slow enough feed rate?

Edited by Griz
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You can't compare the G0XX to the Tormach. If you are already looking at the 770 then you have arrived. Unless converting a mill to CNC is part of the hobby for you I would just bite the bullet and buy the Tormach.

One day an 1100 will grace my garage but not until I can convince my wife that we really need it. (Good luck to me!)

TRUTH!, and good luck to you indeed. With their new software and Mesa cards I'd love to have a 1100. Believe it or not all the horror stories I read about Mach kinda pushed me into the 0704. That and your original setup.

Start making parts for your wife. Custom engraved steak knives or something. Christmas gifts, Valentines, whatever.

I dunno might help.

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Filter for the chips and what to collect it in and drain back? I guess I meant a recirculating set up

Toolguy as usual gives spot on advice. The only thing different I did is have the return hose dump into a smaller bucket in my coolant container. My coolant container is something like this

http://www.amazon.com/Sterilite-19859806-30-Quart-See-Through-Titanium/dp/B002BA5F5C

with this pump

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000X05G1A/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1#

and this pail inside for chips to stay in

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000NNOWJO/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

HomeDepot sells this by the foot, I used it for return hose. Slipped right over a sink drain fitting in the mill enclosure

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Watts-1-1-2-in-x-50-ft-Polyethylene-Pool-and-Spa-Hose-RPSR-50/202257712

I cut holes in the lid for power cord, discharge hose and return hose. I put a small pail for the return hose to dump into. The excess liquid just goes over the edge into the big container with the pump but quite a bit of chips will stay in the little bucket. Every now and then I just pull the little bucket out and pour the liquid off. Dump all the chips out and back in business.

FWIW I work in the water treatment industry and this is a common set up for us, albeit on a larger scale in a treatment plant. The lip of the little bucket is above the liquid line in the larger container and is a weir, or edge filter. Heavy stuff stays in the bucket and the cleaner liquid spills over into the "still well" or larger container with the pump. Doesn't get everything but there's no moving parts or anything to clog, so pretty maintenance free.

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What is everyone using for engraving software and tooling?

I have a couple of form 1s, a SBR and a Silencer, that will each need my name and town engraved to ATF specs.

minimum depth of .003 inch and in a print size of the Serial number shall be no smaller than 1/16 inch

I'm planning to go deeper and bigger than that so that it's more forgiving of my setup and accuracy. Maybe 0.250" tall font 0.010" deep or maybe more on the silencer.

The SBR is hard anodized aluminum and I'm planning on the Silencer using a 1.5"x.065 tube of 304L.

I had an earlier SBR engraved by a local trophy shop that absolutely butchered it. Turns out they drag engraved it and when they said hard anodized Al was no problem they had never actually tried it before.. So this time I'm going to either do it myself with a live tool or send it out to someone who knows what they're doing.

I have been hand coding all of my G-code except for a little tinkering with FreeCAD and MeshCAM. I'm pretty sure MechCAM would be an epic fail at engraving so I'm hoping to find a simple piece of software that will just convert text to G-code in any reasonable font.

I don't want a new project so am hoping to do this without a secondary engraving spindle. My mini-mill can do about 4k rpms. Any suggestions on a bit and if this has any hope of success with a slow enough feed rate?

you can probably find an engraving wizard/converstational g-code program online. I know the g-wizard editor I have will do it.

I have heard these guys cutters are really good http://www.2linc.com/but I just use a small ball mill. Size will depend on the scale of your letters obviously.

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You might want to check out www.vectric.com. A lot of hobby people seem to like them. I am using 1/8" solid carbide engraving cutters off eBay. They are 10 for a few bucks and work very well. They have a selection of tip angles and widths. I use a 60 degree angle with a .1mm tip for smaller stuff. There are many kinds that will work, even a 90 degree with sharp point.

Usually .005 to .010 depth is good, on larger stuff I will sometimes go to .015 deep. Go slow on the entry, too fast going down will break the tip. I'm running 3200 rpm, 1 IPM down and 2 IPM in X and Y. Obviously a faster spindle can have the same chip load at faster feedrates.

Do test cuts on scrap first to make sure you're getting what you want. When it's working good, put in the real project. Going over the engraving 2 times at the final depth makes it look better in some cases.

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