Milling machines take up a lot of space! I used to have a Rishton – based on the vertical head that Myford used to fit to their 254 lathes – and it had a Myford spindle nose, which was a great help in transferring tooling. You'd only get second-hand ones now, though. As Jason says, Wabeco are probably your best bet if you want precision anf high speed.

Correction, swore AT it.

I've had a Wabeco F1210 for about four years. It wasn't cheap, but as far as quality is concerned, it's streets ahead of the dreadful Chinese thing (it didn't deserve the name 'milling machine' which I had before that.

The Wabeco is not without its faults, though. My main complaint would be that it clearly was not designed as a manual machine – it's just the CNC machine with the CNC bits left off, so there are no travel stops and no provision for them. The mounting holes for the CNC bits are there though. The ghastly plastic handles were soon replaced with decent cast iron ones from WDS. How Wabeco can send out the machines with handles like that is beyond me.

The machine is quiet and speed control is good. The rigidity of the machine is satisfactory for light machining only. On the whole, I'd recommend it but with reservations.

John

Edited By jwb on 27/05/2013 22:21:02

Hi Rebekah,
There are a number of questions,
What am I intending to build
Will I ever plan to build anything bigger
CNC et all; is a black art to me, do not need it or want it.
Tooling, rotary table, collets, you name it
but please enjoy.
Beky, if I may call you that please post a profile even if it is only to say where you are on this planet,

Kindest from an old engineer
Bob

Hi Rebekah

My own experience is that when I got a CNC milling machine (after a manual one) the quality and accuracy of my work really increased. Even for simple one offs purely using manual G code it's easier – think of it as a manual machine with power feed and DRO on each axis and minimal backlash if you want at its simplest. You can then learn simple CAM and progress from there.

See if you can find a Denford (Triac, Novamill, Micromill ) or Boxford (190, 260 vmc) already converted to work with Mach3 unless you know a bit of electronics yourself (I don't ). These machines were sold to schools and colleges in the 80s and 90s, well built and pretty accurate – far better built than a x2 type machine. Would be ideal for small parts in Aluminium.

Andy

Becky,

Don't worry too much about the programming, these days the software is very good and getting better release by release.

Basically if you can draw it and point to what you want to machine, you can cut it.

Well the way I use my CNC milling machine for simple stuff (the sort of task you would do on a manual machine like squaring off a block) is I just type in the g code line by line. For more complex (relatively speaking) or repetetive tasks I do use cambam which is an easy(ish) to use CAM tool with some basic CAD functionality.

Even for the simple jobs I find it an advantage over a manual machine as there is less chance of making a mistake, each axis has power feed and a very accurate DRO. If you are doing multiple parts then its a major advantage and time saver and really comes into its own.

The other advantage is as others have already said there isn't much choice available if you want a high quality, smallish manual milling machine at a decent price, either new or second hand.

Disadvantages are that if you want to do a very simple one off task you have to boot up your PC first. Also if you aren't IT literate then there is a learning curve to even get started.

Purely my own opinions here and there are plenty more experienced and knowledgeable engineers on here than me.

Andy

55 seconds to boot into LinuxCNC or 70 seconds to boot into WindowsXP/Mach3 and that's on an old second hand machine. If that's too long leave your PC in standby.

Don't connect the PC to the internet. If it works it never needs security updates so no checking for updates, no virus scanner needed as you won't get a virus, so very little overhead.

Russell.

If you can find a Denford Novamill I couldn't recommend it highly enough as a small cnc mill. It knocks spots off all the X2s and X1s of this world.

If your x2 is already CNC look for one that has lost its electronics and just transfer your present drivers over. I paid ?600for tjethe mill aand spent just over 100 on the electronics.