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Mill for making laser parts

kiyoukan

kiyoukan

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so i am looking to get a bench mill for making parts. mounts cases precision heatsinks.
I have a 6ft standing mill but its just a bit to big and it needs to go.
So i have been looking around but wanted to know if any one here has gotten one of the mini mills and cares to voice an opinion on what one are good.
My budget is around 1,000$
depending on what tooling comes with it
i was looking at this one
LittleMachineShop.com - HiTorque Mini Mill & Tooling Package
 





Pontiacg5

Pontiacg5

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I have no idea what that machine is, but it's probably a chinese "sieg" mill like the minilahtes and x2/x3 mills. Grizzly makes a nice mill, called the G0704, it's a beefy mill but over budget.

I'd say search craigslist for a bridgeport, but if your complaining about size now I don't think you'd have room for one of those. You will hit the limits of one of those benchtop machines, I can almost guarantee that. If you are hitting the limits of a three horse bridgeport your doing it wrong :D
 
kiyoukan

kiyoukan

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well my 6ft standing mill is a one legged horse that takes up a ton of room besides from huge amounts of power there is no precision with that thing.
My arms get tired when trying to crank the darn thing but if i loosen the thing wont stop vibrating.
there is not enough lube in the world to solve that mill problems.
i bought it for 100$ and its worth more than that in scrap.
 
Pontiacg5

Pontiacg5

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kiyoukan said:
well my 6ft standing mill is a one legged horse that takes up a ton of room besides from huge amounts of power there is no precision with that thing.
My arms get tired when trying to crank the darn thing but if i loosen the thing wont stop vibrating.
there is not enough lube in the world to solve that mill problems.
i bought it for 100$ and its worth more than that in scrap.
Click to expand...

The gibs of most of these cheap chinese desktop mills will not be much better. You'll have to crank them tight and put the extra muscle into the hand wheels to get anything accurate done.

That being said, you can make them better. You'll need to make some better gibs, most mills and lathes come with some hard iron crap. If you have the patience you can replace that with a tapered bronze or aluminum-bronze setup that will glide easy and stay true.

Don't expect either of those mills to be great out of the box though. They should be good enough to fix themselves if you have the time and patience.
 
Pontiacg5

Pontiacg5

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You can attach a third axis to your carriage and chuck up a endmill in the spindle for a quick and dirty lathe to mill conversion. Sometimes you can find attachments ready made for this, some come with an R8 collet chuck to use instead of a three/four jaw chuck.
 
kiyoukan

kiyoukan

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yea i made a small one using a old vice. but i just want something good and stable.
if i need a large unit i can drive 40min and be at a real machine shop. i just hate driving when all i need to do is mill a few small heatsinks.
 
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