Quarryscapes Posted February 15, 2021 Share Posted February 15, 2021 (edited) I'm looking at expanding my in house capabilities a bit, and one of these would be nice for on work and milling frames for example. Are there any recommendations? How do the ebay £300 Chinese ones fare? Edited February 15, 2021 by Quarryscapes Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
drduncan Posted February 15, 2021 Share Posted February 15, 2021 Do you have an example in mind? Duncan Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamsRadial Posted February 15, 2021 Share Posted February 15, 2021 (edited) I bought the CNC 1610 last year as an experiment, it cost less than £110 so I was in the mind of "What have I got to lose?" I spent a further £20 on an ER collet chuck and set of collets (and you need to get a 3.5mm collet to use the common 1/8" shank tools). I then found that the increased depth of the ER collet and tool assembly had left me with barely half an inch of Z-axis travel, so I bought two more pieces of 2020 extrusion to increase the height of the gantry, and added corner blocks to every remaining corner I could. The result is a very nice compact machine that takes up less room than my 3D printer, and uses dremel bits (see the bit about the 3.5mm collet), and still cost me less than £150. I use a DTI to set up the steps per mm on each axis, which did help. I was very impressed with the accuracy and very small backlash, the spring-loaded brass nuts performed better than I had been told they would. My expectations weren't of milling brass or nickel silver ( although I think with some annealing of the work it will actually do it). I mainly wanted it for cutting shapes from plastic and thin wood. It works well enough at that. The spindle speed is not very high, but for milling plastic that is a bonus, as it prevents melting the work. As a test I managed to mill aluminium, but I was going very tippy-toes with both depth of cut and feed speeds. I suspect for milling frames you would find the 3018 machines more appealing, but bear in mind that the wider the Y axis, the greater the distortion of the spindle carriage, the linear rails are nowhere near as rigid as people think; just try putting a DTI on one and then pressing downwards and watch that needle move Edited February 15, 2021 by AdamsRadial 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulaDoesTrains Posted February 15, 2021 Share Posted February 15, 2021 I've got one of the 3018 Pro's. These seem to marketed by a plethora of different sellers. £300 sounds high unless it includes the laser. Mine cost £170 without the laser. I've upgraded the spindle to a Genmitsu 775-M which is a drop-in replacement and will spin up to 20,000 RPM. From what I've read so far, you really do need the higher speeds to stand any chance of milling metals such as brass. Not that I've tried milling brass yet. I'm still experimenting with wood, MDF and plastics but I'm hoping to be able to cut thin phosphor-bronze sheet to make custom pickups. I think it will be able to do that as these machines can remove the copper from printed-circuit boards. One thing I would advise it to get some decent quality single-flute end mills. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giles Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 (edited) I'm sure it's not what you want to hear, but I wouldn't get anything less than a small Stepcraft if your aim is to mill brass etc. I have one and use it quite a lot. Tuned up it can do very accurate work I regularly produce 7mm chassis with it, complete with rods, cranks etc, from nickel silver and brass. You need rigidity, and no back lash, with good, usable software (I use Vcarve). I have killed three Prxxon drills using them as spindles - they were very good whilst they lasted, but they can't cope with the loads. An AMB 1050-P is the best, as it has very low run-out and is extremely robust. It's not a cheap exercise, but it is extremely rewarding.... Edited February 16, 2021 by Giles 2 1 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulaDoesTrains Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 @Giles That's very impressive. There's no way a cheap Chinese CNC Engraver will get close that sort of accuracy even with a beefed up motor as they simply don't have the rigidity. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quarryscapes Posted February 16, 2021 Author Share Posted February 16, 2021 Very useful info, thanks all. Giles it was you who I was thinking of in this, but I couldn't remember what machine you had (or even your user name to ask you!) I didn't expect much from the Chinese machines to be honest. I can't work out what Software the Stepcraft needs, the website is decidedly unhelpful on each option. I would be using Fusion360 for GCode creation, so I think I need the UCCNC option (according to a quick Google). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giles Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 The Stepcraft (and all these CnC router/mills) are 2.5D rather than 3D, so im not sure about Fusion 360 in this context - its beyond my expeience. I draw in Autocad/Draftsight in 2D, as I use this for the sort of work you've seen. Other drawing programs I'm sure would be fine..... I import the drawing into Vectric VCarve , which allows me to create all the toolpaths, inside profile, outside profile, pocket, drill etc... with different tool profiles, cutting depths, speeds, tabs etc. Out the back of this comes a mach3 file with all the coordinated toolpaths, which is then opened with: UCCNC , which controls and drives the Stepcraft. Longwinded, but fine when you get the hang of it! You can draw straight into VCarve, but frankly it's not suited to proper draughting. Draftsight will also produce G-code, but I doubt it will do all the extra work of tooling etc, that VCarve does....! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
flubrush Posted February 17, 2021 Share Posted February 17, 2021 From the same software house as Giles' VCarve is Cut2D Desktop which has all the 2.5D features and costs a good bit less. It has 2D drawing facilities but nowhere near as good as a full 2D CAD program. I use NanoCAD which is an AutoCAD clone and has a free version. I use Mach3 to control my mill. It's getting a bit long in the tooth now, but having been around for years means that there is a huge amount of support for it. Jim. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giles Posted February 19, 2021 Share Posted February 19, 2021 (edited) On the subject of cutters, Roy Link recommended using D cutters for pantograph milling (I don't think he had a CNC setup). I started using them with my teeny Proxxon pantograph conversion - using the cheap Chinese ones intended for pcb work, and apart from predictable breakage got on very well. When I got the Stepcraft I continued using them on that machine as well, and they work well and reliably within constraints which are: Depth and feed rate - commensurate and fair for the diameter of the cutter, and the material Work piece to be securely held down with no movement (I use double-sided tape, again at Roy's recommendation) Spindle to be rigid, and free from any play or deflection. (I now use my Kress 1050 for all work) Machine to be rigid and free from deflection Use tabs when cutting small components to prevent movement of parted component trapping tool I mostly use 0.8mm dia cutters, 1mm, and 1.6mm usually drilling and profiling brass or nickel silver up to 2mm thick. Edited February 19, 2021 by Giles 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulaDoesTrains Posted February 27, 2021 Share Posted February 27, 2021 Just so that people can see what these 3018 CNCs are capable of, here's one of my little projects milled from 3mm HDPE. It's an adaptor to allow me to fit large D couplings to my 2001 Bachmann Class 25 which doesn't have NEM pockets. The area on the right is machined out to fit a Hornby X8031 (I have a stock of those as I have quite a few Hornby Class 08s). On the left the centre hole is a mounting screw and the other two locate snugly onto two matching locator stubs on the bogie. I used a 1mm diameter end mill and am delighted with the accuracy I can achieve on softer materials with this little machine. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpgibbons Posted February 27, 2021 Share Posted February 27, 2021 (edited) Impressive. Edited February 27, 2021 by dpgibbons Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyID Posted February 28, 2021 Share Posted February 28, 2021 I bought a cheap engraver mainly for making printer circuits, but I made some mechanical parts too. More information in this thread https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/148588-mini-mills/&tab=comments#comment-3727485 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quarryscapes Posted March 1, 2021 Author Share Posted March 1, 2021 Well I've shelved the idea for now until I can afford a Stepcraft, funding the new build Railway room/workshop is first on the list, hopefully to be completed in 3 years. (Not because I'm trying to build an aircraft hangar sized building, but because we are also completely removing and replacing the entire roof on the house too, and that obviously takes priority over the man cave!) 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulaDoesTrains Posted March 3, 2021 Share Posted March 3, 2021 On 28/02/2021 at 03:57, AndyID said: I bought a cheap engraver mainly for making printer circuits, but I made some mechanical parts too. More information in this thread https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/148588-mini-mills/&tab=comments#comment-3727485 Thank you for posting the link to that thread. It was very informative. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulaDoesTrains Posted March 8, 2021 Share Posted March 8, 2021 (edited) I've been experimenting with 0.1mm phosphor bronze for loco pickups. I'm using an engraving bit for cutting and it seems to be working OK. Here's a pickup for a Hornby 0-6-0. It needs a bit more cleaning up but is basically fine. Edited April 25, 2022 by PaulaDoesTrains restore image 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulaDoesTrains Posted September 6, 2021 Share Posted September 6, 2021 (edited) One of my little projects which I completed quite a while ago now was for my circa 2001 Bachmann Class 25 which is a nice model but came with some horrid little tension lock couplings which don't play nice with the large D couplings on my stock. And no NEM pockets so I couldn't just swap them out. So what I've done is machine some adaptors out of 3mm HDPE which allow me to attach a Hornby D coupling. The project was not without its challenges due to the requirement of machining features on both sides. If people are interested I'll do a post about that that but for now here are some pictures of one of the adaptors prior to a bit of cleaning up and on the loco complete with D coupling. Edited April 25, 2022 by PaulaDoesTrains restore images 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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