What do you think about this mill?
 

http://www.jula.se/img/bilder_650/250050_c.jpg

The description is in Swedish and i can't translate it :P
But the lenght is 520mm, 300mm wide and 410mm high.
Its only 120W but I think its enought.
I'm going to buy it cause its pretty cheap, about $550 new.

Any comments?

I'm not really in to all the english words in machinery, but that sure looks like a lathe to me.
For what purpose ?
Posting in this forum i suppose you want to mill a waterblock, hmm, thats going to be tough on that one :p

offcourse i'm gonna make lotso blocks :)

I can just make out some lettering that says 'multi-purpose machine' - looks like some lathe-cum-mill-cum-drill press or something. Pretty neat - I don't think I've seen anything quite like that before, though I really don't know much about machine tools. The few lathes and drill presses that I've worked on, the biggest differences I've noticed has been in accuracy of the dials/controls - some have a bit of give in them before anything moves, which can screw up precision work :( That may just be an effect of age though...

Just from the picture it looks fairly well made - it's a nice compact machine that's pretty versatile. If you get it, let us know how good it is - I wouldn't mind having something like that on my workbench at home, I don't have the money or space for a separate lathe, drill press, mill etc :(

Just as an afterthought as well, if most of the work you'll be doing on that involves copper, I'd have thought you'd be ok. It's certainly a much softer material than, say, steel, and shouldn't wear the cutting bits down too quickly.

It looks like a nice mill, but you may want to check how easily it could be converted to CNC in case you ever go that route. It would be alot cheaper to convert it than to buy a new mill later down the road. See if you can get the input from Jaydee, Morphling, and fixittt thier the machining gurus here.

Yes its a multi-purpose-machine. I found another PURE mill at $450, I think its better to have a machine that is built to do only one type of job.

Are you serious? can i convert a mill to a cncmill?!? that would be my dream!!! how much? $100 or $500 or even $1000? please answer! :)

From what I've been told you can convert for about $1000, but I don't know about every mill I know you can with this machine. I believe this is the one jaydee uses for CNC.

Shipping from US to Sweden won't be cheap...anyone have a clue of how much?

You should first e-mail the company from the mill that you posted about and see if it can be converted because that does look like a pretty nice mill espeicially with the lathe that may come in handy. Like I said though you should PM fixittt, jaydee, or morphling they would know alot more about this then I would. I've done a little bit of homework on the subject, but I'm no expert.

hehe ! my mistake. Didnt get a closer look at that picture, sry.
You just put the waterblock where you have the turning-tool when turning, and then you have a mill.
You would need some kind of a hold-the-copper-block-tightened, if it doesnt come with the machine.
Looks really fair because of the price :) maybe the apprentice here could afford one:D

Don't like the looks of it for milling. See the drill chuck? That is not ment for milling but only for drilling. Real mills do not use drill bit chucks. Doesn't look to me like it will mill at all! Get a real mill. As for converting to CNC that can be a chalenge as you have to get stepper motors, stepper motor controles, make mounting hardware for the stepper motors, somehow make the stepper motor controls hook into a computer interface, and get some mill software to control the stepper motor controlers. It only depends on how much you know about electronics on how much it will cost. I bought a Sherline mill like linked above and a 2nd party converted it into a CNC mill and I bought it all pre put together. My mill is to small though. You are better off buying a nice sturdy mill that can be converted like morphling is doing.

That is an all in one solution. Its not really gonna get you good results at either I hate to say. I am sure there is an x-y table that would replace the tool post holder in the pic. One bad thing about it, is it doesnt look like the drill check is removable. If you try and mill with that, your results will be ......... not quite as accurate...... then with a tool holder or collet system. That machine was desigend for light duty, not the harsh work you sound like you are wanting to put it thrue.


Your best bet would be to check out www.harborfreight.com or www.jlindustrial.com or I think www.wttool.com or do a search for whole sale tool.
Also another site to check out is www.desktopcnc.com

yes most manual machines can be converted to CNC for about $1000 but this is for most small machines. Cost goes up when you get into bigger machines.

hope this helps

here are some examples

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=36739


http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=42976

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=47158


http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=33686

I don't want that multi-machine, I will have this instead:

http://www.chrion.netfirms.com/mill/mill.jpg

only $450 new, cnc-convert it?

I've now desided, I'm going big, gonna buy a "Standard CNC Package" from www.acumotion.com.
http://www.acumotion.com/pro_mill.jpg

The shipping is only $350 to Sweden :D

but there is another problem...i don't know sh*t about CAD. Can someone help me out?

Hmm, that cnc mill certanly looks cute, but this one will not get you far milling metals, it's more for making small part from softer materials like wood or plastic. You could engrave in metals though.
As for CAD I think you must walk the path of learning yourself.
Acad is very simple for learning, and with a help of book or even help and tutorials within the program you could learn it pretty quickly.
When you learn the basics 2d drawing we can get you to 3d modeling :)

damn you make it hard for me ;)
No I find it good that you give me advices.
But what mill shall I have? :(
im confused, i want a cnc-conversionkit but what about the mill?
What do you guys have?

Well I bought this one : http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/sho...5&pagenumber=1
CNC conversion will cost me: 220$ shipped for three very powerful 253oz/inch Pacific Scientific Power Max II steppers, then 3x 114$ plus shipping for stepper controlers Geckodrive 201 also one of the best for desktop cnc , then 50$ for power suply for motors, and second computer I already have.
I could go a lot cheaper & weaker, but I rather listen to Fixittt and went for the best option I could find so my mill will be capable of doing some heavy work :D

Actually that pic of the mill is identical to mine (even the SAME place I bought it!!) exept I got to pro version http://www.acumotion.com/pro_mill.htm which just adds a little more Y travel. Every block I have done was on that mill and it does ok if you are not planning to mass produce blocks. It will do Copper on the slowest settings with carbide or better end mills but it will be very slow milling. I recommend NOT buying this mill for water blocks. If I knew then what i know now I would have got the Max NC-15 Fixittt has. It is more money but worth it IMO. Or like stated before buy a good solid manual mill and convert it.

If you got 0 experiance with machining, cad/cam, ect, then CNC is NOT for you!!!!!! You will end up breaking more then you make. hell, I am still breaking stuff. Endmills mostly. The Smaller desktop machines like the one that I have and the one that JD has are great little machines. I love mine. But it is just that. Little. You have to take it slow. Hell, if you ever seen that NUKE block I machined a few months back, well it took well over 25 hours to chew that out. It was a drastic 3d modeling code that had something like 27,000 lines it in. It would have taken a $100,000 machine 5 hours to make. Anyways, like I said, its much safer to start with a manual mill, so you can see how different tools react to different materials, how coolant effects parts, to see how hard it really is to machine copper.

We will be here to laugh..... I me to support you. If you need to.

:)

For an idea on how slow my mill really is the block in the thread I just posted about "The Lemon Block" took about 2.5 hours and that is in aluminum to boot.

Fixittt, you are the founder of the Spiral-block, how long does it take to do one of those?

This machine is $1400:

http://www.jula.se/img/bilder_650/255010_c.jpg

if this isn't enough, what is?

1,5 kW / 2Hp

Yes, that one will be powerful and robust enough :D
But are you thinking of buying that in US, the shipping price would be huge, machine like that weight 150-200 kg.

LOL no no no this is from Sweden :D
Don't wanna pay $1000+ for freight :)
I mailed acumotion and he said that it probably (spell?) could be converted to a cncmill with some powerfull 268 oz-in motors.
Is it hard to build mounts for the motors on each axes?
Anyway, it feels good to have a robust mill that later on can be converted to a cnc mill...what do you think? is it possible?

here is the mail:

If you can design and build stepper motor mounts on each of the axes, then it can be converted.
You would need to use the more powerful 268 oz-in motors.
It is impossible to know by looking whether that will be enough power to drive them.
You could purchase a kit and return it immediately if it didn't work.
Then you could find somebody elses more powerful kit to utilize your mounts.
Greg Hanowski
Customer Support
www.acumotion.com