Yet another new member!

Hi All,

I'm planning a new workshop for prototypes and model making, 15sq m to take 2-3 machines. First will be a manual vertical mill. Needs about 500mm long feed and good table to spindle clearance. Main materials to be worked will be aluminium, plastic and wood - not much steel. Currently looking at Chester machines Champion 20V. (See attached pic below). Does anybody have experience of this machine or maybe suggest alternatives?

CNC portal router will eventually be the main machine. Heiz S-1000 is favourite with 4th axis rotary head. Again does anyone have experience of these machines. I currently use Work NC CAD package.

Any comments would be much appreciated.

Cheers

Davem

Hi davem. No experience yet of the Heiz, but I have one on order and will try and post some thoughts once the machine arrives in, hopefully, a few weeks.

Yes, I'd be very interested to hear of your experience with the Heiz machine and also how good the supplied software is. Are you going for any accessories or just the basic machine to start with?

Be good to keep in touch - I'm based in MK.

Regards


Davem

I went for the basic machine + the T nut bed + the USB economy edition of the PCNC software. I have a manual rotary table which I might try and modify to take a stepper, although my little lathe takes care of most of such needs. I had planned to run the machine from EMC but didn't really fancy mucking up on the warranty - those two steppers on the long axis do worry me a bit.

MK 'eh? That would be the place where I work.

Davem - I've posted a short article on the machine Here.