Need help, buy or build to cut steel, stainless steel, titanium etc

no, its easily doable small, and compact, especially for what you need, all i meant above is you will need a water tank underneath and a suitable water pump ( £ 40 ). The other bit i say about the card and the pump, there is lots and lots of driver cards out there, when yopu have worked out what inputs and outputs you will need for your machine, then you will get good advice on what cards you need to run the motors.

At the moment, wait for one of the others to answer this

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the standard sprockets should not be a problem, the more complex one, you would be better asking one of the more experiences users if they can achieve them required angles using bits, or if considerations for a B/C head strapped to the table would be the way forward from the start

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Excellent. Thanks for your constructive reply man. Cheers

hmmm, sprockets and cranksets are usually forged and then cnc machining used to clean them up. they aren't machined from solid and not entirely sure why you'd want to make custom ones anyway. those could be a little ambitious. dropouts & gearhangers and lugs are probable contenders (though I'm not fully convinced about the latter)

for machining SS or titanium IMHO you'd be better off with a cnc mill rather than a router, as the key to machining hard materials accurately is rigidity but for that you will need something bigger than will fit in a 12 x 8 shed. the machine in the 'sufficiently strong' thread is very good but I'd have my doubts about its ability to machine SS or titanium. SS is 4 - 5 times harder and titanium is 2 - 3 times harder to machine than aluminium.

Well to be honest I don't think I will be making cranksets (it was just an idea) but sprockets for bmx and single speeds are usually made in cnc milling machines. I am not at all interested in making lugs but dropouts and gear hangers is something where I will be using this machine a lot.

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as the key to machining hard materials accurately is rigidity but for that you will need something bigger than will fit in a 12 x 8 shed. the machine in the 'sufficiently strong' thread is very good but I'd have my doubts about its ability to machine SS or titanium. SS is 4 - 5 times harder and titanium is 2 - 3 times harder to machine than aluminium.

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That was my original worry really whether something this powerful could be done on a small scale or not? I guess there is no middle ground then small machines are only good for wood and plastics and only large scale industrial machines are only good for ss and titanium. Oh well I will wait for what others have to say and then maybe leave this ambition of mine alone. Cheers

Irvings correct when it comes to milling Titamium and even SS your into a massively differant machine to any router based machine you'll see on here.
To Mill SS or and Ti to any sort of acceptable standard you will need massive flood coolant and machine twice the ridgidty of Jonathans best effort.

Considering you have no experience of building or designing a machine then I strongly suggest you Forget the Idea for cutting this type of material because your on a hiding to nothing. Even if you gave someone like me the Challenge I'd have to sit think long and hard the best way achieve the strength you'd require and I can 100% guarantee it wouldn't be a moving Gantry router based machine.

Much better would be to buy some "Old Iron" Milling machine and retro fit it for Cnc. Still a challenge in it's self for a first timer to CNC but do-able.

If you do still want to go down the DIY build route then compleltely Forget moving Gantry style machine and look to Fixed Gantry machine. Keep the size to an absolute minimum required and build it MASSIVE strong. The larger the machine the hard that is to achive and very quickly becomes expensive has every thing has to scale up to match Ie, Motors, drives, Psu etc. It will need very good flood cooling so you will want it fully enclosed or get your self a good Mac and weelies.!!

It can be done but the machine required will be need to be several times stronger than you'll find around here and it will need someone with good engineering experience to build it accurately. You will also need Machinery to help achieve building it.

Don't think me being Negative here I'm being Honest and realistic with you.!!. . . . . . I could easily Blow smoke up your arse and say "Ye it's easy get on wi it" but I'd be a complete liar because it will be far from it.

Wish you Good luck if you do carry.

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Originally Posted by JAZZCNC

Irvings correct when it comes to milling Titamium and even SS your into a massively differant machine to any router based machine you'll see on here.
To Mill SS or and Ti to any sort of acceptable standard you will need massive flood coolant and machine twice the ridgidty of Jonathans best effort.

Considering you have no experience of building or designing a machine then I strongly suggest you Forget the Idea for cutting this type of material because your on a hiding to nothing. Even if you gave someone like me the Challenge I'd have to sit think long and hard the best way achieve the strength you'd require and I can 100% guarantee it wouldn't be a moving Gantry router based machine.

Much better would be to buy some "Old Iron" Milling machine and retro fit it for Cnc. Still a challenge in it's self for a first timer to CNC but do-able.

If you do still want to go down the DIY build route then compleltely Forget moving Gantry style machine and look to Fixed Gantry machine. Keep the size to an absolute minimum required and build it MASSIVE strong. The larger the machine the hard that is to achive and very quickly becomes expensive has every thing has to scale up to match Ie, Motors, drives, Psu etc. It will need very good flood cooling so you will want it fully enclosed or get your self a good Mac and weelies.!!

It can be done but the machine required will be need to be several times stronger than you'll find around here and it will need someone with good engineering experience to build it accurately. You will also need Machinery to help achieve building it.

Don't think me being Negative here I'm being Honest and realistic with you.!!. . . . . . I could easily Blow smoke up your arse and say "Ye it's easy get on wi it" but I'd be a complete liar because it will be far from it.

Wish you Good luck if you do carry.

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Fantastic reply man. I like the fact you are being honest straight up with me so I am dropping this fantasy. I guess for now I might just stick to what I know and will revisit this idea in the future perhaps. Thanks guys you have all been very helpful

hi

i agree with most of what jazz says, perhaps just not the way he puts it.

now i see what you need, i would consider retrofitting a second hand industrial mill/router with cnc componants.

about what is your budget, dont be discouraged yet. i would say, second hand mill £500-£3000 ebay, cnc motors cards bits £ 500-1000.

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Originally Posted by george uk

hi

i agree with most of what jazz says, perhaps just not the way he puts it.

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WTF wrong with how I put it.? . . . It tells it the way it is.! . . . . . F@~£ had enough you lot and twisting how things are written you can go BoL@&$ I'll keep my experience to my self in future.!

can i also add, dont get to discouraged about cutting hard material with cnc machine.

It just means slow spindle speeds/cooling and long job times, but for what your doing, that would not be a problem, you may be able to pull off what you need for around £ 1000, £ 3000 would be easyer, £ 4000/5000 you could do it without worry

Wadkin LS Router - damaged | eBay
WADKIN LS OVERHEAD PIN ROUTER 3 PHASE WORK HORSE LOTS OF PINS AND COLLETS | eBay

a good example of a cheap starting frames you could retrofit. look around, you might find one that you can gear the spindle to the right speed for you.

Then fix XY to that solid table top,

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Originally Posted by fatguyslim

Fantastic reply man. I like the fact you are being honest straight up with me so I am dropping this fantasy. I guess for now I might just stick to what I know and will revisit this idea in the future perhaps. Thanks guys you have all been very helpful

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Jazz, the OP said this, so go with this comment and forget the other, it's just easier.