Suitable Wood CNC mills

**andy_con** · 01-02-2016

currently I have a denford triac and starmill, ive not used the starmill since the day I purchased it. it needs a mach conversion and ive just not got round to doing it.

I seem to be doing a fair amount of wood work these days and I do everything on my triac. so im thinking of selling the starmill and purchasing a more suitable mill for wood.

im aware there are many of these Chinese 6040 cnc mills around, are they any good? what sort of back lash do they have? what sort to depth of cut and speed can you get with them?

on my triac when machining oak I use an 8mm end mill, 3mm depth of cut at f300.

if I wanted to go bigger than a 6040 what options are there?
I also want air cooled spindle and Esmooth stepper

all thoughts welcome

**andy_con** · 02-02-2016

lots of comments ;) ;)

**komatias** · 02-02-2016

regarding the chinese 6040 routers:
Cheap chearful and not very sturdy. Backlash is whatever you get from a C7 no preload screw which 0-0.05mm ish if you are lucky 0.1+ if not.

With a little bit of effort you can make the machine perform well in my opinion. Firstly you will need to add limit switches, a decent motion controller, change the cables out for better quality ones. Then you should tackle the distinct lack of rigidity of the ground unsupported rails. If you get one with an all-in-one stepper driver board, set money aside for when it blows smoke.

Aircooled spindles do not allow you to go at low RPM as they overheat. Also they sound like a concorde taking off...apparently. Most of the 6040s come with water cooled spindles anyway. Most of them with ER16 collets too so your 8mm endmill will be fine.

Plenty of people with these machines on youtube to give you advice on how best to tackle the teething issues.

If you want a machine that is ready out of the box though, best look elsewhere.