Denford Mill Comparison

[BDH]

This is a bit of a basic question for which I will apologise for in advance!
What Denford mills are available as second user machines and what are the advantages and disadvantages of any particular model?
Brian

[m_c]

It all comes down to size.

In terms of their dedicated milling machines.
Starmill is the smallest.
Novamill is the next size up, although I don't think there is much difference in terms of spindle size/bed motors than the Starmill.

Triac is the largest of the commonly available models, and came in various configurations over the years, from basic stepper driven models, to industrial servo versions.
The VMC is very similar in terms of size to the Triac, and is essentially just a Triac replacement.

There was also a bigger industrial style machine which I've forgotten the name off.

They've also done some smaller combination machines, and routers.


Best option is to go and look through the various brochures on the denford forums.

[depronman]

This is a bit of a basic question for which I will apologise for in advance!
What Denford mills are available as second user machines and what are the advantages and disadvantages of any particular model?
Brian

If you are interested I have a very clean Denford Starmill complete with machine cabinet and the original control electronics box
It has been converted to Mach3 and will include the mach3 config files
It can include a PC and monitor at extra cost

It is an R8 spindle, and there are a very cheap chinese R8 tool holders on ebay, I have used R25 collects and found them to be perfect
The machine is set up with tool probing which makes for easy work setup.

It will equally run on Linuxcnc, which to be honest is what I have desided to standadise on.
I've used it to machine dural, brass and steel with no problems at all. Its a small but well build and strong machine
I don't think the machine as done much, spent 20 years in a school and don't think they had a clue how to use it so it was an orniment in the schools 'resistant materials workshop'

PM me if you want more details, I'm in Lancashire nr Blackpool
The machine is roughly a 740mm cube and will transport in a van or estate car or even a large hatch back. Its heavy though so needs a 3 or 4 strong men to lift it


Cheers,
Paul

[andy_con]

There was also a bigger industrial style machine which I've forgotten the name off.
.

Zero centre

[ngwagwa]

The machine is roughly a 740mm cube and will transport in a van or estate car or even a large hatch back. Its heavy though so needs a 3 or 4 strong men to lift it


Cheers,
Paul

The Starmill will actually fit in the back of a 2008 Fiesta Style - been there done that.

[BDH]

Many thanks for the offer Paul. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about ANY machine at the moment, to be able to work out what I want.
Brian

[Doddy]

Brian, perhaps useful to explain what your use-case for a machine is - what you're cutting, and size, and whether you're in a production environment or hobbyist.

[BDH]

Thanks for your reply Doddy. Any machine I buy would be for hobby use in brass, steel and occasionally, aluminium. The largest envelope (if that is the right word) that I can see at the moment is 9"in X 9"in X 3"in and that is an aluminium job that would be difficult on my present manual machines.
I am learning to use Fusion 360 for modelling and have just started to have a look at the CAM features.
I have no background in cnc work having been a Quality Engineer/Quality Manager in the aerospace industry for most of my working life.
Brian

[Doddy]

It sounds like you know what you're doing and looking for, from your reply. The envelope is a real limiter - a 9" throat on a small mill (and for the Denfords, that includes the StarMill, NovaMill and Triac) are nowt but a dream (you'd fail to get 9" on either table or saddle on a StarMill - I have one of those, as well (160mm/90mm respectively). You could get clever with fixture plates etc but I think you're really looking at something rather larger.

[ngwagwa]

Thanks for your reply Doddy. Any machine I buy would be for hobby use in brass, steel and occasionally, aluminium. The largest envelope (if that is the right word) that I can see at the moment is 9"in X 9"in X 3"in and that is an aluminium job that would be difficult on my present manual machines.
I am learning to use Fusion 360 for modelling and have just started to have a look at the CAM features.
I have no background in cnc work having been a Quality Engineer/Quality Manager in the aerospace industry for most of my working life.
Brian

You will have to look for something other than a Denford if you need to cut 9" x 9". The starmill has a capacity of 160 X 90mm and the Triac 290 x 150 so both are too small.

[BDH]

OK, thanks for that. I may have to get the aluminium parts made commercially. I'll work out some typical sizes of other components and see if the Denfords would be suitable for them.
I'm very grateful for the advice from everyone, thank you.
Brian

[depronman]

What you will find unless you have a very large budget and equally large workshop space is that there is always a need for a larger machine because of a certain job
I had this issue for some years and as such never bought a machine
What I realised was that there was loads of jobs that it would have done and the odd one that would not fit on the machine
I ended up with a need ti mill a 19mm hex on some parts that I was making from aluminium billet. I looked to get them milled locally and realised that whilst I could get it done readable cheaply I was always at the back of the queue
So I put my hand in my wallet and bought the Starmill
It’s served me well but I was offered a boxford vmc190 and bought it

Paul

[m_c]

9" Y travel is quite a lot.

Short of an industrial size machine, you're probably looking at some of the Chinese machines, and converting one yourself.
ArcEuroTrade sell the Sieg SX3.5, which has 200mm Y travel.
Emvio sell their EMV-25VBB which has 185mm of Y travel.
There will also be other machines as well, if you search around the many other machine tool sellers.

Downside of those machines for me, is they are both R8 tapers, so the only quick toolchange option is the Tormach style system.
I personally prefer BT tapers.

[ngwagwa]

Depending what you want to cut you may get away with a Denford Router, though it isn't the recommended route it would give you well over 9" x 9" you are looking for. Most of my work is engraving or fine detail aluminium where the biggest cut I need is a 0.2mm deep facing cut with an 8mm tool and the majority is roughing and finishing with 1, 2 and 4mm tools so I bought a Denford (it may be a Pro 2600 but I am not sure) and fitted a chinese 2.2kw water cooled spindle. 28993

[Manny]

hi Just a quick question I am getting a starmill that has mach 3 on it , could you advise what tool probe do you use and how did you set this up with the machince. Mine has the original controller board and can see a spare connection for the tool probe, next to the xyz datums ?

Thanks

[depronman]

I made my own
Basically a 6mm ball bearing silver soldered on to a piece of silver steel about 2” long
The other end is threaded m4
It screws into a piece of brass bar and the brass bar is bonded into a Tufnell sleeve (to electrically insulate it from the machine)
I then machined up a ‘tool holder’ with a slightly tapered bore and three adjusting screws at 120deg spacing
The Tufnell sleeve is a tight fit in the top end (small end) of the tapered bore the opposite end of the tapper is a piss fit in the Tufnell sleeve thus allowing the three adjustment screws to be used to centre up the ball of the probe
On first use a dti is used to clock up the ball using the three screws similar to clocking up a part in a 4 jaw Chuck
Thereafter unless the probe is knocked it runs true after repeated tool changes

In use a crock clip is used to add power to the probe and when it touches the work it completes the circuit and trigger the controller
Obviously only works on metal work
On none conductive work then sticky aluminium tape is used connected to the machine with a crock clip

The accuracy as proven very good I clamped a 30mm bore bearing on the bed and probed the bore adjusting the ball dia in the probe settings until the bore was measured as 30mm dia
The ball is physically 6mm dia, in the software it is recorded as 0.05 different to 6mm

It will repeat the 30mm bore measurement within +/- 0.01 over 20 tries which more than good enough for my use
It will also probe in Z
I have a tool height probe which is insulated from the machine so I need a opposite polarity crock clip for probe to tool height setting block
I use the probe as my reference tool
Then set up all other tools height as a delta to the probe and load these into the tool table using g43 on tool change to load the tool heigh delta
This has proven very effective so far and saves having to touch off the tool every tool change but does need a number of R8 tool holders with the commonly used cutters pre loaded

I must admit the boxford vmc190 that I now have is much easier on Tool changes as it as a manual drawbar and tool holders with pull studs - nice

Cheers. Paul

[Manny]

Hi Thanks for the reply

Where did you connect the sensor to as I can not see a spare connection on the board and or rs connector
29246

[depronman]

My star mill is converted to mach3 so I connected to the BOB

[Manny]

:) which BOB did you use :)

[depronman]

One of the eBay specials from China. The one with the 3 relays on it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Manny]

Thanks

[m_c]

Hi Thanks for the reply

Where did you connect the sensor to as I can not see a spare connection on the board and or rs connector
29246

If the mill has been converted to Mach 3, then those wiring diagrams will most likely not apply.

Also, Denford never had an option for a touch probe, so there will be no dedicated wiring in the original Harting connector for one. You'll either need to see if there are any redundant wires in the plug from the retrofit, add new pins, or run wiring externally for a touch probe.

[depronman]

I ran an external wire