What is the Total Cost of Conversion (Excluding the Mill)

[Monty_UK]

Fully understand and in that case, I would look for a used Denford, etc like I mention at the bottom of my previous post rather than look to Chinese mills which are like a box of chocolates with no lid.?
Edit: Also just because someone else found a decent Chinese mill does it follow all the others will be the same, even from the same manufacturer because I know if you search hard enough you'll just as many unhappy buyers as you will happy, if not more.!

Now regarding the small-scale parts what material will you be mostly cutting.? If it's aluminum your next battle will be spindle speeds as most mills don't come with fast enough spindles to suit cutting soft materials. This will be something you will need to factor into the cost/difficulty equation when converting.?

Hey Jazz

Aluminium, engineering plastics and some mild steel - I imagine the most common will the aluminium though. I had considered changing the main drive after the CNC to get higher speed and more constant torque

Thanks

[dazp1976]

Hey Jazz

Aluminium, engineering plastics and some mild steel - I imagine the most common will the aluminium though. I had considered changing the main drive after the CNC to get higher speed and more constant torque

Thanks

There may be a Warco WM18 on ebay ending soon (same sizes as WM32 I believe). Not sure on condition but states low use.
It's downfalls are MT3 taper and gear driven.
Looks in need of a right good clean but also means it might go cheap!.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/125101856...YAAOSwbKNh4tn2
https://www.warco.co.uk/milling-mach...g-machine.html

MT3 no problem unless thinking tool changers or quick change as it's not that easy to release tools via drawbar unlike R8.
Gear driven may be easy enough to belt convert later.
Plenty info about that when searching G0704 belt conversion (25 size machine). Similar process, smaller size.

[JAZZCNC]

Hey Jazz

Aluminium, engineering plastics and some mild steel - I imagine the most common will the aluminium though. I had considered changing the main drive after the CNC to get higher speed and more constant torque

Thanks

Well in that case I would look long and hard before buying a Mini mill because very few will have the RPM you need for cutting aluminium and soft materials correctly and converting the spindle is not a simple or cheap thing to do.

If you want a challenge you may be better off DIY building a strong Fixed gantry Router/Mill that will do everything you need and then some with the correct spindle fitted. It will certainly be more versatile and useful than a converted Minimill and won't cost much more. Here's one I built a few years ago (yellow one) with a 500 x 500 cut area and also one we built recently that is fully covered designed exclusively for cutting Aluminium moulds with a cut area of 600 x 400 which is more or equal to many industrial CNC machines but fits in a 1mtr/2 space.!

[Monty_UK]

Well in that case I would look long and hard before buying a Mini mill because very few will have the RPM you need for cutting aluminium and soft materials correctly and converting the spindle is not a simple or cheap thing to do.

If you want a challenge you may be better off DIY building a strong Fixed gantry Router/Mill that will do everything you need and then some with the correct spindle fitted. It will certainly be more versatile and useful than a converted Minimill and won't cost much more.

Its amusing that this is where i started - then the thought process led me down the path of buying a machine and converting it :)

[JAZZCNC]

Its amusing that this is where i started - then the thought process led me down the path of buying a machine and converting it :)

I missed this post.!

Yes, it's funny how things are initially conceived but then go off at tangents, I see this all the time with customers, esp new users, who buy machines with a plan to use them for ideas they have but within a few months or certainly within a year when they realize just what a CNC machine allows and it takes them down paths they never even thought about or knew existed.

Converting works provided you buy the right machine to start with, but I've yet to see a good Mill come out of China.

The problem with converting a manual Mill is they were never designed for CNC in the first place so often you struggle to fit ball-screws and motors mounts etc without the castings or beds needing material removing and it's here when the shit hits the fan.?

The cast iron and steel are of very low quality and the casting doesn't undergo any stress-relieving so when you start removing material they have a tendency to shape-shift and twist etc.
Even buying machines from UK based companies like Warco or Chester tools, Axminster, etc doesn't help this because they are just made in China with the same low-quality iron, this is why I recommended looking at used machines like Denfords or Boxfords because the castings are made in the UK with good quality ductile cast iron and stress relieved.

[dazp1976]

I missed this post.!
The problem with converting a manual Mill is they were never designed for CNC in the first place so often you struggle to fit ball-screws and motors mounts etc without the castings or beds needing material removing and it's here when the shit hits the fan.?
.

You basically need a mill to convert a mill.
I had to make casting adjustments and tidy up a lot of rough areas.
(About the only thing my Sieg X2 conversion has been useful for!. Twists and stalls like crazy)

At least the castings on the Amadeal 25 weren't totally like cheese. Got lucky I reckon.

[JAZZCNC]

At least the castings on the Amadeal 25 weren't totally like cheese. Got lucky I reckon.

That's the "Box of chocolates with no lid" problem I mentioned in an earlier post, you never know what you are going to get or what will happen when you start taking it apart or modifying castings, etc.

Then if you are lucky enough that it doesn't let go when converting there is no saying it won't shapeshift when being used because it was never designed to handle the forces CNC is imparting on the chassis.?
Why anyone would want to invest the best part of £5k and 100+ hours of time into a machine that could shapeshift at random is beyond my understanding.! It's like playing Russian roulette with a full revolver.

[Monty_UK]

I was recently trawling Youtube and came across a channel called Ades Workshop - this guy bought a Warco 16B machine which looks reasonable both in terms of cost and quality

His output looks ok from a hobbyist persepective - so my idea now taking on many of the above comments is to buy a machine akin to the 16B, fit a DRO and then use that to make a purpose but smaller CNC milling machine similar but Jazzcnc but smaller

[Monty_UK]

Well in that case I would look long and hard before buying a Mini mill because very few will have the RPM you need for cutting aluminium and soft materials correctly and converting the spindle is not a simple or cheap thing to do.

If you want a challenge you may be better off DIY building a strong Fixed gantry Router/Mill that will do everything you need and then some with the correct spindle fitted. It will certainly be more versatile and useful than a converted Minimill and won't cost much more. Here's one I built a few years ago (yellow one) with a 500 x 500 cut area and also one we built recently that is fully covered designed exclusively for cutting Aluminium moulds with a cut area of 600 x 400 which is more or equal to many industrial CNC machines but fits in a 1mtr/2 space.!

The blue one looks very impressive - do you know the build cost of that ?

[JAZZCNC]

The blue one looks very impressive - do you know the build cost of that ?

Yes, I do but that's not information I'm going to share on the forum unfortunately as these machines we build to sell, plus we buy components in bulk so wouldn't be relative to the average DIY builder.
However, for the machine in the picture you won't get any change from £10k given it's got a custom-built 40K spindle with ceramic bearings. But what I will say is that from the point of view of a machine builder the bulk of the cost isn't components but rather the time that goes into machining and building the machine. There are a lot of hours and work that goes into a machine like this which as a DIY builder doesn't come into play.