DIY mill...

[irving2008]

I was thinking about doing somthing with this one:

...

Cost me 40 notes or 50 from Aldi, always find good deals in there !

I have one of those, cost me £20 on sale at B&Q a couple of years back... mine is the Performance Pro version but many places brand the same machine. I think its a bit flimsy for a mill myself, but depends on what you plan to do. The quill may need some serious work as it won't take much radial load on the tiny bearings. They'll need boring out and fitting with something more substantial I think. Mine has acquired lots of axial play after trying to drill 3 x 6mm holes in a chuck backplate :(

Bought my air compressor from Aldi, special offer £100 for the 2.5HP compressor, 30m hose, and about 9 or so air tools - the same stuff (again a branding exercise) is over £200 at MachineMart

[irving2008]

Things have moved on in the last week or so.. I did my back in picking some paper of the floor by my desk :( so no hard work on the machines and a couple of days off work at home.

Got a bit carried away on fleabay (you know how it is! :) ) and now have enough material for a 300mm X axis and a 200mm Y axis (rails, linear bearings, leadscrew) plus 4 steppers, a 500VA transformer and a 22000uF smoothing capacitor. Stepper driver chip samples are on the way as are power transistors and a few other parts...

Haven't quite worked out what I am going to build exactly but something that will mill PCBs and light aluminium work. All the calcs I have done suggest I could take a .15mm cut with a 10mm endmill in 6061-T6 ali with the stuff I have.

This will need a 50W spindle motor at 3000rpm. I'd want this to be as lightweight as possible and looking at motors that could do the job I was dismayed by their weight (typically 2 - 3kg). Then I was reading up about coolant and how mist cooling is the 'next big thing' and I was musing on how I could use my air compressor to provide the pressurisation using a modified airbrush head when an idea dawned.... why not use the air pressure to drive the milling spindle?

So, has anyone done this and if not, why not?

[Robin Hewitt]

Because when Edison was criticised because his proposed DC mains supply would require a power station on every city block, he replied that the problem with AC was that it wouldn't run a motor.

Tesla responded by designing and incredible AC motor which is constant speed and brill for running milling machines.

Air is rather the opposite.

But you already know that, you are a one :D