[CNC] Wanting To Pick Up My First Cnc Mill

There is a lot of help here when you decide what direction to go.
 
Alot of the unknown for me is brands to stay away from. Chinese machines for sure. Like the one you sent in the link, I've never heard of it. Then again I'm been sticking to the ones I know about that I listed above.
 
The machine in the link above was probably made by Topwell in Taiwan, they make high quality machines. If you order about 5 of those, they'll put your name on them. There are a couple of other manufactures in Taiwan that also that make similar machines. Exacto, SuperMax, and some of the Enco mills are very high quality. I don't know where Matt at Quality Machine Tool has his built. I think his lower end machines are mainland China, but his high end machines are made in Taiwan.

Just as a note, the box way machines are more stable than the V-way machines.
 
Bridgeport had dovetail design I though?..well maybe it looked like a dovetail so the gib could slide in which would of been more of a box way.
 
The Series 1 BPs are V ways (dovetail).

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The Series II have box ways

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Thank you Jim, Picture are worth a 1000's words for sure. Fadal are box ways to I believe.

I'll have to dig up some info on the Royal. It fits the budget and that control seems easy enough to fix. I remember looking over a thread where one guy was having trouble and got it up and running with the help of a few members.
 
There is a new source I recently saw- element-cnc.com One of these is being tested in the shop of the Mach software guys. It is an unbelievable machine- about 10 times faster than a Tormach, beautifully built, roller slide ways, very high speed spindle. I watched it cutting with a 1/4" carbine end mill 1/2" dept of cut at about 1000 in per minute. There are no typos in those number! Watch the video.
 
RonGinger said:
There is a new source I recently saw- element-cnc.com One of these is being tested in the shop of the Mach software guys. It is an unbelievable machine- about 10 times faster than a Tormach, beautifully built, roller slide ways, very high speed spindle. I watched it cutting with a 1/4" carbine end mill 1/2" dept of cut at about 1000 in per minute. There are no typos in those number! Watch the video.
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RonGinger, thanks for that URL; I had not known they were in existence. I did not review all the specifications, but the pricing is in Haas territory. Will be interesting to see how they compare.
 
Who those are nice machines but as Al-Hala said, hass $ territory. Friend of mine got a Haas TM-2P for 30k. Yes it's used but bigger work envelope.
 
RonGinger said:
There is a new source I recently saw- element-cnc.com One of these is being tested in the shop of the Mach software guys. It is an unbelievable machine- about 10 times faster than a Tormach, beautifully built, roller slide ways, very high speed spindle.
Click to expand...
Element is a rebadging of the Syil product line (as far as I can tell).

Element cyclone = Syil X5 Pro or Combo (with speedster spindle)
Element Torrent = Syil x7
Element Torrent-R = Syil v7

http://www.element-cnc.com/cyclone
http://www.syil.com.cn/en/productsinfo.aspx?pid=41

Syil has had problems breaking into the North American market over the past decade. Most of this is that the past importers sold their bottom-end machines and didn't have the technical knowledge to provide tech support to help customers get their machines working, and occasional poorly translated english responses on the cnc-zone Syil forum didn't provide enough help. Looks like the Element team won't have that problems, as they have plenty of work experience in the industry vs. just being hobbyists, and they are focusing on professional level instead of hobbyist machines.

Charter Oak Automation (used to be Industrial Hobbies) also has recently started marketing some of the Syil line (the lower end of their product line).
 
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