Robust Midsize Cnc Mill

[Jaden]

Hi all just need an idea which brand to go with for home shop mill CNC. I have about 32 square feet set aside for the mill and eight foot ceiling. Looking for the largest CNC mid range lathe, not a toy but not those huge industrial ones either. Something between the 1000 to 5000 lb range up to 3 HP range that will stand up and forgive my ignorance. Also something that will cut helical gears for me. So many brands so far and maybe some no one has mentioned.
Sherline
Shop Bot
Haas
Techno-isel
Robo Drill

Price range up to 10k, any other ideas please let me know, leery about auctions because I don't know enough what to check for.

 

[jumps4]

Sherline's are light machines for hobby use, mostly soft metals and plastics
Shop bot and Techno-isel make routers as far as I know and they are not well suited to metal work
Haas and Robodrill (Fanuc) are not in the price range you gave except at auction possibly worn out.
We need to know what you wish to make and what materials you want to work with,
if it production, one off parts or just hobby use
10K with the lathe you described don't leave much left for the mill if it is to be in that range.
if it's $10k each, my zx45 cost $4200+ to build myself and I think any Tormach mill is over $10k
There are a lot of smart people here but we need to know what you wish to make, your goal
Steve

 

[countryguy]

Three are often deals to be had locally and that's what I think you're going to find. Personally, Jumps4 is right. I guess we need to know a bit more, but I'll tell you that for a 2-4K you can get a Vertical Mill typically. Supermax, Heco, So many names... And the parts are typically available, even if used. Since you want get into CNC - Then I can suggest what I did which was find an older CNC mill and put in a retrofit kit. For about 5 to 6K you can be into a state of the art Stepper/Mach3 or a Servo setup and that included the Mill. It's a lot of work, but I know my Mill inside & out!

 

[Galane]

Dyna Mechtronics Dyna Myte, Light Machines Corporation proLIGHT and Benchmaster, Denford Triac and Starmill, Emco F1 CNC or PC. Those are some older ones you may want to look at.

Size and tooling types vary, they're all benchtop mills, though Dyna and Emco built and builds larger models. The Emco F1 is unusual for its size where it uses #30 size taper tooling, same as many Bridgeport clones. The Triac looks like it uses #30, maybe #40 tooling. The belt drive proLIGHT models use R8 while their 42,000 RPM direct drive PLM2500 uses something else.

The common thing to all these is they're all out of production and the companies either quit making smaller machines or their small machines are now Sherline based. Dyna is still in business, so is Denford. Emco has changed owners several times. Light Machines was bought by Intelitek.

Denford's old CNC machines were built on Asian Emco clone castings. Emco of course made their own, so did Dyna Mechtronics (AFAIK) and Light Machines Corporation. Light Machines mills used round linear bearing rails on all axes, the others used dovetail ways.

I don't know specs on the other brands, but a proLIGHT 1000 weighs 365 pounds, has a 19.5 x 6.25" table with three T slots and is rated for up to 100 pound workpiece. The other Light Machines mills all have the same size specs, only electronics and motors are different. Strange definition of "light" they had, unless comparing to a Bridgeport...

 

[Karl_T]

Its the old time or money thing... I rebuilt smaller industrial machines with a new control. Saved money, spent too much time.

My guess, I think you don't want the less expensive Asian machines. Its an OLD argument, you save lots here, but there are trade offs.

A friend of mine bought a new Prototrak from Bridgeport. WHAT A WONDERFUL MACHINE! Does both manual and CNC on the same mill. They make a lathe too (Romi). When i win the lottery I'll get these. http://www.southwesternindustries.com/index.php