Desktop Milling Machine

[Peter BellParticipant @peterbell11509]

Hello,

I would like to buy a desktop milling machine preferably one which runs Mach3.

This one fits the bill /**LINK** and wondered if anuyone has any experience of it?

Thanks Peter

[Peter BellParticipant @peterbell11509]

[ZebethyalParticipant @zebethyal]

I have no personal experience with that particular item, but from the looks of it, it does not appear to be much more rigid than your average 3D printer, which in turn is not really expected to take any kind of chip load.

All depends on what you are expecting to mill with it – I see the images show various items supposedly machined with one, the question there would be: how long did each one take to produce?

Many of the Chinese CNC machines on 'the bay' are far more rigid and many are less than half of the cost of this item – search for something like '300w CNC'

Another possible alternative might be one of the many Shapeoko clones, again depending on what you are wanting to machine.

If you are expecting to machine steel, then you will need a much heavier more sturdy machine most likely made of cast iron.

If you are wanting to use it as an engraver/router for plastic, wood, or possibly aluminium, then so long as you take it slowly, many people have achieved decent results with both the Chinese items and the Shapeoko clones.

Edited By Timothy Moores on 24/06/2016 15:13:38

Edited By Timothy Moores on 24/06/2016 15:13:53

[Peter BellParticipant @peterbell11509]

Thanks for the reply and suggestions, an awful lot of choice out there, get bewildering quickly!

It looked a lot like that to me as well also doesnt give a lot of details on construction and only has a low power spindle.

I already have a Seig KX3 which is great but as I only want to do brass and plastic engraving also PCB milling its a bit over the top.

Think what I'm looking for is a smallish desk top machine (kit or otherwise) which is reasonabley accurate without breaking the bank!

[ZebethyalParticipant @zebethyal]

The thing I keep reading about PCB milling is that ideally you want the mass for that as well. I keep looking at building a PCB milling machine, but ultimately I think that when I have finished CNC converting my Seig X2 that will this will actually be a better platform than anything I can build from scratch, I will just need to attach a high speed spindle of some sort with low runout.

I know plenty of people have great success with engraving on the Shapeoko and its clones – check out their forum if you haven't already.

I appreciate that the footprint of a Shapeoko is probably larger than your KX3 but it would weigh substantially less. The Chinese engravers are even smaller and lighter and pretty much self contained with a variety of spindle options.

For most of what you are looking at doing, you may need to be looking at router spindle speeds or higher (20K+ rpm), the 6K rpm mentioned on that motor isn't really fast enough.

[Paul WilksParticipant @paulwilks60369]

Hi Peter,

I am wondering how you got on, did you buy the machine in the end?

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