Smithy 1240 cnc questions
I am looking at buying a smithy 1240 cnc mill and have a couple questions. It will most likely be the full package with their controller as money is not a big issue.
-Will it work alright with Mastercam ? Mastercam does have Fanuc posts but I am not sure if they are right for this controller. (It is the software I am familiar with). What type of Cad are others using with success?
- Do people have alot of problems with stepper motors as opposed to servos? I plan on making a fair amount of parts off of jigs.
_ Is there alot involved in getting one up and running after shipment? I am fairly knowledgeble in mechanics and have done machining for 20+ years.
- Has anyone gotten one of their new 1240's with the belt drive and had the option of getting servos instead of steppers? I believe they had an older model with servos once.
Thanks in advance for any response to this.
More experience and pictures
I like the spindle drive design on the 120. Its a 3 ph. motor directly driving the spindle using a toothed belt. The spindle itself easily drops out of the head by removing 3 screws. I took it out once and it appears substantial enough for the job and would be fairly simple to rebuild or ship back to Smithy to have them rebuild. The upper end of the spindle shaft is a spline and on my machine the clearance between this spline and the drive pulley it engages is greater than I would like. I can grab the milling cutter and rotate it back and forth and feel the spline moving in the pulley. I was having problems with chatter when using a 1.25" cutter (on aluminum) and I had to reduce feed and DOC to compensate. I have since stopped using the R8-ER40 collet adapter I was using for heavy cutting because the collet adapter extended the cutting tool almost 3" beyond the end of the spindle. I think that additional distance was causing a lot of flex at the cutter end. I now use 1-1/2", and 2" cutters with R8 shafts and the operation is much more rigid. I liked the ER40 collet because bit changes were quicker but for the heavy cutting it didn't pan out. All in all I am still happy with the machine. I have attached a few pictures (If I can get them loaded) to show some of what I have been doing. The black material is 3/4" thick UHMW and the others are of some Aluminum assembly jigs I made.
PS. Upload is not working right now. Will persist.