Shoptask Bridge Mill Eldorado

Hello, I've come across a used bridge mill model for sale; the guy is asking $2,400.

The machine comes with very little tooling or fixtures...but with a Camtronics box, Mach3, 3 steppers and mounts, and an X-Y-Z DRO. The mill appears to be used a little, but with no dings mars or scratches. The guy admits he never trued or tuned the anything. He could make the steppers spin so the Camtronics, controllers, power supply, steppers, and software "appear" to work...they "only" need to be installed.

My question is does this sound like a value or a nightmare???

I know all the cons of a combo machine...but, I don't have the space and I'm looking for a decent starter machine I can learn on.

Also looked at Shop Fox M1018 (small combo) basic machine with lots of indexable cutters, quick change, lots of various milling tools, drilling and reaming set...but no DRO and it is the size you have to take the lathe chuck off to mill darn near anything. The widow wants $600.

Or, a Grizzly Mini for $400 with .50 inch per turn lead screws and the basics it came with...along with a 7x12 lathe for $375 with a 3 jaw, 4 jaw, QC, and some cutting tooling.

Anything a decent way to start??? I lean toward the Shoptask...how about you guys???

Wow...15 views and no opinions :-(

If your getting it for the lathe factor the most. Then it's good. The mill has some chatter. But all 3 in 1's do. But in all. There great machines if your limited on space. When i got mine i was extremely limited on space. I've looked at them all and the easy install cnc sold me on the Eldorado. R8 mill was a big deal to. I've had mine since 2001 and It's been used alot. More then any on with a little hobby would. The machine has paid for it's self 100 times over. So for the price your getting it at. Its not bad.

After 7 years of owning my i finally Put some money in to mine and made it a machine to be reckoned with. Check out my thread a few down.

Look at it this way- The DRO is worth about 800.00 on its own. The Camtronics CNC is probably worth 1500-1800.00 depending on age, so those 2 items are worth the 2400.00 even if you wanted to put them on some other machine. As far as 3 in 1 machines go, the Bridgemill is better than any of the others except the new Patriot. If this machine is close by and you can pick it up without paying freight, I would say jump on the deal.

Thanks guys, that is the insight I'm looking for :cheers:

I got mine for $3k last fall. A Bridgemill with stepper CNC, Camtronics 3 axis, a rotoary table with stepper (I still need to pick up another G201), some insert tooling, a phase II quick change tool holder (200 size that I still need to mount), computer, and some other stuff. I had to go about 100 miles to pick it up and had to get it out of the guys basement myself. All in all, I think I got a good deal, so it sounds like you are getting close to the same in terms of value. My machine was one of the last Bridgemills delivered, serial 66 in 2006. Just before Shoptask went to the Tripower.

I just wish I had more time to work on mine, I took a job 120 miles from home, so I'm only there on weekends, and then my wife has a long honey-do list when I get home!

David

I'm not sure Shoptask is even in business anymore. I've had my mill for a number of years now, and it's really a good thing I ran into a guy by the name of Chuck Mcghee before he gave up his tiny machine shop and moved back east. He is/was an SME on Shop Task machines, and knows exactly what they need to be more than useful. Chuck could do wonders with these small machines in his shop..

I bought my machine Equipped with XYZ CNC from Shop Task. The quality of the work to add the Steppers and Ball screws was about what I'd expect from a seventh grade girl with no training. The Z axis would have been useful for milling styrofoam, or soft wood with a plus or minus quarter inch tolerance..

The Camtronics unit arrived looking first class, and has never given me a bit of trouble. I hired Chuck McGhee to completely redo the Z axis, and his setup has two ball screws, one on each side of the spindle. The DRO unit was installed so poorly, it's totally useless,, likely by the same drunken seventh grade girl.

I had some trouble with the motors at first, and called the owner at shoptask, it was obvious he wasn't much interested in being helpful. Never ever reverse a motor till it's at a dead stop!

There wasn't one screw, nut, or bolt on my machine that was even finger tight . check every thing.

Today.. the machine is useful as a small CNC hobby machine. I didn't have a lot of room, I still don't.

Chuck's input was: These are good machines once you sort them out.

I'd say.. buy the basic machine and get the rest done by people who are proud of their work and have a right to be.. Camtronics.. and McGhee for two.

I was compelled to write this after seeing some one question what another person wrote after paying a lot of money.. and being unhappy.. had I not found chuck.. I could have gone to jail.. I was pretty darned upset..

One suprise I found on mine was a sprocket didn't even match the cogged belt off the stepper on the X axis.. lots of people stay quiet after having bought troubles.. it's taken me years to write this. I do it so you know that other guy isn't alone...

Thanks Chuck, you pulled my bacon out of the fire..

Gbrecke

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Originally Posted by WildBillAZ

Hello, I've come across a used bridge mill model for sale; the guy is asking $2,400.

The machine comes with very little tooling or fixtures...but with a Camtronics box, Mach3, 3 steppers and mounts, and an X-Y-Z DRO. The mill appears to be used a little, but with no dings mars or scratches. The guy admits he never trued or tuned the anything. He could make the steppers spin so the Camtronics, controllers, power supply, steppers, and software "appear" to work...they "only" need to be installed.

My question is does this sound like a value or a nightmare???

I know all the cons of a combo machine...but, I don't have the space and I'm looking for a decent starter machine I can learn on.

Also looked at Shop Fox M1018 (small combo) basic machine with lots of indexable cutters, quick change, lots of various milling tools, drilling and reaming set...but no DRO and it is the size you have to take the lathe chuck off to mill darn near anything. The widow wants $600.

Or, a Grizzly Mini for $400 with .50 inch per turn lead screws and the basics it came with...along with a 7x12 lathe for $375 with a 3 jaw, 4 jaw, QC, and some cutting tooling.

Anything a decent way to start??? I lean toward the Shoptask...how about you guys???

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Hope it all worked out for you- I have dealt with JT a lot over the years and always got decent service on parts and warranty. I see they just sold a bridgemill with CNC on E-Bay for 4 K- so I think your deal would be a real bargain if you got it. To the other guy about Chuck Mghee- I met him when they were up in Washington, a real unique person with a lot of talent. His actual role was as a builder for JT at Shoptask- all the stuff he did on his own machines was as a test bed for JT- they worked very close for quite a while on a lot of ideas until Chuck retired and moved back east. I'm not sure if he is still active, but the work he did on your machine and others were basically designs that came from shoptask.

Smallblock, Chuck is unique all right, no doubt you've met him. That ole story about a book and it's cover comes to mind. Bottom line, Chuck was worth twice what he charged. But the fact is...the original Z axis was worthless and would have been up somone's back side had they been closer. Finding DRO mounted off single screws in holes larger than the screws and set in holes tapped too shallow! The Y axis DRO fell off and wadded up before I discovered how poorly it was installed. I'm 64, I've had an email account for 37 years, and this is the only piece of equipment I've complained about on line and this is the only place I've complained about it.

Again, what compelled me to write was another person on this forum was none too happy with his experience. He's not alone.. the end...

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Originally Posted by gbrecke

I'm 64, I've had an email account for 37 years, and this is the only piece of equipment I've complained about on line and this is the only place I've complained about it.

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You had E-mail in 1975 !! ??

I guess I should have qualified that.....and maybe eat crow too.. I might better have said a userid for 37 years.. I'm not sure we called messages email.... . If you had a job in telecommunications, did certain work at Boeing, or maybe doing something at the University of Washington.. you might have had access to a system where messages could be sent.. before some of your friends knew what email was or before the term was used..

Access from home came a few years later, hobbyists suffered high prices for things like memory.. First static memory I bought was about $105.00 per 1Kx8bit chip. Look up the 2102 memory chip, that’s the first one I remember using in the hobby world. Some of us used basic to write a first crude communications program and were in a position to borrow direct connect modem from work (expensive at the time) to test it and play. I/0, you needed find an asr33, there was little else..

By 1977, there were a few of us running various junk at home, wire wrapped together, and various kit computers, the Heathkit H8 for one. One of the problems of the day were the rigid rules of the phone company, and if you are old enough, you remember the acoustic modems, and might have recalled someone banging a model 500 telephone handset on the desk, to get a full 110 baud connection.
Seattle Computer Society members built a direct connect modem somewhere around 78 or 79, one of the members supplied us with a nice circuit board, and bags of parts were part of the club co-op effort, I think Gates was an early member of this club.. There were a few bulletin boards in the early days, and these functioned as meeting places, and places to establish email boxes.
The high cost of long distance calls were by passed by establishing bridges that connected more distant class 5 offices to the metro areas. BBS owners were often techs of some sort, and aware of university, corporate or other resources that were sometimes exploited in early morning hours to deliver mail from one BBS to another. These efforts might have been the beginning of so called hacking and phone freaking.. an effort to unite communities of people with common interests, like CNC.
One interesting BBS site was called Eskimo North, it was in North Seattle, and a lot of University students subscribed there because A guy by the name of Bob Dinse offered access to an early version of Unix….access got you a Unix shell with some very useful tools. I mention this because Eskimo North lives today.. rather amazing.. Some who frequent here likely remember paper tape programs, and Hobbyist flocking to the Kansas City standard to read write cassette tapes. These efforts were going on when carbon paper was still selling well.. here's a good page to let you know how long ago it really started. Personal Computer Milestones

Time to chime in. Yes the machine needs work to the accuracy down and running smooth. the quality is ok, one thing some people fail to realize, these machines were/are designed for the HOBBYIST who is trying to get in to small projects. My company bought an eldorado in 2006. I started to work with it, then I started to modify the machine, ball screws, dro's 400inoz steppers, trued the table, table rock will always be a problem in these machines, just because of the way the table is driven by a single screw on one side, you can get a large portion out, but its going to take time and a little amount of money. I use our machine for alot of prototype work. after my modifications, I can keep .002 on my "X", this is repeatable. on my "Y" I have .0015. on my "Z" .001. for a hobbyist machine I feel this is more them acceptable.
As for working with JT at shopmaster, I've never had a problem. he has always answered my E-Mails within 48hours, and some times with in 4 hours. if your looking to get started, I think these are good machines. your never going to get accuracy like a HAAS machine.
Brian

Give them credit for trying- the new machines have the lead screw in the center of the bed and its a lot bigger diameter- almost 1". From what I hear this has virtually eliminated any table rock issues. Plus the new ones have 2 HP VFD motors for a lot more power. On the downside, all these changes have caused delays in production at the factory and long waits to get one. JT says that once the factory is up to speed, he will be offering the new bed casting as an upgrade on older machines.

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