[digits]

You don't have to buy a pre CNC'ed mill, you could buy a mill and convert it - if you can find someone who is doing packages with motors mounts drivers and PSU's, it could be a one-stop-shop, and with hindsight, I don't think it would save you all that much to shop around for each component.

I would be a little wary of a mill that forces you to use a dedicated H/W controller - I wouldn't like to be tied in to using their software. I went with Mach 3 and I don't regret it at all - it is very easy to use and performs well, but I could just as easily switch to a Linux solution as the hardware isn't tied to any particular software.

As for stepper drivers, I made the mistake of buying a shoddy ebay 4-axis driver board for £90ish - it caught fire when one of the motors stalled, but before that it was losing steps due to thermal shutdown - and at half its rated current with additional fans and heatsinks Anyway, I got myself some excellent 4.2A drivers from Motion Control Products for about £35 an axis - I should have got them in the first place when I bought my motors from them! Anyway, they are a breeze to wire up - they have optoisolated inputs, so all you'll need to do is wire them to a parallel port connector and add a PSU.

You don't have to use coolant - but you will forever be brushing off chips and spraying on WD40 as it runs to keep the cuts clean. I lasted about 5-6 weeks before I gave in and built a (hideous) coolant table - my mill is so slow that I don't want to have to stand and watch it for 2 hours with eye and ear protection on! The cuts are much cleaner and quieter too - and as I'm in a 1st floor apartment, that matters to me and my neighbours!

My mill tops out at about 2000 rpm - which isn't really enough for aluminium with small cutters, and it's too weedy for big cutters. I am aiming for about 4k rpm on my next machine, but IMHO, even that's too slow for engraving.

Hope that helps and sorry about all the waffle!

[DrCNC]

Thanks again digits, that really helped a lot, I appreciate it.

OK, so I'll have to get a manual mill and CNC it. This would mean properly attaching the 3 steppers to the three axes. For the controller I'd also want something open (non-proprietary) and compatible with Mach3. I've heard there's also a Linux CNC s/w called EMC that was ported from a US military project. This may also be a good choice. In any case I want to steer clear of proprietary controllers & s/w. My friend has paid more than 300 Euros for what I would call average-quality s/w, only to find out that he now has to pay another 150 Euros to upgrade to a different version!

The difficult part right now for me is to find some shop/company in Greece that can do the modifications on the manual mill. Will try Google but I have the feeling it won't be easy. Fortunately I live in Athens, hopefully I'll be able to find someone who can help. I might even try to use my friend's mill to build some parts myself. If that fails, I'll get a pre-CNC'ed mill.

Will post here once I have something going.
Many thanks to all for the many posts in these forums.

Costas

[digits]

Thanks again digits, that really helped a lot, I appreciate it.

OK, so I'll have to get a manual mill and CNC it. This would mean properly attaching the 3 steppers to the three axes. For the controller I'd also want something open (non-proprietary) and compatible with Mach3. I've heard there's also a Linux CNC s/w called EMC that was ported from a US military project. This may also be a good choice. In any case I want to steer clear of proprietary controllers & s/w. My friend has paid more than 300 Euros for what I would call average-quality s/w, only to find out that he now has to pay another 150 Euros to upgrade to a different version!

The difficult part right now for me is to find some shop/company in Greece that can do the modifications on the manual mill. Will try Google but I have the feeling it won't be easy. Fortunately I live in Athens, hopefully I'll be able to find someone who can help. I might even try to use my friend's mill to build some parts myself. If that fails, I'll get a pre-CNC'ed mill.

Will post here once I have something going.
Many thanks to all for the many posts in these forums.

Costas

For what it's worth, my CNC conversion was from www.cncfusion.com - it was a simple bolt on job - no tools other than an allen key required! I'm pretty sure that if you have a look on the net, you'll find something similar somewhere.

Best of luck :cheers: