[wizard]

Interesting thread!

I suspect that I will have to agree with others that a CNC router might not be the right choice. I’d seriously consider going the CNC mill route.

Why? Well there area number of reasons.

#1 is that the work pieces are small and would benefit from a stiff machine.

Second; while you might get by with expendable punches for one off specials you will want to fabricate steel punches for logos and other frequently used punches. Steel or even brass will not machine well on a low end Chinese router even with the use of engraving tools. You could build a stiffer router and pay attention to the spindle but the cost will quickly match the cost of doing a conversion mill. You could also buy a complete mini CNC mill from China relatively cheap.

Third; most of the low end or small routers from China need work. Often this means electronics replacement, software updates and possibly mechanical rework. Buying by cheap from China often ends up being very expensive. Yes u need to shop real carefully here.

This is a DIY thread so most of the machines discussed here are DIY machines (often one offs) that don’t reflect what one experiences with a Chinese machine. DIY builds can be absolute shoe string efforts or very high quality professional machines. There is also a section on milling machines in this forum, most of which are DIY conversions. What I question is your desire for a turnkey system of r if you want to put DIY efforts into a machine? If you want turnkey consider looking into the threads for specific machines.

One last thing to consider is your expectations! You may very well have people tell you that XYZ machine from China can do the job, that reflects their expectations not yours. If you are not familiar with machining it can be hard to understand what you need to meet your goals. There is no easy answer here, however if there are machining related tech classes around, hands on can really help.

[philba]

Interesting thread!

I suspect that I will have to agree with others that a CNC router might not be the right choice. I’d seriously consider going the CNC mill route.

Why? Well there area number of reasons.

#1 is that the work pieces are small and would benefit from a stiff machine.

Second; while you might get by with expendable punches for one off specials you will want to fabricate steel punches for logos and other frequently used punches. Steel or even brass will not machine well on a low end Chinese router even with the use of engraving tools. You could build a stiffer router and pay attention to the spindle but the cost will quickly match the cost of doing a conversion mill. You could also buy a complete mini CNC mill from China relatively cheap.

Third; most of the low end or small routers from China need work. Often this means electronics replacement, software updates and possibly mechanical rework. Buying by cheap from China often ends up being very expensive. Yes u need to shop real carefully here.

This is a DIY thread so most of the machines discussed here are DIY machines (often one offs) that don’t reflect what one experiences with a Chinese machine. DIY builds can be absolute shoe string efforts or very high quality professional machines. There is also a section on milling machines in this forum, most of which are DIY conversions. What I question is your desire for a turnkey system of r if you want to put DIY efforts into a machine? If you want turnkey consider looking into the threads for specific machines.

One last thing to consider is your expectations! You may very well have people tell you that XYZ machine from China can do the job, that reflects their expectations not yours. If you are not familiar with machining it can be hard to understand what you need to meet your goals. There is no easy answer here, however if there are machining related tech classes around, hands on can really help.

I'm pretty torn on this topic. One side says pretty much what you said. Lots of people buy these cheap chinese machines only to discover a fair amount of work to get them going and even then they have some pretty severe limitations. Had the question been asked before buying, I probably would have advised against.

The other side is that a true mill is going to be overkill and probably way more money than the OP wants to spend. And machining metal is probably way more of a learning exercise than he is prepared to do. Since he already bought it there is no harm in pushing forward. And the difference in cost between his cheapo chinese machine and a true metal mill will probably more than pay for a small number of metal punches which he has already had made. I think he will be able to make it work for his intended use.