[n8o]

Which Novakon Mill a good choice for me?
I am trying to figure out so I can compare it to the Tormach I am also looking at.

I am a knife maker - I have been doing it for years, but all the old fashioned way. I am familiar with sandblasting / tumbling for the desired finishes, heat treating, etc. I have never ran a CNC machine so this is all new to me. I am a software programmer by day so I think the learning the software will be the easiest part. The hardware side though - I am not so sure of.

I am looking to make the parts similar to this in the picture. I am not the designer of the parts in the picture but it is the closest thing I have to help explain my desired result. My design is only lives in the computer right now.

The red outline are the perimeter cuts - the 2 handle scales on the left are 0.150 6AI4V titanium the blade is 0.125 S30V steel. The green are drilled and countersunk. The yellow is the blade bevel I think about a 11 degree angle. At this time I can only see me doing 300-400 a year to give you an idea of machine/tooling cycles.



My questions are:

1. What type of machine can do what I want to do here? I don't really know much about the terminology of the CNC world.

2. I want to produce these all in house - What type of machine do I need? A 2 axis, 3 axis, 4 axis? I want to find what is the best to duplicate the pictured with the least variance.

3. What type of tooling is needed?

Any help/suggestions is much appreciated. Of course I am not interested in over-buying or purchasing anything I do not need to produce what I want. I thank you all in advance for your input - I have searched and not found the answer myself or similar questions.

[jalessi]

N8o,

What is your budget?

Jeff...

[n8o]

Well that is a tough one -
I am just a regular guy, not a company or anything. Just a guy in his garage.
I would like to spend under $10K the lesser the amount the better as long as it will do the job. Any money I would save could go toward materials and tooling.

I suppose my real question should have been will the NM-135 do what I want to do?
http://www.novakon.net/3.html a little more than 1/2 way down.

I want to get out as cheap as possible without overbuying but at the same time I don't want to buy stuff that will not handle what I want to do.

Sorry I don't have an exact figure like I would if I was working for a company and they sent me out to get a small CNC.

[jalessi]

Sent you a P.M.

[zaebis]

If all you need is to cut the shape out of the flatbar, use your local EDM guy to do it with water or laser. Cheaper and faster especially titanium or hi carbon steel.

but if you want to try and cut something like that on CNC mill (I did many times), NM135 will do just fine as long as your blade (the part being cut out) is no longer than 12". There are many 1/4" endmills available to cut exotic metals (titanium etc) and NM 135 will be quite up to the job. Titanium cuts will be of mirror finish after the mill. You must use coolant.

[ihavenofish]

If all you need is to cut the shape out of the flatbar, use your local EDM guy to do it with water or laser. Cheaper and faster especially titanium or hi carbon steel.

but if you want to try and cut something like that on CNC mill (I did many times), NM135 will do just fine as long as your blade (the part being cut out) is no longer than 12". There are many 1/4" endmills available to cut exotic metals (titanium etc) and NM 135 will be quite up to the job. Titanium cuts will be of mirror finish after the mill. You must use coolant.

likewise, it will cut stainless, O-1 and even some hardened steels if you get the right tool and right feeds and speeds. the 6000 rpm spindle is actually a benifit in these materials with smaller tools and finishing with ball ends.

so i think the nm135 should be fine for this task.

[ihavenofish]

[ihavenofish]

Consider Smithy, Tormach, Techno-Isel NOT Novakon...

Techno-Isel gets you a tech with one phone call and stock parts.
Smithy has been in business for decades.
I've heard good things about Tormach.

I'm dead in the water with my crap novakon. http://www.novakoncnc.com tells all.

dude, the admin already removed your post once....

[williams480]

Consider Smithy, Tormach, Techno-Isel NOT Novakon...

Techno-Isel gets you a tech with one phone call and stock parts.
Smithy has been in business for decades.
I've heard good things about Tormach.

I'm dead in the water with my crap novakon. http://www.novakoncnc.com tells all.

idesign, life's too short to keep dwelling on this.
I have issues too, but I'm not going to keep harping on it.

N8o, the 135 will do just fine for the parts you have shown us.

[g29cc]

My NM200 has been excellent.

Customer service has been excellent. When I email I usually get a response back from Khai in less then an hour ! Talk about great customer service !

Rodney , the tech support, usually doesn't email back, but you can reach him by phone , and I ve gotten him just about everytime I have called. I can't think off hand when I have called and wasn't able to get him on the phone.

The machine has been good. The software needed some configuration, but thats no fault of Novakon.

I am very happy with my mill so far.

[ihavenofish]

Williams480, that is a bit irresponsible. I don't like have to be the person who delivers the bad news. But not everything is sunshine and lolly pops. And I like to read the bad reviews on Amazon and eBay along with the good. It lets me know what I am really buying.

Greg and I both bought Novakon mills and we both have problems. My mills problem makes the mill unable to be used. The spindle will not spin. Greg said his mill's problem's cost him additional time and effort. Why hide that information from people who plan to spend their hard earned money on a product?

N80, should know ALL the facts BEFORE he/she buys the product.

this thread is nearly a year old. noones disregarding your experience, but instead of spamming unrelated threads, you should make your own. you wont have much left to say after the admins ban you here - they are already removign some of your posts.

greg is posting his experiences when asked, and doing do in a logical coherent manner, and in a way people can help him resolve them - including novakon. you could learn much from him.

i still havent a clear idea whats actually wrong with your machine, or what machine you actually have. all you do is promote your rant website mostly in threads that have nothing to do with it.

[ihavenofish]

Do you really think it is a good idea to hide the bad product reviews?

then make a thread with a review and stop spamming. this forum has rules, and you are breaking them. it wasnt me that removed the post...

And uhavenofish... instead of worrying about shutting me up and hiding my novakon bad reviews... WHY DON'T YOU TELL US WHAT YOU LOVE ABOUT their products. But be honest. Tell everything. Then maybe Novakon will send you the bad cable you were waiting for. (That was you right?)

im not waiting for a bad cable, sorry, youre confused. ive told most of my stories - good and bad - about my machines here on the forum. you could look them up pretty easily if you took a minute away from your mindless spamming.

[ihavenofish]

I have an NM-135.

The spindle will not run.

The voltage at the drive board is .06 volts. Rodney said it should be 7 or more volts. (The voltage is more than 100 times too small.)

This is the second controller novakon sent me. The machine has not been able to make a single cut.

Is that better?

sure, better, but still in the wrong place (make your own thread so people can actually address it)

the control is supposed to send out a signal of 0-10 volts to the machine which translates that into the appropriate drive frequency. when you say .06 volts, where and when are you measuring?

mach3 is supposed to send the control either step and direction, or pwm to tell the controller what voltage to make.

so you have 3 points of failure here. the computer, the break out board in the control box, and the driver board in the machine housing.

[williams480]

Williams480, that is a bit irresponsible. I don't like have to be the person who delivers the bad news. But not everything is sunshine and lolly pops. And I like to read the bad reviews on Amazon and eBay along with the good. It lets me know what I am really buying.

Greg and I both bought Novakon mills and we both have problems. My mills problem makes the mill unable to be used. The spindle will not spin. Greg said his mill's problem's cost him additional time and effort. Why hide that information from people who plan to spend their hard earned money on a product?

N80, should know ALL the facts BEFORE he/she buys the product.

Very nice, good to see were all grown up's here...
Good luck with your "quest".