[Viroos]

Hi,
Sorry if I'm asking a stupid question.
I'd like to start my own rapid prototyping/small parts business, and I was realy excited about Pocket NC 5 axis machine, but today I found that TAIG CNC mill and lathe and they just look way more professional.
Is it worth going for 5 axes in Pocket NC, which is, actually, an expensive hobby grade machine with very small working volume, or stay with 4 axes and buy TAIG?

[desktoplathes]

The Taig mill is a much better investment than the Pocket NC in my opinion. There is almost no comparison really... I think Pocket NC is a neat demonstration and would be fun to experiment with, but I can't think of anything I've made money producing that it would make sense to fabricate on it.

[awerby]

The Pocket NC looks like an interesting machine; I've certainly never seen anything like it. It seems to do a good job on very small parts in relatively soft materials from stock that can be held in a collet, which need to be milled from odd angles. So if that's the majority of the work you want to take on, it might be a good choice. While it seems expensive, it's a lot less than most 5-axis mills I've looked at.

But if most of what you want to do involves simpler but somewhat larger parts, the Taig machines would probably suit you better. The Taig mill allows you to hold things down to a T-slotted bed or mount them in a 4th-axis chuck, and can cut harder materials with larger tools. The Taig lathes give you the ability to either use CNC or manual processes to produce radially symmetrical parts in a wide variety of materials. I'm a Taig distributor, so if you want to talk about these machines in more depth, get in touch.

Andrew Werby
computersculpture.com