Originally Posted by
sansbury
I should change my username to PortlyInBoston, lol....
First congratulations on what you've done. As a business owner I know the work it takes to build up a product business and it is not easy under the best of circumstances, so cheers to your success so far!
I have had an 1100 for very low-volume prototype use the past 6 years and have learned a few things. For me, efficiency is less about volume than it is about flexibility. I make many different parts, so the ability to quickly set up a new part is key. Right now I am using a Shars 550V vise with the Carvesmart and Talon Grip jaw system. The Shars vise is cheap Chinese stuff but the quality is fine and it is very well-sized for the 1100. Unlike other Kurt-style 5" vises it has a very wide opening (almost 7") with the jaws in the inside position. This gives a ton of capacity without moving jaws around which takes time. I love the Orange vise system and the cost was not an issue but size-wise they're just too big for our machines, IMHO.
The Talon Grip jaws are another favorite because you can hold most stock without squaring it up (saves time) and they only need ~.060" to grip so you waste less stock and time milling the back side off. The Carvesmart system lets you swap jaws very quickly and is great if you use a lot of different soft jaws. The 6061 jaw material is reasonably priced. None of this is a must-have like a vise but for me the ~$500 spent here is worth more than it would be on most other areas. I also have a 5" 3-jaw chuck mounted on the table next to the vise which I use for parts made from round which I do many of. I make a lot of round parts on the mill because I don't have a CNC lathe and if I need something rounder than the 1100 can do, I just mill it oversize and finish on the manual lathe. I program round parts to the stock center so that all I need to do is touch off the top of the stock and I can hit "Go."
I also use the passive probe to set up almost every part. It's not as accurate as a Haimer but that has rarely/never been a problem for me when setting up raw stock. I always program my parts so that the top of the bottom left corner is XYZ=0. Then I can toss any piece of stock in the Carvesmart jaws, stick the probe in, run the probing routine, and I'm ready to make chips. Doing things the same way every time reduces opportunities for errors. As I learned to do this I started to crash less and break fewer tools. Same goes for learning how to set up your simulation. If you really want to do it right, learn how to set up the machine model and workholding along with the part so you can simulate the whole setup. I don't use cheap cutting tools and I don't like breaking them because of avoidable mistakes!
Another lesson I've learned is that it's usually worth the time to drill and tap on the mill. Because I'm often making first-article parts I often need to set up new tools, particularly drills and taps (I use and like the T/C holder). To save time I often would just spot out holes on the CNC (I always have a spot drill set up) and then drill and tap them by hand. It works, but after 4-5 holes it doesn't really save time and you can't beat the quality of a CNC-drilled and tapped hole. They look great and are always dead straight.
If you are making any part over and over, it is often more efficient to build fixtures than to use a vise. This is especially true if you have tool changes as you can often design a fixture to hold lots of parts at once, and then you change tools one time per ten parts. A fixture can also help with consistency and packing lots of parts into a small area. If the main costs for your parts are some 6061 stock and time, then a good 5-10 part fixture might allow you to crank these out and reduce cost per part which could create interesting opportunities. Either you could reduce the price and maybe sell a lot more, or just have the time to put towards other things, including going fishing. It would also be a good learning experience in case you ever get a customer who wants 100 pieces of something.
Last thing: as a mechanical designer, the real revolution for me came when I got comfortable with building full assemblies and simulating them in 3D CAD (I use Onshape and Fusion). There is a learning curve but with very good software now effectively free, it's something even a hobbyist can do, and it is very satisfying to design something with five or ten moving parts, mill it all out, and then have everything screw together and work the first time. I spend a lot less time filing, shimming, re-drilling holes, or re-making parts. If you're not familiar yet, that's something I'd start on right away as in my mind it is fundamental to making the most of a CNC tool.