[Portlyinohio]

I've had the new mill up and running for about two months now .
I now wonder why I didn't just take out a loan and do this two years ago .
Man o man my life is so much easier now , admittedly I've been spending 25-30 hours a week solely to learning my new mill along with my regular work load .
So I have been working more the normal .
But last week I started making actual parts for sale with the 770
In 10 days I've made enough stuff to be totally caught up .
I no longer have a backlog of stuff to make , And once this covid crap isn't putting a wrench in the works I'll be able to do 3-4 times the work I was doing before while only working half the hours .... Hello 25 hour work weeks

It hasn't been all a big heaping bowl of goodness though thanks to all the good advice here I do believe a spent my money in all the right places .

I am extremely happy with the 770 , except for a few minor wiring issues that was easily fixxed with tech support it's been working perfectly .

I some times want to take the path pilot controller into the bedroom and do weird things to it in the dark .
But it's created a few bad habits for me , I've been almost totally reliant on it instead of using and learning cad/cam
Maybe good for the short term , but I think I'd be better served with knowing the cad/cam in the long run .

I think I've ruined or broken about $1000 worth of cutting tools
I probably should be ashamed to admit to it publicly. But it's the truth .
And it was money well spent , I learned a lot .

And I have learned that I want a tool changer ... notice I say want and not need .
Maybe next year if anyone is still alive and has money to spend on my stupid stuff .

[jwatte]

Experience is the product of "amount of time run," and "amount of tooling ruined."
If you never break anything, you're not pushing it enough to learn new things!

[mountaindew]

Maybe next year if anyone is still alive and has money to spend on my stupid stuff .

Not to worry! Monkeys will always like shiny things

I don't mind breaking a tool now and then or some other bozo error that sends the dog running out of the shop. But when you spoil a part / assembly you might have a couple days of work into. It does add to the personal drama and some choice words spoken.

[maker of things]

If you haven't tried plunging a $50 endmill at 7500 rpm into your vise, you should totally try that, it's really exciting and you get a souvenir scar to remember the event by!

[Portlyinohio]

I'm trying my best to keep the battle scars to a minimum.
I haven't got my vise yet , but when clamping a piece down to the table I forgot to take tool dia into account and did a right nice job milling the end off a clamp .

[CL_MotoTech]

Great to hear you are enjoying the new machine!

I’ve milled a few clamps in my days. Modeling those things and including them in CAM helps, but I don’t always feel like it.

[Portlyinohio]

I've discovered a pitfall to owning a cnc mill .
People come out of the woodwork asking to make crap for them
Stupid crap at that .
They also seem to think you just rub the magic genie three times , hit the green button and poof stuff magically appears

[BGHansen]

I've discovered a pitfall to owning a cnc mill .
People come out of the woodwork asking to make crap for them
Stupid crap at that .
They also seem to think you just rub the magic genie three times , hit the green button and poof stuff magically appears

My shop floor is clean enough to eat off from. My minimum requirement for government jobs is the requestor is there while I'm running the job, they're sweeping the floor and other menial tasks. Tough love, but I explain to them that I didn't invest in MY shop to work on their projects. Have plenty of my own to work on. I was really popular in our neighborhood when I bought a Case 580 backhoe and started getting phone calls shortly after. It was tough saying NO at first, but it got easy after a short time.

Bruce