Originally posted to practical machinist forums to no help.

Hello, I need help selecting a CNC mill for light production work and R&D prototyping.

Budget is under $7500

The bulk of the work will be milling holes from Ø0.064" to Ø4.00" into 0.125" thick 6061 aluminum plates, which we do around 250/year.
The machines tolerance's ideally would be no more than +-0.005" since we need high precision holes. Light engraving work and simple geometry prototyping will also be performed on 6061 and plastics. It would be beneficial if the machine came with a CAM package but not necessary.

My current pick is for the Pocket NC V2-10 which is priced at $5,900.00 and has a suitable work area.

I was once an intern machinist using Makino and Mazak CNC's doing aerospace work (Stainless Steel, titanium, Inconel, Hastelloy) so I have some familiarity with machining in general just no clue what the market is like for smaller benchtop / hobby machines is like so any help would be greatly appreciated and if there are any other critical details left out that would help in the decision process let me know.