[Swhite9478]

I have been looking into buying a CNC mill for home use, I went to Taig in Chandler AZ and they did a demo for me on New Years Eve (Great people) but I am afraid that the machine is to small for the work I want to do.

I do a lot of work on my AR-15s and other weapons and want to be able to make my own upper receivers and other parts that don't require an FFL license.

I have looked at the Syil X4+ from Syil America, an NM-135 from Novakon in Canada (http://www.novakon.net/3.html) and a few of the Seig mills. I have found that they all come from China and some of them seem to be clones. I am looking for a good mill that uses Mach 3 for around 6k any ideas?

Thank you,

Steve

[Runner4404spd]

your only real options so far are either tormach or industrial hobbies.

[ataxy]

at 6k any of the x4 type machine is your best bet as long as you dont count the extra hardware needed in this 6k if you do you might end up paying a bit more then 6k

your only real options so far are either tormach or industrial hobbies.

a machine like that will cost him alot more then 6k with all hardware and tool

[muddobber76]

Look into TORMACH. I know some guys that have them and they are good for the money. Industrial Hobbies CNC is another nice machine builder in the 6-8K range.

[DeusExMachina]

Tormach runs 7.5k and is an R8 Spindle, so if you don't have tooling R8 is probably one of the cheapest to go with. Remember you don't have to go with the tooling Tormach sells, get the machine from then and the rest from somewhere else. You're still going to need things like vices, end mills, stock, calipers, indicators, parallels -- really the list goes on, this is not a cheap hobby...

But if I had 6k saved away, I'd wait until I could get another 2-3k and then go for a Tormach and whatever tooling I needed.

While I don't have one, I'd honestly stay away from syil's while I'm sure they're quite capable machines, really can't see justifying purchasing a $4k-5K machine that's probably going to require a complete rebuild and massive amount of tweaking as soon as it arrives (or maybe not at all, seems to be luck of the draw) when I can pay ~30% more for a tool that I have much more information on and the user base seems much more happy with.

[TOTALLYRC]

For 6k you could pick up a used cnc mill with a dead control and retrfit to a pc based control running Mach3, plus have money left over to buy tooling.
This of course assumes that you are willing to put in the time to do the retrofit yourself.

Mike

[sansbury]

Will your part(s) not fit on a Taig at all, or does the Taig just "seem small?" It could be the best place to start as it's a reliable, high-quality machine out of the box, and no question you can get *everything* including tooling, software, and all the other goodies for well within your 6k budget. If you do outgrow it, you won't have trouble selling it for most of the purchase price and all the other stuff will move up to a larger mill. If it's aluminum and you can bolt it to the table, the Taig will cut it. Steel I'd want a larger machine if I was trying to do anything over a few inches or to do it quickly.

If you can get a Tormach up and running with all the bits and pieces for $10k or less, you'll be doing better than most. Plenty of guys here said they spent $12k+ before the spending slowed down.

The Syil and Sieg KX-1/3 machines interest me but if they're going to require a lot of massaging to get running then I might as well just do the conversion myself. I've done 2 and each ones goes faster than the one before. I'd spend $5k for a finished machine that just works but not for a pre-assembled project. My only exposure is through the forums here which is a tainted sample in some ways.

Another place you might want to look at is KDN Tools. They do a conversion that is a little bigger than an X2 so a bit more metal than a Taig but priced around $3000.

Conversions of knee mills and whatnot are high-risk/reward projects for the experienced, IMHO. If you know how to work on and fix them, then you will know how to tell the difference between a machine that needs oiling and a few hours of cleanup and one that is a complete money pit.