If you want to make aluminum wheel rims even R/c size, and chassis parts do not get a Taig. I had one that was stepper controlled for a year before I sold it. The motor is 1/6 hp, and the first time you spend 4 hrs cutting something aluminum at .05 DOC standing there using a spray bottle coolant, getting all wet, and cutting a part in two setups when it should go in one, you'll wish you went with a more robust machine.
Now I'm thinking about a wheel rim the size of my old inferno car...my Taig would have taken several hours to cut that...if it could. The tiny end mills you are confined to using mean little DOC...= big time. I tried running a 3/8ths cutter. I could not get any better than .05 DOC without it bogging / stalling in aluminum. Think hours. With no coolant, the extra long 1/8th EM will break at hour number 2 and now it's time to redo the offsets again. A CNC knee mill could have it done in 20 min. Not only that but with an R8 spindle you can get a quick change tool holder and now you have a REAL CNC. you can write programs to drill, bore, face, mill, countersink all in the same program.
No tool changes on the Taig. You have to write a seperate program for every tool change.
Serious....if you plan to make things to sell, look into a bigger mill. The Taig is fine if you are fooling around but it is not a production machine.
You can get an older knee mill and retrofit kit for under 10 grand, thats less that what you have already spend on software. If you look hard you can get a working VMC for UNDER 10 grand. Think of the parts you could make with that.  |