Hi all. My name is Josh and I reside north of tampa fl. I am going to be building my portotyping/micro production run shop in the next 2 months depending on many variables. My budget is in the area of 10 grand, but this includes welders and cutters(plasma/chopsaw) and all other misc shop equip. I will be converting to cnc as soon as I can, with any luck as soon as they are being unpacked. MY THOUGHTS ARE WITH THE 13X40 Harbor frieght lathe for 2100, andI am as yet undecided on the mill but I would be comfortable spending 3000 or a little more for the right unit. My shop will be 2 10x12 "sheds" with a 10 foot covered space seperating the units. I was also curious about adapting a 2hp 120 or 240 volt treadmill moror for continiously variable spindle speed for the lathe. This will determin if I go belt or gear drives. I have seen mention of use in drill press. Hell with an encoder it is a servo isn't it? Off on a tangent again. Ok well with a little help and alot of advice and a smidge of luck I would like to use this chance I have been given to start a new career. I will be cutting all materials not just metals. HUGE size is not important as most parts I start with will be small but I do not want to have to buy larger when I may not be able to afford it later, so I will go bigger now. I am also looking in the local area surplus market for a older used machine but these tend to be ungainly huge and the whole operation may need to be moved. I love the Idea of keeping this log and getting feedback on each step. How stable is this going to be on a wood floor. A concrete floor in the sheds woud really kick up the wieght. Maybee 2 " with monofiber. Later all

Josh...north of Tampa....like Toronto....j/k

So, make a list:
Lathe 13x40 - $3500 (Used American, Jet......then maybe HF)
Mill 9x42 - $4000 (Bridgeport used, Jet, Grizzly...)
Plasma - $950 (With helmet, power outlets, gloves, leather vest)
Chop Saw - $150 (for an abrasive unit)
Bandsaw -

Anyway you get the idea. For adapting a treadmill motor to your lathe for variable speed you should use belts and pulleys, if you happen to buy some American Iron then it will most likely have a 3phase motor and you can add a VFD and drive it off your 1 phase power and get varability in speed.

You really need a stable base that's not going to change so you can level your lathe and mill.

Forgot your other questions....it would be nice if you numbered them....then we could give ya a numbered response.... ;)

Good luck on the new career....organization will get you far.

OK Please feel free to make any and all comments
Lets go from the begining then(how long is to long?)
1. Websites- the places I know to look for "economical" machines and tools include grizzly, harbor frieght, and industrial hobies. Any other places would be great, but I would prefer to place larger orders fom fewer places than alot of smaller orders from a bunch of companies.
2. Mill - My first choice is with the grizzly g3617 for 2995 http://www.grizzly.com/products/item.cfm?ItemNumber=G3617. For 600 less I can exclude the horizonal part. I do not have a huge amount ef experience I have only used a horizonal mill once, but it would suck if I needed it and didn't have it. As with all machines I will be buying it will be converted to full automation. This will include coolant flow and spindle speed and as many axis as I can do with in reason

3. lathe - I am pretty stumped in this dept. I am still looking in the 2100 dollar range and would have figured I could get a few more features by eliminating the gear drive. It just seams they all are gear drive in this range, not that I have found alot. http://www.grizzly.com/products/mach-specs-pdfs.cfm?key=460 I think barring any other options this will be the unit of choice.

4. conversions - a.What size servos will be required to run these machines
b. and will the treadmill motors have enough torque.
c. Will the gekos be able to run these machines efeciently,
d.what other options do I have

5. surface grinder? do I need one?

6. The shop will be built as 3 sections. I think I will use a steel beam frame on the end sections. This will give me long term stability sitting on concrete corner footings. It will also allow me to atach heavy duty axels to it to move the units later.
OK
I will be building a website giving more detailed plans and a total list of machines to be purchased. later

First I haven't figured out if you are going into this commercially or as a hobby or both. that does impact decisions.

To be honest $10,000 isn't much if you are trying to set up a commercial operation. 2/3 rds of your budget will likely go to tooling. This can NOT be underestimated, a mill or lathe can't do much without tooling.

As to the numbered questons:

>>1
Try looking at the catalogs from the major tooling suppliers. MSC, McMaster-Carr, Travers come to mind right away. do realize tha tyou can hurt your self by going to cheap and to small.

>>2
For a commercial operation I would not by a brand new manual mill to do a conversion on. If you see the work for a CNC mill then buy a CNC mill. EVen used and requiring a rebuild. If nothing else they are safe and contain a lot of nasties inside the machine shell. Now that doesn't mean that a manual mill won't be a good idea, I just don't see the rational for a CNC conversion on a low end manual mill.

>>3
I'd go used for a manual lathe and get as big as your budget can afford. That should put you into a larger machine. As to CNC'ing a manual lathe that to me is even less of a good idea that doing the mill. I'm not sure what you precieve your competition to be but a CNC'ed manual lathe won't do much for you. Atleast with the Mill I can see CNC being leveraged on it.

>>4
As to treadmill motors I'd skip that idea on a commercial venture. It is a different story for a hobby shop. Further you will need a larger motor than the single speed motor currently on the lathe. You will likely need a commercial drive and Motor. In any event a treadmill motor is not a servo.

As to the Geckos that depends on the steppers or motors choosen.

Your other option is to buy commercial CNC hardware. A&B and FANUC come to mind here. Depending on your needs though that might not be required, the right combination of Geckos, motors and software might take care of your needs. But no body here knows what your needs are.

>>5
Surface Grinder. Well a well equiped shop will probably end up needing several differrent kinds of grinders. YOUR needs are dependant on what you intend to do. From my point of view it would be very hard to get by without one. Again though buy used.

>>6
Now this blows my mind, it sounds like you intend to have tthe machines sitting on a flexible floor. That will not do at all. You will need to have a proper foundation and pads for the machines put in place.

As an aside I'd like to suggest slowing down here a bit. Figure out what you want to do exactly and then think about what equipement is required to do that. CNC is nice but is not the final solution, think long and hard about how you intend to use CNC. Many here go the table router route for their first CNC experience. CNC is not the place to get your initial machining experience either.

Dave



OK Please feel free to make any and all comments
Lets go from the begining then(how long is to long?)
1. Websites- the places I know to look for "economical" machines and tools include grizzly, harbor frieght, and industrial hobies. Any other places would be great, but I would prefer to place larger orders fom fewer places than alot of smaller orders from a bunch of companies.
2. Mill - My first choice is with the grizzly g3617 for 2995 http://www.grizzly.com/products/item.cfm?ItemNumber=G3617. For 600 less I can exclude the horizonal part. I do not have a huge amount ef experience I have only used a horizonal mill once, but it would suck if I needed it and didn't have it. As with all machines I will be buying it will be converted to full automation. This will include coolant flow and spindle speed and as many axis as I can do with in reason

3. lathe - I am pretty stumped in this dept. I am still looking in the 2100 dollar range and would have figured I could get a few more features by eliminating the gear drive. It just seams they all are gear drive in this range, not that I have found alot. http://www.grizzly.com/products/mach-specs-pdfs.cfm?key=460 I think barring any other options this will be the unit of choice.

4. conversions - a.What size servos will be required to run these machines
b. and will the treadmill motors have enough torque.
c. Will the gekos be able to run these machines efeciently,
d.what other options do I have

5. surface grinder? do I need one?

6. The shop will be built as 3 sections. I think I will use a steel beam frame on the end sections. This will give me long term stability sitting on concrete corner footings. It will also allow me to atach heavy duty axels to it to move the units later.
OK
I will be building a website giving more detailed plans and a total list of machines to be purchased. later

I will be doing prototyping of designs of my own as well as others. I may also be doing some micro production runs, like a couple of pieces a day after work or so. I do have some machine/lathe experience so this will not be my cherry. And those were ancient atlas and bridgeports with more slop than a 2$ workin girl.
10,000 is a mean figure, it could be 8,000 and it could be 15,000. This is the problem with buying used as the money could be here next month, or at the latest first of next year(another long thread). But to the point it is NOT alot of money to get this off the ground right, or even enough but it will have to do. So I will get a few of the larger purchases out of the way and buy tooling a piece a week of so.

1. The cost per gain factor seems to get real slim after the 2500-3500 dollar range.

"">>2
--For a commercial operation I would not by a brand new manual mill to do a conversion on. If you see the work for a CNC mill then buy a CNC mill. EVen used and requiring a rebuild. If nothing else they are safe and contain a lot of nasties inside the machine shell. Now that doesn't mean that a manual mill won't be a good idea, I just don't see the rational for a CNC conversion on a low end manual mill.

Is this comon concensus? Do these DIY cnc retrofits usally not perform? Or is it the machine to start with? I figured I would start with something with some mass and make whatever adjustments are necessary to tune the machine. yes no?

3. My "shop" will be 3 10x12 sections so there is a size This 12x37 should be more than large enough for any of my current for near future prototyping needs, and if I need to prototype larger pieces I will have to move to a larger shop and all that. And the cnc on the lathe is the last on a very long list to do's.

4. The VFDs are not as expensive as I thought. So I will probably get VFDs and new motors. I am hoping I can use the same motor for the mill and lathe and keep a spare. Are there benifits to using dc motors?

I do not even know the least little bit to begin saying what I need for a servo, but I would like to run the "best" servo for this size mill. Or if that fail as large as I can run on whatever economical driver I can get, but as little as I know about them getting anything off ebay is like digging for needles.

5. I do not need(or I cannot afford one) right off the bat but I think e-bay is the way to go.

6. Yay silly huh. I was going to use wood beams untill the warping wood sunk in. I will be using a 8 inch steel I beem frame. To keep my overhead down here I cannot pour concrete pads for tax reasons. I will only be here 3 years max and I will be taking the structure that I am building with me.

Thank-you for your feedback