Need Help!- Just getting into it. . .

[bensf]

I haven't ever owned a mill before and I was wondering if anyone could tell me what I would need? I was looking at the Harbor Freight Micro Mill. I'll be working on 2mm to 6mm thick aluminum sheet.


http://www.littlemachineshop.com/pro...ory=1057823482

Is that something worth getting? If I got that I would still need collets and bits, correct? Anything else that I would need?

My budget is limited and I'm trying to keep this all under $500.

Thanks, Ben.

[Stepper Monkey]

You probably won't get many responses I'm afraid, as this has been covered plenty of times already. Use the search feature and poke around a bit.

Unfortunately, a $500 budget isn't going to make it happen no matter how frugal you are or how much you do yourself. Hobby level CNC just keeps getting more affordable all the time but realistically it is still a hobby that takes a couple of grand to get into to any degree at all. Sorry.

[darkith]

As Stepper Monkey said, you're not going to get this thing CNC'd for $500 (unless you score a bunch of stuff for free). You'll be mildly hard pressed to get it going as a reasonably equipped manual mill for $500 I think, but doable.

I have a HF Micro Mill (Sieg X1), and this was my initial purchase list to get me going for manual milling operations:

From LMS:
2249 Spare Parts Kit (Micro Mill) 19.95 $ 19.95
3088 Cutting Fluid, Re-Li-On 4oz 3.95 $ 3.95
2034 Drawbar, 2MT x 3/8-16, Micro Mill 9.95 $ 9.95
1242 End Mill Set, 6 Piece 2 Flute 15.95 $ 15.95
2653 Starter Kit, Micro Mill 73.95 $ 73.95
1243 End Mill Set, 6 Piece 4 Flute 16.95 $ 16.95

From ebay or LMS:
Set of MT2 collets
2" screwless vice

And that was just basic stuff to get started, and didn't include the items I already had from owning a lathe (drill bits, calipers, micrometer, files, etc).
A lot of fun when you go get it to the usable point, and start making your first cuts though!

Now I just need to get my CNC'ing done...

Cheers,
David

[BrassBuilder]

Hi Ben,
The $500 is going to be tough to get going. The rule of thumb is whatever you spend for the mill, you will spend at least that for the tooling. David's list is a good starting point of what you will need, however, you could trim that down a little if money was really tight. You could get by without the spare parts kit and I would go with one set of end mills. The collets will run you about $40. Don't even THINK about running the end mill in the drill chuck. Very bad practice to start. The screwless vise from LMS is around $45. Don't cheap out on the vise. You will be very very unhappy. Been there, done that.

If you could get your budget up to around $750, you would be sitting much better as we haven't even thrown in the calipers, mics, files, etc...it all adds up....fast.

If you are looking at getting into CNC...don't bother with saving your pennies...it will take much too long to save. Start putting 10s and 20s away. I spent about $1000 on my X2 conversion, but I bought everything premade and went with very nice quality. I probably could have cut a few hundred off of that if I shopped around a bit and lowered my high expectations. But I am also extremely happy with what I have.

Start with a manual mill first. Get the feel of running it before you jump into CNC. I ran my mill manually for around a year and half before I went to CNC.

Mike

[ataxy]

as brassbuilder said if you have never work on a mill before it is highly recommended that you start by doing manual work this will get you the feeling of the capacity of your machine as these type of machine cannot be operated as you would with a bigger knee mill or even a bigger 700pound rf45 type mill ounce you get use to its capacity you will know how to prepare the code that you will use to operate your small cnc and in turn prevent unwanted wear and breaking of your machine.
cuz remember a cnc does not see that its doing something that it cant it will most of the time try do do it until it breaks you on the other side will see when you crank that handle that you should slow down or take lighter cut

[bensf]

I'm not sure if I made it clear that I just wanted a manual mill and not a CNC one. I don't have the budget for CNC as many of you pointed out.

Thanks for the replies. I have access to nice measuring equipment already, so I wouldn't need to buy any of that.

I'm not really sure what the measuring equipment is for. Is it to measure your cuts to see if they are accurate?

I could probably bump it up to 600-700 dollars for my overall budget. Would the extra 100-200 help me get what I need?

[ataxy]

oups my bad then

[bensf]

Yea its fine, I know its a CNC forum but it seems like there are people on here with experience using manual mills as well. So I decided to ask.

[BrassBuilder]

Hi Ben,
I made ya a little starting list based on what David recommended and a few things that I thought of. The mill is the Harbor Freight one and the accessories are from Little Machine Shop.

HF:
Milling Machine $299.99

LMS:
2034 Drawbar $9.95
1752 2MT Collet Set (7) $49.95
1242 End Mill Set (2 flute) $15.95
1243 End Mill Set (4 flute) $16.95
2653 Starter Kit $73.95
2249 Spare Parts Kit $19.95
3088 Cutting Fluid $3.95
1591 2" Screwless Vise $44.95
2983 Electronic Digital 6" Caliper $14.95 (sale price)
1782 Dial Indicator/Magnetic Base/Points $19.95 (sale price)

The total comes to just over $550.00 plus freight. You will need a few bucks to get some material. Get 6061 aluminum. It machines really nice. DON'T get the crap at Menards or other hardware stores. It does not machine very well. It is too "gummy" for lack of a better word.

You need the dial indicator to get the vise jaws straight to the cutter. The 6" digital caliper is just handier than crap to have. You should get the spare parts kit because that has all the replacement plastic gears. The X2 mill comes with a drawbar, but I did not see one in the micro mill owner's manual.

You will spend close to every penny of $700 to get set up decent. You can shop around and maybe save a few bucks on ebay, but the shipping might offset any savings on the pieces. If you don't have drill bits and files...add that cost in.

However, for a little bit more money, you can get the X2 instead. That is a very popular mill. I bought mine from Cummins Tools on ebay. I think I paid around $399. I did a search for them, but I could not find any listed today. Alot of the tooling will transfer right over to the X2 (with some minor changes). I could make you another list for that if needed. I think there is a lot more info out there on the X2 versus the X1.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Mike

[Regnar]

I dont know if you have these already but I would throw in acouple of good books.

I just recieved Workshop practice series #35 "Milling a Complete Course" and it explains how to make a few tools with your mill and some with a lathe. To give some examples T-nuts, Angle Plate, Paralles, Boring head, Dividing Head and a tool grinding rest. The way he wrote this book is a step by step. First you need to make your tnuts then it goes into the angle plates and so on. And everything you make you need to use to make the next tool. He also doesnt use a vice until page 86 and then he shows you how to make a drill vice adequate for milling. Pretty much you start out with a endmill and 2 bolts. If you follow the book along you will have a few tools and more experience under your belt before buying and spending hundreds on tools that sit in a drawer or a corner of the garage. Others here can probably offer up some other good books or links. Good luck

Link to book

Amazon

Amazon

[darkith]

Nod. The spare parts kit is because the gears have been described by some as "made from cheese" and prone to exploding when you're in the middle of something important.

I went with the 2 sets of cutters in order to have 4-flute cutters for mild steel, and 2-flute for aluminum, but figure than in a pinch if I break a cutter when I need it most, I can substitute the matching sized one from the other set with some mild tweaking in speeds/feeds.

The X1 does come with a drawbar, buts it's metric (M10 I think) and only fits the drill chuck. If you're getting imperial collets, you'll need the matching drawbar.

If you're only going for a manual mill, you may want a boring head and bars if you need to make large precise holes. I plan to go CNC and don't think I'll need precise holes just yet, so didn't get one.

Since you're going manual, I can heartily recommend you look at the X2, it will push your budget, but you can always stock up on the bits and stuff later on, you can't easily swap out your machine if you find it too small to begin with, and as mentioned, lots more info on the X2.

*I* only ended up with the X1 because I'm in Canada. I could get the X1 shipped for a decent price, but X2s locally cost almost 3 times what people pay in the US, and shipping an X2 from the US would have put the cost close to 2.5 times what people pay in the US. The distributors here must be making a sick profit.
I just didn't have the cash to buy it, tool it up, and then CNC the slightly trickier Z-axis, but that shouldn't be a problem for you!

Cheers,
David