Vivaek "CNC3001" mini CNC mill??

[Riceburner98]

Anyone heard of / tried one of these things yet? -- http://www.vivaek.com/cnc3001.html I tried searching here but came up empty, surely someone's at least heard of them before? "Zero-backlash", .0005" accuracy, 1 HP 0-30,000 RPM water-cooled spindle, 12"x12"x3" envelope, 167ipm rapids (stepper motors with "German" ground ball screws), weighing in at 187lbs... For $1,855 it sure sounds like a pretty good deal... I paid more than that for my CNC Taig mill, and it doesn't come close to .0005" accuracy or 167ipm movements, nevermind the variable 1HP spindle. I just got a few $K award from work (basically for machining all kinds of stuff at home in my "spare" time, go figure!), if this thing is as good as it seems I want to buy it. Then I can sell my Taig to the company and do all their machining here instead of killing all my personal time. Worse case I guess I can buy it and if it's not great just sell it on eBay or use the parts?? Anyone?? As it is there's hardly 2 pages of results searching them on Google, and mostly just links back to thier website. Sending an email now asking a few questions of them...

[Stepper Monkey]

The site has very few real details, but the specs that are there are impressive - so much so I would be very, very leery.

If this stuff is for real and as advertised, I'm buying several. I don't think a month from now many people on here would still be using what they have now if these things are indeed what they claim. As such, I'm somewhat suspicious.

Certainly worth a try anyway, Just make sure the purchase is on a major credit card in case things go south!

Thanks for the heads up on these things, I think I'll try ordering one as well just to play with. Keep us up to date on how it goes with you.

[Riceburner98]

Exactly... If they start messing around I could pull the transaction on the credit card.. Hopefully it's all that it says it is. I figure there should at least be some info found by Google good or bad, but nothing.. It's wierd.

[SpeedsCustom]

Looks interesting at a pretty damn good price for what it says it does.


-Jason

[Hunter12]

I'm just starting to look for one. Taig is about 3 miles from my house, so I'll probably go with them. But, this looks interesting for the price. They are from Georgia, but no dealers or anything else listed.

[SpeedsCustom]

Hunter12- I have the Taig, I love it. But back too topic. Looks interesting.


I wonder what Kinda cuts in can make.

-Jason

[pzzamakr1980]

This machine looks pretty nice. I think I would have to spend the extra bit and get the one with the 1.5hp spindle and add the bigger table. Only 18000 rpm but thats a good bit more ooomph. Did I miss the clearance under spindle or is it there somewhere?

[cjdavis618]

Originally Posted by pzzamakr1980 Did I miss the clearance under spindle or is it there somewhere?

Looks like 3"

[Riceburner98]

Don't get me wrong, I've loved using my Taig CNC so far. It only has a 1/4 HP motor, but I've done a ton more with it than I ever thought I could. I've hardly ever run it at 10,000 RPM, mostly 1-4k. But to remove a lot of the backlash, I've got to crank down the adjustments so tight that I can only do 8-10 IPM with the thing. Any looser and I get pretty bad backlash. I can physically move (twist / rock by hand) the X axis back and forth with the Y loose enough to run 15 IPM, I can see and feel it move. Lately the Z axis is acting up as well.. Most of the stuff I cut .008"-.01" accuracy is all I need; I actually was looking for a nice quick / precise machine with a 3-4" capacity for some close-up small detail work when I came across this "new" machine. If it really does what it says it can do the small detailed stuff as well as some bigger stuff, and with 1HP it should have 4x the oomph of my Taig. I'm guessing it's a DC spindle given the size and adjustability? I don't know much about spindles tho..

[pzzamakr1980]

I think the 3" is the z travel. Which might also be the clearance under the bottom of the spindle at the very bottom of its travel, but not necessarily.

As far as the spindle goes, I guarantee it is prolly a Chinese made spindle and the 1hp is a bit exaggerated. Also, I never thought that I would ever use the high rpm's on sieg, and by that I mean the 2400 rpm, until i started using smaller cutters and cutting aluminum. Then 2400 rpm became extrememly slow. Now that I have the spindle doing 6000 rpm and am using carbide cutters, the higher spindle speeds is a wonderful thing.

[darkith]

DNS registration is very new. Suggests it's either "sketchy" or too new for the claims to have been verified?

Domain Name.......... vivaek.com
Creation Date........ 2008-01-09
Registration Date.... 2008-01-09
Expiry Date.......... 2009-01-09

D.

[Riceburner98]

I heard back from them within a day of my email, which is really good. The person that replied is apparently the owner of the company, or at least has the same last name as the machine. Some of the details I got are that it can either be run directly from the PC (Mach2 / 3), or can have G-code stored and run from it's internal 1M memory in the controller. It comes with 1/4" and 3/8" spindle collets, so most likely others can be made to fit. At least they're interchangeable. Supposedly reciept of the machine is within 2-3 weeks in a "wooden crate", so I'm assuming a direct ship from overseas. Unless someone comes up with anything bad about them, I'll probably place an order in the next few days, then wait and see. The spindle can always be "upgraded" I'm sure, even if it's to attach a Taig-style one. I'd probably have to come up with some type of adapter as it is to use my Taig-specific tools anyway, like the flycutter and tool holders I had made. I use the 2nd highest speed on my Taig with .015" and .010" cutters to do plastic work, mostly .01" deep at a time... Oh- also he said it can run from 120v as well, the website states 220v as it's probably the standard overseas.