New owner of a grizzly G8689, did I get a decent deal?

[margni74]

Hi All,

Found this used mini-mill on craigslist for $300. Picked it up tonight, and it seems to be in good shape. Time will tell I guess. Also included the 20 piece HSS mill set which sells for $50. Was this a decent price?

I'm in the midst of a larger home-built cnc router and will first be cnc'ing this little guy in order to source the parts for the larger beast. so far I have...
3 gecko drives and 3 servo motors that I was planning on using for my other build, but I will probably be using them for the mini-cnc.

[sansbury]

I'd call that a good deal, definitely. Be careful CNCing this though, if you can make the parts for your larger router manually, I'd consider doing that, otherwise you may go down the rabbit hole with this for a while

[margni74]

I'd call that a good deal, definitely. Be careful CNCing this though, if you can make the parts for your larger router manually, I'd consider doing that, otherwise you may go down the rabbit hole with this for a while

You are probably right about it being easier to make the parts manually. I figured any experience (frustration) gained by cnc-ing this little guy would translate over to the bigger brother.

I havent looked into the details yet of a cnc conversion though, the mill was sort of an impulse buy as the price seemed right and I can make use of it immediately.

it seems like the x-y axis are ready to be retrofitted right out of the gate, but the z axis is going to be a pain.

[sansbury]

For $300 it's a good impulse buy. Look at the recent X2 build thread by a user named Chukkie. He slapped a motor right on the fine Z feed and didn't ask what anybody thought and showed some pictures of nice-looking parts made with it. Also, 2-axis CNC can be pretty useful for some things like laying out hole patterns which you'll probably be doing making fittings and such, so even if you ignore the Z there is utility there.

My advice is to do the 2-axis and maybe the Chukkie-style Z axis and don't worry about .01" of backlash or anything. X2s will take up as much time as you let them. They're a fun project but if you're trying to finish a wood router or something you may want to keep your focus on that.