Originally Posted by
NIC 77
Do you have a stove or a dryer on 240V in your apartment?
I think you could get by on 120V. Perhaps two outlets, one for the spindle, and one for the rest.
Noise will be a problem. There are lots of things that can be a problem in an apartment. How big is your apartment? You'll have aluminum chips thrown everywhere.
There's no way. Sorry, that's the honest truth. You can't be competitive making these with the kinds of equipment you mentioned. I had to look them up online to see what they are. Mostly made of stainless steel, with nice machining and engraving, made in China, with a saturated market, and a starting price of $20. The bodies are probably made on a CNC lathe and then the insides are machined, or it's a more high tech manufacturing of some sort. You won't be able to work with Stainless with any of those machines you mentioned, and they can barely do aluminum IF you take very very shallow cuts and if not they will make such a racket with so much chatter it will drive you (and the neighbors) nuts.
OK, so you need at least a 4 axis machine, preferably 5 axis. Again, I don't see you being competitive doing this. Sounds like you're picking only small things to make on the Pocket NC? I'm guessing it would take oh, I don't know, 10+ hours to cut one of these on that machine? You can buy these on EBay for $25...
IMO, you would need to make some real custom parts or unique designs to make any money.
Just be careful you don't shoot your eye out.
Those are all hobby machines IMO. And pretty horrible at cutting aluminum. The pocket NC is interesting, I didn't know it existed. Tiny cutting area. It's the most interesting of the 3, but I don't really see it's value to a business. I watched a video of it cutting copper on youtube. Finish was probably not great, and it was using a 5 thousandths depth of cut at 35 IPM. Their website says it's suitable for milling 4140 steel but I think this is total BS. Nema 17's, small diameter leadscrews, 104 watt spindle (assuming that's at max RPM). As a bonus though, looks like they did ship out to their kickstarter backers, nice to see a kickstarter that honors it's commitments. If you're interested, ask to see a video start to finish without timelapse of this thing milling a three inch diameter impeller out of 4140 steel. They claim it will do it. Let them prove it. The videos I see are little snips, which is a bad sign. The impression I get from your post is that you think this thing will perform better and faster than it is capable of.
For the budget you're talking about, you could probably find a full sized mill for sale, like a bridgeport, that has already been CNC converted, of course, that won't work in your apartment, would probably fall through the floor, so perhaps a much much smaller mill with a CNC conversion and motor / vfd upgrade. If you're patient and look around on craigslist and EBay (but there are so many trolls selling crappy Chinese mini routers on EBay and calling them milling machines.....which they are not, that it's hard to search) you could probably find something.
Just have a look at "CNC mill conversion" on youtube and you will see the kind of machine I'm talking about. It's in a totally different class from the ones you mentioned, and you can probably put it all together for the same cost or less, or find one already done and for sale.
Not trying to be a downer, just trying to give you advice that might make you happy later. I really don't know what you should do, but I am fairly certain that your expectations for performance are higher than those machines can give you, and a mill conversion will cut aluminum way better than any of those can, but of course, not in 5 axis.
Good luck to you in your quest.
Whats the best choice to make here?
