Advantage of a 3 axis CNC Milling machine

[george_kj]

Hi,

Can anyone tell me what are the advantages and disadvantages of a 3 , 4 and 5 axis cnc milling machines.I have no experience working with cnc machines.

Can someone help me?

Regards,
george.

[TheSlickster]

Hey Joey,


Try and use a hacksaw instead!

The Slickster

[Mazaholic]

advantage..they are better than a one or two axis.
disadvantage...you gotta take the time to learn how to use them.

[Kipper]

They don't take tea breaks holidays and in my case they can cut circles and don't get confused.

[austin.mn]

Originally Posted by george_kj Hi, Can anyone tell me what are the advantages and disadvantages of a 3 , 4 and 5 axis cnc milling machines.I have no experience working with cnc machines. Can someone help me? Regards, george.

George,

with a 3 axis machine, the machine can move on 3 perpendicular axis'. This is good for about 90% of milling work you will encounter. A forth axis would be adding a rotary table to your 3 axis machine. This will enable you to cut gears, mill flats and keyways to round shafts or create some sort of spiral dohickey to put on your desk as a paper weight. A five axis machine will enable you to create very smooth flowing organic shapes. You could create a turbine for instance.

If you are just getting into machining look on craigslist or visit some machine shops in your town and pick up a good used bridgeport. A decent bridgeport boss machine will set you back less than $2500 and is easily retrofit to run mach 3 for controls. I picked one up for $500, and threw another $500 into some motor drives off ebay and an old computer. The rewire only took an afternoon. I also invested in a VFD (variable frequency drive) which allowed me to get around the fact that I don't have 3phase wiring in my garage. After buying some tooling for it, I think that I still have less than $2000 into it. I think that these machines are fairly common in the backs of machine shops. The original controls that came on them are quite dated, and as soon as they broke they were expensive to fix. So they were moved to the back of the shop for when they had some extra time to mess with them. Which generally never happens.. who wants to work on an old machine when they could be out fishing.

Hope this sheds some light on the subject for you.

[george_kj]

Thank you Austin.That was helpful.

And thankyou Kipper , Mazaholic and TheSlickster for ur valuable suggestions.Let me see if i can get hold of a hacksaw

Regards.

[Malafarina]

The main advantages of 3, 4 and especially 5 axis CNC machines is the ability to complete multiple operations in a single part setup. (especially when teamed with an automatic tool changer). I have never programmed machines with less than 4 axis in the past 30 years. Since many companies are sending their high production machining over seas and tend to run smaller lot sizes, then number of required setups has increased substantially. Most serious CNC machining companies want to get the most from a single setup and would never consider less than 3 axis of machining.