Newbie- Upgrading to CNC Mill

[sturgeo]

We're looking to upgrade to a new milling machine and are considering a cnc to partially automate production runs.
These are what we are looking at making to start with.

They are injector bosses for a fuel injection setup on a classic mini.

The machine we've been looking at is the Syil x4+ controlled by Mach3.

Fortunately i work in education and have access to solidworks but which CAM software would be best and easiest to configure for our environment.

[Crevice Reamer]

Hi sturgeo. Welcome to the Zone!

If you already have Solidworks, then Solidcam is a natural.

Compare this mill to the X4. You get a lot for the money:

http://novakon.net/nm135.html

CR.

[kvom]

Thanks for the reference to Novakon. I'll put them on my shopping list.

[sturgeo]

Thanks for the reply.
Solidcam is most likely out of our budget unfortunately
That Novakon certainly does look good but we're based in the UK and i don't know if they are available over here.

[Crevice Reamer]

Originally Posted by sturgeo Thanks for the reply. Solidcam is most likely out of our budget unfortunately That Novakon certainly does look good but we're based in the UK and i don't know if they are available over here.

You never know 'til you ask. Contact Novakon and see what their shipping policy is from Canada to UK. Or maybe they can drop-ship you one direct from Taiwan. Of course, I don't know if you would get the Gecko electronics that way.

CR.

[rowbare]

If there is no really complex stuff going on in the bore, you could write the g-code for those by hand fairly easily. That is dirt cheap ;-).

Or you might want to look into Cam Bam. http://www.cambam.co.uk/

[tizm]

I agree with robar down there! those parts dont look very complex! If you are on budget, you can get a haas vmc or a doosan for pretty cheap! (well cheap for a cnc)! mastercam is very good for price as far as cad system

[john huijben]

I wouldn't purchase a CAD-CAM program for that part on the picture.
That's easily programmed by hand in a matter of minutes.
I've had good experiences with esprit for a CAD-CAM program