Is the IH CNC/Mill what I need?

[Richards]

Zumba,
I guess that I must have been lucky. My IH is giving me great cuts. By knowing that the quill is 'loose', I don't use it except for drilling holes that I'm going to bore to a larger diameter. Other than not having a Z-axis depth stop, I'm quite satisfied with the machine. Granted, making only straight cuts and retangular pockets is limiting (unless I borrow a rotary table from a machinist down the street), but it's a start. Since I haven't owned a mill for about twenty years, I want to go manual long enough to relearn how to properly cut metal. After 'feeling' the cuts through the handwheels, I'll now what to expect with the CNC upgrade, because, at least to me, adding computer control to a machine can add to my problems as easily as it can solve my problems. (I do have a little experience in the area of enhancing machine operation via computer controls, since I've designed/built/installed/programmed process control computers for more than thirty years. One of the first things that I always tell a customer is that if he can't make the machine work properly manually, he probably won't be able to make it work via the computer either.)

[BobWarfield]

Mine has worked very well out of the box too. I must admit, I can't wait to CNC it, and purchased Aaron's kit, but that has to wait until I finish my CNC lathe conversion.

I too wanted to understand how the machine felt and operated manually before losing that "touch" to CNC. I was running a small Iscar Helimill indexable end mill this weekend on some aluminum extrusion, and the machine performed well. Probably my biggest gripe is that there is just never enough RPM for aluminum, but it still works okay if you keep the feedrate cranked.

Since having put together a poor man's DRO, I find I don't even think about the quill slop since the DRO tells me what it's doing all the time.

I know some others have had troubles, so either the quality control has been improved since they bought, or it is random. Hard to say which, but I do see Aaron getting good results on the videos on his web site. I also wonder how the revised model with ground ways and larger Z-axis slide area performs.

Best,

BW

[Ron111]

Bob,
I bet if you go back and watch those videos a couple of time, you will get all fired up and start tearing into that pretty new IH, haha.

I finally had access to high speed internet this weekend and saw Aaron's video, it almost made me break out the old credit card!! I now understand what flood cooling is also.

Take care,

Ron

[BobWarfield]

Originally Posted by Ron111 Bob, I bet if you go back and watch those videos a couple of time, you will get all fired up and start tearing into that pretty new IH, haha. Ron

Woohoo!

You're right, but I'm my own worst enemy. I gotta finish some of the projects I've started first. I continue to make progress on the lathe.

Best,

BW

[Richards]

After using my IH in manual mode for over a month, I have nothing but good to say about the mill. Although I would like to install Aaron's CNC kit, so far, the standard mill and an 8-inch rotary table can do everything that I need to do - and turning those cranks gives me some much needed exercise

All of my cuts have been in 6061 aluminum, mostly 1/2-inch thick with some 1/4-inch. Typically I run at 1,600 RPM, 15-ipm, 0.25-inch depth with a 2-flute high-helix 1/2-inch cutter. It only takes a few minutes to be ankle deep in chips. Best of all, the cuts are good and clean and nearly perfect if I make a 0.020-inch finish pass.

To make things simple, I use AutoCAD LT to generate the drawings and then dimension the coordinates at 10:1. That gives me the exact number of turns on the hand crank to reach a destination. Then to keep things simple, I dump the dimensions into a spread sheet that automatically figures relative moves based on the cutter's current position. It's not as convenient as CNC, (I'm just too used to the ease of cutting things with my Shopbot), but the bolt holes, pockets and other simple cuts that I need in the motor mounts that I make doesn't exactly require rocket science - just a reliable, heavy duty manual mill.

[CNCPlastic]

What I'm trying to find is a mill that has a Y-axis travel of at least 10-inches and that can hog out material at 1/8-inch depth with a 1/2-inch cutter all day long for at least one year. I'm hoping to cut aluminum at 30-ipm.

Given the above I would think seriously before investing thousands of dollars into a benchtop mill. You can drop $8,000 to $9,000 into a benchtop mill quite easily and what you will have will not compare to a real VMC that can actually run all day long for a year and hold the tolerances.

For example when my brother purchased his Haas VF2ss he sold his Haas VF1 for $6,000. He only paid $12,000 for it a few years prior and it came with a bunch of tooling. He only had about $1,000 in maintenance while he owned it. I have spent more than that fixing my benchtop mill which is current broken down again.

If I had it to do over again theres no way I would have ever gone down this benchtop mill road. If you decide to go the benchtop route get the performance specs and tolerances it will hold in writing with a money back guarantee.

[kimoyo]

Originally Posted by BobWarfield Mine has worked very well out of the box too. I must admit, I can't wait to CNC it, and purchased Aaron's kit, but that has to wait until I finish my CNC lathe conversion.

Hey Bob,

I really like your website. I was reading thru it over the weekend and it has a lot of helpful and good stuff, some great links also. I'm curious why you would buy the kit instead of making it yourself, maybe not the ballscrews, nuts or power supply, but the rest. I know it would take more time (I know most of us want to start using it right away) but is the kit that much better than what you could do? Thanks.

Paul

[BobWarfield]

Kimoyo, the thing I am saving by buying their kit is time and frustration. Is it a bargain? Well, it depends on how you value the time and frustration. I know that I don't have enough time to get to nearly all the projects I'd like to tackle.

I have looked over Aaron's photo essay carefully on installing his kit, and I envision taking that mill apart and reassembling 10-15 times if I have to engineer all of that myself. Just being able to disassemble once and bolt it back up with a proven CNC kit will save a lot of trouble.

If you imagine the amount of effort required to find and adapt surplus ballscrews bought on eBay, versus just buying them ready to go, that has to add a lot. Engineering the angular contact bearing assembly has been talked about in a lot of places on this site, and will require a fair amount of effort.

In the end, I don't think I'd save that much money or wind up with a higher quality conversion than what Aaron sells. There are a lot of other things I'd like to do to improve the mill, such as a belt drive conversion, power drawbar, one shot oiling, flood cooling, tool touch sensor, and so forth, that I feel would be better time spent than engineering the basic mechanicals on my own.

With that said, I did buy the "mechanicals only" kit. I mean to fit my own servos and build the electronics.

Best,

BW