Is the IH CNC/Mill what I need?

[Richards]

I'm trying to decide what I need to do a fairly long-term project cutting 1/2-inch thick 6061 aluminum. So far, I've sent an email to IH asking for their advice, but I haven't heard back from them.

I need to cut fairly large pockets in the aluminum (about 3.5 x 3.5 x 0.25 inches). Tolerances on the sides can be fairly loose (0.020 or so), but I would like the bottom of the pockets to be +0.0/-0.003 if possible. There are some bearing holes that need to be +0.00/-0.002 if possible.

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 figuring two hogging passes and one finish pass.

Since I'm from the CNC wood-working world, I'm used to feed speeds of at least 360-ipm, but I'm hoping to cut aluminum at 30-ipm.

Will the IH Mill/CNC with a 2hp motor/VFD and flood coolant system do the job? Can I buy the major pieces for about $7,000? Would I be better off looking at something else?

Please let me know what can be done, not what advertising says should be possible .

[Runner4404spd]

i'm running manual on my mill right now but i have no problem hogging aluminum at .125 pass at a time. i would however, upgrade to a 3HP motor with vfd that will bump your RPM up to 3600. i'm running the stock motor right now with 1600 rpm max spindle speed and this is really kinda too low in my opinion. but other than that the machine exceeds my expectations and i plan to start cnc'ing this christmas.

[Ron111]

I think you could build up an IH to do your job if yo need the 30 inch X travel but if you can live with 18 inches on the X, you may can go with the Tormach for $6800 read out of the box. I know the X travel is now around 18 inches and I think that the Y is somewhere around 12 and there is plenty of Z. They advertise being able to hole the clearences and it is an extremely ridgid machine. So take a peak

Ron

[Richards]

I've been looking at the Tormach PCNC1100, but their published Y-axis movement is 9.5", less than what I need. Are they shipping mills with 12" Y-axis movement?

[Richards]

After receiving some private emails concerning both the Industrial Hobbies Mill and the Tormach PCNC1100 early Friday morning, I decided to drive down to Ontario and look at the IH firsthand. The IH is one impressive mill! Aaron Moss is probably the most straight-forward, honest person that I've ever talked to in the CNC field. He freely discussed the pluses and minuses of his mill and gave valid rreasons why his mill would work better in my project than smaller mills - without ever being negative about the compititon. At no time was there any pressure to buy his mill. Needless to say, after seeing the mill, turning the cranks and looking at and touching he parts that had been machined on the mill, the mill sold itself. Aaron, with his honesty, knowledge, and humor sold himself. This morning, I'm a happy IH owner. The mill and I arrived in Salt Lake City mid-day on Saturday. Unfortunately, the mill will remain in the back of my Dodge Dakota until Monday, when I can get a Tow Truck driver to come over with his boom and hook to lift the mill out of my truck. (That mill is heavy!)

[Ron111]

Congradulations,

Did you buy the cnc kit also. Aaron has a good repretation here on the forum. I like the new design that was included during his August batch of machines.

I look forward to watching your cnc conversion.

Ron

[Richards]

Ron,
I just bought the mill to practice on until I know exactly what I need. Admittedly, I'll be a little lost without CNC capabilities for a while . (I use a Shopbot as my main machine. The IH is going to be used to expand the kinds of projects that I can do. One good thing is that I can use the Shopbot as an $18,000 scriber to spot-drill holes and lightly scribe layout lines in alunimun before manually milling on the IH.)

Aaron gave me a good look at his Light Industrial version CNC, which is what I'd really like to buy, but it's probably safer to first see what I need before buying something that might not best fit my needs.

[Ron111]

A few months back Aaron did have a New Mill on his web site. I think that it was maybe a 3HP varible speed mill (If memory is accurate) Was that the light industrial version? Like I said, I am even more impressed with the new version of the IH. Looks like Aaron, keeps an R&D effort on going to keep improving his product. I would love to see one in my shop!!

Enjoy your machine ,

Ron

[ZipSnipe]

Congrats Richards, you have not done yourself wrong as I too have given the IH considerable thought and research and I think its a good deal. Unfortunetly I don,t own one but I most likely will in the near future. Enjoy !!! Post some pics.

[Richards]

Aaron's R&D is the main reason that I bought the mill. Just seeing several mills, each equipted with different components, showed that he is very serious about building quality kits that do exactly what he says that they will do.

Although it's been more than twenty years since I owned and then sold a Bridgeport clone, and therefore am very rusty when it comes to cutting metal, I could easily see that parts cut on any of his mills were top quality.

Between the standard kit and the light industrial kit, he's got a solution that should work for almost everyone. Depending on the version, there's plenty of torque from servo motors, various optional motors and vfd units, various tool holders, the choice of gear driven or belt driven spindles, etc., etc., etc. Aaron talked about various bearings that he's tried with spindles being driven at 4,500 RPM, various oils and oiling methods. He showed me how easy it was to use both the R-8 tool holders and the 30-taper tool holders (excuse my ignorance of the proper terminology for the larger tool holders - I've seen them on large industrial machines, but never on mills costing less than $10,000). In short, Aaron not only talks the talk, but he walks the walk. When he discounted the price from $2,000 to $1,800 when he wrote the invoice, he mentioned that he had an Internet special going. I told him that since I didn't know about the special, he could have easily charged me full price and I would never have been the wiser. He simply said that that was not how he did business. That's when I knew that I was dealing with an honest man.

Anyway, after visiting his shop, talking with him, seeing and touching the mill, looking at the products that he has in the catalog and seeing ideas that are being tested, I felt very comfortable buying from him, knowing that I wouldn't be taking a gamble on a product dreamed up just to make a quick buck. His mill is big and heavy, easily able to do what he says that it will do without complaint for years of hard service. Aaron's product is exactly what I've been hoping to find.

[Loadedagain]

psst... richards. no responses to my thread here ( cat spindle/quill for ih mill ). what do you know?

[Zumba]

Richards,

I own the IH mill, among other mills. I will tell you right away that the machine before CNC conversion is quite a piece.... pos that is. The quality of the final product relies entirely on quality of the kit and installation. It's so bad that it can't go anywhere but up. I swear the machine uses bondo as a structural component in some areas. Okay, that's an exaggeration but it's still bad.

I would highly advise against wasting time with the machine in manual mode and install the CNC kit ASAP.