IH CNC Mill - Experiences? & Feedback.

[Rich05]

Seems like a great mill.

Can anyone shed some light on operating the CNC version. I want to produce aluminum parts, some of them over a foot in length.

Is it hard to control the mill from a PC interface?

Is the software stable? Any issues?

Does the mill stay on spec etc? Is the mill reliable, any drift etc?

Can parts be produced with consistant results? Hastle free?


What can I expect from this mill. Not making 1000 parts a day but would like a good reliable CNC operation. Sorry I do not know all the right questions to ask since new at this. This mill appears to be what I need. Just need some feedback on the mill's general performance and reliability. Don't want to see operations stop midstream just because the software / hardware are problematic. Need hastle free operation with quality results.

From what I have seen here the Mill appears to be quite high quality.

[MichaelHenry]

I can't speak to the questions on the IH mill directly, but you might also need to be thinking about CAM software, unless your parts are simple 2-1/2D.

It looks like the IH mill runs Mach3 for the control and that has some useful wizards that are easy to use for basic stuff.

Mike

[Ron111]

I also would like to see some feedback on the New IH mills with the larger size "Z" slide.

Ron

[Cruiser]

Just go back to the IH website and get their phone number and give them a call. You will enjoy talking to gene for sure, I sure did. Any of them will tell you the story of the IH mill. More importantly they will tell you what electronics are on the mill and why ! They will tell you of the "keep it simple" formula and I will add that my biggest problems were trying to add in fancy breakout boards ! Give them a call ! Tell Gene that Cruiser sent ya

[wildcat]

>Is it hard to control the mill from a PC interface?

Having only used manual mills before it took me a little while to get the hang of using a pendent. The biggest problem that I have is the lack of any sort of feedback present with manual mills. E.g. feeds can be judge by feel with a manual mill.

>Is the software stable? Any issues?

I use Mach3 and it is pretty good but it certainly seems to have issues. Mostly something seems screwy with offsets. I've had the offsets change right in the middle of a program for no apparent reason, i.e. there was no G-Code to do that. The interface is a bit dated. I am certainly NOT impressed with the wizards. The ability to customize is nice as it will let you remove all the junk you don't use. Dispute all this I have great respect for the author as it has to be a very complicated piece of software.

>Does the mill stay on spec etc? Is the mill reliable, any drift etc?

The mill's performance will have a lot to do with your skill. My skill is low so I don't expect the super tenth accuracy work. Normally I run my program which should be "perfect." Measure the difference between what I expected and the actual and compensate. Once the compensation factors are figured out runs are pretty consistent.

>Can parts be produced with consistant results? Hastle free?

I would say yes within reasonable tolerance. Related to the previous question I honestly believe that I can do more accurate work on a manual mill however there are soooo many things that I can do on my IH CNC mill that I could never do or would be really painful to do on a manual mill that I don't mind the limitation. Of course these limitations will be overcome with more experience.

Be sure to read through some of the past posts in this forum for more opinions. Opinions come cheap

I also agree with everything that Cruiser wrote. I had problems with the Sound Logic boards. Given the number of hours of frustration I had with those boards (not to mention the actual expenditure of ~$700 in fluff control boards) I could have bought two new computers if the current computer was ever roasted by a short. I still use a combo board.

Best of luck.

[SMW Precision]

Originally Posted by Ron111 I also would like to see some feedback on the New IH mills with the larger size "Z" slide. Ron

It makes for a very rigid mill!

Drill 3" block 6061, bit size 1.125" speed 7" per minute, 660 rpm with 2 retracts. Standard IH turnkey CNC mill 2hp 3 phase with vectorless VFD.

Vibration none noted bit throws ropes not chips.

This cut speed cannot be matched with a 10" Z-slide IH model.