Taig a good idea for this project?

[strohkirchw]

Looking at getting a mill and trying to decide how to spend $1800-2000. Either a larger manual setup or smaller cnc like the DG1 build or similar. The first project is pretty basic but wanted opinions on how well the Taig setup would do.

The pictures show a piece of 6061 that is 5"x4" and 1.25" deep. The front has a total cutout depth of 25mm and the back fins are about 4.25mm deep. Can I expect repeatable accuracy down to .01mm? How long could one expect the Taig setup to make a piece like this?

[rowbare]

That is a nice looking part but I think your specs are too ambitious. .01mm is taxing for most big VMCs never mind an 85 lb benchtop mill. A 10 degree C shift in temperature will expand your material more than that.

That said, a Taig can certainly do a good job on a part like that though it will take a while to do that pocket. Using a .25 in cutter figure about 20-25 ipm at between .05 and .1 inches DOC.

Also your corners are square. That can't be done with a mill. You will have to radius your corners. Avoid too tight a radius since that will force you to use a very small end mill for a finishing pass. You would have a hard time finding a small diameter end mill that will cut that deep. This isn't Taig specific btw. A part with those square internal edges would normally be cast or forged.

Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.

bob

[strohkirchw]

Thanks for the input

The part will have radius corners on it but I'm still learning autocad, especially the 3d portion of it. Haven't quite figured out how to make nice representable models in it yet. I'm more aligned with 3d Studio Max and other actual modeling applications.

Now that I know it'll do a decent job I can go ahead and make a purchase. I can also work with the dimensions to make it more reasonable for this machine.