Reply with QuoteLooking forward to watch the progress. Always glad to see a young company making a start.
John
600LBs cast iron monster !!
Hi all, we’d like to introduce a mill we’ve been building over the last several months that is being iterated and would end up on kickstarter. We call it the Maker Mill because we’re targeting makers, micro-fabricators, inventors, hobbyists, educators and professionals. Due to its cast iron construction we built this to be able to machine all materials. The price we believe is low enough that you don’t need a business or worry about ROI if you want to purchase it. This is aimed at those who are micro-fabricators and other business owners who are looking for quality (tolerances/repeatability) at maybe the sacrifice of throughput (speed) for the benefit of a low price.
We’re currently in the testing and tuning stage of our prototype. It’ll end up definitely going through one more iteration before it’s production ready. The reason we’re posting this is because we’re planning a crowdfunding campaign (Kickstarter) soon and are looking for feedback.
We couldn’t wait and took a teaser video of it shortly after we got it finally up and running. Sorry for the bad camera quality!
We decided to build it because there aren’t many low cost robust mills on the market currently, just one brand which has a near monopoly over these size mills. The pricing for them starts at a reasonable price until you realize it doesn’t even include computer/controller. By the time you get a working mill with some industry standard “upgrades,” you’re already in the hole for a couple more thousand just in options. We wanted something you could buy that would run right out of the box. No excessive amounts of installation required, no hidden fees/upgrades required. You can buy the mill at its list price and have it come with everything you need and start cutting soon after receiving it. It’s packed full of excellent features that you normally have to pay extra for such as a BT30 spindle and power drawbar which on ours is standard.
Price is somewhere around $8,000 - $9,000 but we’re trying to bring it down to $5-6k for the kickstarter. We want to drop the price as low as we can get it without taking too much of a loss.
What ~$8,500 gets you:
~600 lbs of iron cast into the frame, optimised after finite element analysis and harmonic frequency analysis simulations.
Premium BT30 spindle (90mm od, (3) 7008 angulars front, (2) 7007 angulars rear) + pneumatic drawbar
25mm linear guides all around
20mm c7 ball screws with double ball nuts (anti-backlash), c5 upgrade available
Industrial 6 axis capable, higher order motion controller with robust software package included with price
Conversational programming
XYZ Travel: 16in x 12in x 16” (410mm x 300mm x 400mm)
Very small footprint, less than 36” x 36”
Relatively plug and play, assembled by us, not by you.
Closed loop steppers, servo upgrade available
Mist coolant is standard
Runs on 220v - standard in residential housing for washers and dryers
Designed and assembled in USA
Standard tooling system available world wide from innumerable suppliers
2.2Kw spindle motor
Vector frequency drive spindle controller
USA designed and assembled, USA customer support
We’d love to answer any questions you have. We just launched our landing page too, so if you want to learn more click this link:https://www.vulcanmachineco.com/. We have an email list you can sign up for to hear any news of our progress and information on our launch.
About Us:
Vulcan Machining Co is a company formed by two friends with a passion for mechatronics. They got together to build a mill that targeted makers, micro-fabricators, inventors, hobbyists, educators and professionals at a price that even hobbyists could find affordable. There are currently only a very small number of companies which are dominating the market and their hope with Vulcan Machining Co is to bring competition and show everyone that these machines do not need to be so expensive and can be truly affordable. A professional CNC today can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, with industry acceptable ones starting at tens of thousands of dollars. The hope of Vulcan Machine Co is to develop a CNC mill for under $10,000.
About the Mill:
Due to its cast iron construction we built this to be able to machine all materials. The price we believe is low enough that you don’t need a business or worry about ROI if you want to purchase it. This is aimed at those who are micro-fabricators and other business owners who are looking for quality (tolerances/repeatability) at maybe the sacrifice of throughput (speed) for the benefit of a low price.
We decided to build it because there aren’t many low cost robust mills on the market currently, just one brand which has a near monopoly over these size mills. The pricing for them starts at a reasonable price until you realize it doesn’t even include computer/controller. By the time you get a working mill with some industry standard “upgrades,” you’re already in the hole for a couple more thousand just in options. We wanted something you could buy that would run right out of the box. No excessive amounts of installation required, no hidden fees/upgrades required. You can buy the mill at its list price and have it come with everything you need and start cutting soon after receiving it. It’s packed full of excellent features that you normally have to pay extra for such as a BT30 spindle and power drawbar which on ours is standard.
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Last edited by VulcanMachineCo; 01-29-2019 at 09:30 AM.
Re: 600LBs cast iron monster !!
Looking forward to watch the progress. Always glad to see a young company making a start.
John
Re: 600LBs cast iron monster !!
Skip to the 4:00 min mark
The secret is in the end mill. If the little Tormach can do it I suspect your machine can as well.
He's using this --> 1/4" Variable 3 Flute End Mill for Aluminum Zrn
What rpm range are you shooting for ?
Anyone who says "It only goes together one way" has no imagination.
Re: 600LBs cast iron monster !!
The spindle and motor set up is good till 8000 rpm.Originally Posted by cyclestart
Though for all the shots we used a 3/8in end mill and a 50mm face mill
I will say this it create a nice Surface finish with the face mill we have. Its practically a mirror haha
Btw This is the same machine in this post https://www.cnczone.com/forums/bench...63928-cnc.html
We thought it may be time to allow the public to have a little peek so we can get feed back and such so for the production model we should have all the kinks worked out hopefully
Re: 600LBs cast iron monster !!
NiceThe spindle and motor set up is good till 8000 rpm.A machine advertised as capable of 'all materials' will also need decent torque at lower rpm. Ability to change drive ratios may be valuable.
I like the goals and the concept. I am not sure why c-frames dominate this market.
Anyone who says "It only goes together one way" has no imagination.
Re: 600LBs cast iron monster !!
thank you !! will post more pictures and media soon
Re: 600LBs cast iron monster !!
We have played with the idea of doing so but using HTD pulleys and belts system would make it a little hard to switch ratios for end user so we went with finding a solid spindle motorNice
I like the goals and the concept. I am not sure why c-frames dominate this market.
The current one we have on the machine allows for 12 nm of torque from 0 to 1500 rpm and it capable of going to 8000 rpms.
As for testing its doing pretty good from aluminium and steel its solid up to a 3/8 end mill. Also face mills pretty well.
