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    Default Benchtop mill with tool holders? Or a toolsetter perhaps?

    Howdy! I've been using an XCarve for a few years now, and am finally ready to upgrade to a proper, custom-CNC-converted mill. In many respects, the Taig 5019CR Ball-Screw mill is perfect for my needs: I'll be doing small, precise work in aluminum. Doesn't matter if I have to take cuts slow - not using this to make money - and the work envelope is plenty.

    That being said, one of my biggest pet-peeves with the XCarve is tool-changes and touch-off. Every single tool-change means breaking out the collet wrench, carefully swapping end-mills, and then hooking up an alligator clip for an electric height measurement. It makes me dread multi-tool operations, and hey, hobby CNC should be joyful and fun, not dreadful.

    So, for this in-the-planning-stages new mill, I see three options:

    Plan A) Find a mill with a drawbar and tool holder spindle. Get tool holders for all my end-mills, pre-measure their lengths, and enjoy the bliss of touch-off-free CNC. The issue here is: I can't seem to find a small benchtop mill that accepts tool-holders. Is my only option a Tormach?! I'm looking for something in the $3k range :|

    Plan B) Assuming no such tool holder wundermill exists, get the Taig and add a toolsetter. Something like this: https://drewtronics.org/ts1000 though perhaps cheaper and smaller. Anyone have recommendations here? I need to hit a ~thou repeatability, so I don't want to buy cheap junk, but I'm hoping there's something in the middle, maybe in the $150 range, that can measure reliably.

    I would still have to use a collet wrench, but I could build an automatic tool-setter cycle into my tool-changes (yay LinuxCNC), and the dreaded alligator clip would be no more. The main downside, I think, is the large footprint on my table. Again, I don't need *that* big of a work envelope, but I'd like to be able to use all of what I bought! It would also limit the max measurable Z-length of my tools.

    Plan C) Keep using the alligator clip, and do electrical probing off a cheap gage block clamped to the bed. This is cheaper than a toolsetter and would take up less space (both in bed area and in Z-height), but I'm not actually sure if it would work. Unlike the XCarve, everything is metal here; worried there might already be an electrical path between the spindle and the bed. Anyone have experience on this?

    Thanks everyone, and take care!

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  2. #2

    Default Re: Benchtop mill with tool holders? Or a toolsetter perhaps?

    A. Any mill that has an R8 spindle will have a drawbar (check out Little Machine Shop for Sieg, Precision Matthews, Grizzly). You can get toolholders in R8 that are repeatable with either side clamp set screw or ER collet.

    B. You can get a cheap tool setter on eBay for about $60 or you can just use piece of double sided PCB board as a touch plate. There are tool offset measurement routines for just about every CNC software. Measure all of your tools and then take the tool setter off the machine if you need the table space.

    C. Yes, you need to insulate the touch plate from the table. The spindle and table are in electrical contact with each other.



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Benchtop mill with tool holders? Or a toolsetter perhaps?

Benchtop mill with tool holders? Or a toolsetter perhaps?