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polyfractal posted:Just starting to research hobby CNC machines. Before I get too deep in the weeds, any recommendations for a machine/setup that emphasizes precision over speed/size?
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Jan 17, 2017 00:29
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polyfractal posted:I just did a quick search and it appears gear hobbing is non-trivial and rather specialized... not exactly DIY hobby friendly. Perhaps I should just stick to ordering mass manufactured gears. Or maybe investigate higher-res 3D printing like SLA? You can cut gears with a CNC machine and a 4th axis dividing head, which is pretty cheap compared to a true 4th axis. Look at the clickspring videos, he does a lot of that kind of thing.
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Jan 17, 2017 02:37
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^^ Will do, thanks for the tip!rawrr posted:You should have a look at this: http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/gcnc/ch1/ it seems exactly up your alley. Oh, this looks awesome! I'll read through all his stuff and take notes, it looks exactly like what I had in mind. Sagebrush posted:Just a random point: with CNC equipment, the larger machines are usually the more precise ones as well as being stronger and faster. Any decent mill can hold a tolerance of .001" most of the time, but to get beyond that level, you need to start thinking about environmental vibration, microscopic deflections in the mill itself, stuff like that. That's why serious machines are still built around a massive, heavy cast-iron frame that outweighs anything you might be working on by a factor of 100. Ah, yeah, that makes sense. Bigger == stiffer and less vibration, which translates to better accuracy (assuming the electronics and motors can position reliably). Comatoast posted:If you're willing to go with plastic and acrylic gears, why not a laser engraver/cutter? To be honest, I hadn't even thought about it. I'll take a look and see if it makes sense for me. 
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Jan 17, 2017 15:05
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Big rear end Fans donated an old 4 axis hot wire cutter to our makerspace at the end of last year, and I decided I want to make it work again. I'm mostly focused on figuring out their driver board / control boxes. I have some experience in the cnc routers we have, and plenty in hotwire cutting, but theres a second box in series with the one driving the steppers and heating the wire that I have no idea what its purpose is. No manufacturing label, and all I can gather is that it takes 8v, 1amp (if the ac adapter in the pile had anything to do with it.) Did they just separate the control electronics from the drivers and power supply? Maybe I'm having a brain fart. Heres all the photos I took in the brief moments I was at the space today. I'm still waiting on feedback from our cnc slack. Hopefully we can start shoving foods into this real soon http://imgur.com/a/Sim33 moron izzard fucked around with this message at 13:12 on Jan 24, 2017 |
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Jan 24, 2017 05:11
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A Yolo Wizard posted:Big rear end Fans donated an old 4 axis hot wire cutter to our makerspace at the end of last year, and I decided I want to make it work again. I'm mostly focused on figuring out their driver board / control boxes. I have some experience in the cnc routers we have, and plenty in hotwire cutting, but theres a second box in series with the one driving the steppers and heating the wire that I have no idea what its purpose is. No manufacturing label, and all I can gather is that it takes 8v, 1amp (if the ac adapter in the pile had anything to do with it.) Did they just separate the control electronics from the drivers and power supply? Maybe I'm having a brain fart. That's what the photos look like to me. Reminds me of the intermediate control box you have in between a PC and the power supply/drivers/motors on a CNC mill (look at the control boxes on the typical chinese CNC 6040 for reference).
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Jan 24, 2017 17:46
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A Yolo Wizard posted:Big rear end Fans donated an old 4 axis hot wire cutter to our makerspace at the end of last year, and I decided I want to make it work again. I'm mostly focused on figuring out their driver board / control boxes. I have some experience in the cnc routers we have, and plenty in hotwire cutting, but theres a second box in series with the one driving the steppers and heating the wire that I have no idea what its purpose is. No manufacturing label, and all I can gather is that it takes 8v, 1amp (if the ac adapter in the pile had anything to do with it.) Did they just separate the control electronics from the drivers and power supply? Maybe I'm having a brain fart. http://www.terminalblockmanufacturer.com/pro.php?m=d&pid=27&cid=34&f=18
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Jan 26, 2017 00:32
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yeah it was taped to the side for some reason. I have no idea what kind of foam you'd need 600v, 15a for.
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Jan 26, 2017 02:59
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Kinda outside the hobby scope of this thread, but is there some sort of really comprehensive software simulator that you could use with a Haas controller? Doesn't have to be free. My school has a bunch of Haas control simulators but they don't get used for much because the profs and techs don't think the dry run simulator that's on board is particularly good.
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Feb 3, 2017 18:01
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Ambrose Burnside posted:Kinda outside the hobby scope of this thread, but is there some sort of really comprehensive software simulator that you could use with a Haas controller? Doesn't have to be free. My school has a bunch of Haas control simulators but they don't get used for much because the profs and techs don't think the dry run simulator that's on board is particularly good. Like, ones with all the stupid buttons like you'd find on the control panel on the machine?
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Feb 4, 2017 11:44
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I need to draw a bunch of different tapered rods in CAD using coordinates. Basically I have measured the diameter of the rod along the length every 1/4". Is there a good way to input this in to fusion 360 or another program so it can then be edited and then eventually turned on my lathe ? I have the measurements all listed out in an Excel spreadsheet if there is some sort of batch processing I could do.
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Feb 5, 2017 02:05
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Ambrose Burnside posted:Kinda outside the hobby scope of this thread, but is there some sort of really comprehensive software simulator that you could use with a Haas controller? Doesn't have to be free. My school has a bunch of Haas control simulators but they don't get used for much because the profs and techs don't think the dry run simulator that's on board is particularly good. http://www.immerse2learn.com/learncnc/haas/index.cfm These guys have a software simulator you could look into. No idea if it's any good, it's mainly intended for learning the control. Otherwise, CimcoEdit has a simulator, and I think GWizard has something too. Brekelefuw posted:I need to draw a bunch of different tapered rods in CAD using coordinates. If you've got the coordinates you've already done the hard parts and you could easily write the code by hand, or have excel do it. Use some concatenate functions to combine your coordinates with X and Z values, add in the approaches at the start and end, and presto.
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Feb 5, 2017 02:57
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I don't know g code yet 😭
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Feb 5, 2017 03:56
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Consistent tapers? Use your high school trig to determine angles, which is more reliable. Then use the "revolve" function in Fusion 360 to generate an accurate model.
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Feb 5, 2017 04:56
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Brekelefuw posted:I don't know g code yet 😭 Going to be honest: sounds like a perfect learning project. You can copy start and end code from whatever other posted code you've got lying around, and it sounds like you only need g01 linear moves to actually do the cutting. I'm less familiar with lathe code, but simple point to point stuff is really easy. If accuracy on tapers and curves is important you'd need tool nose radius compensation, but that's pretty easy to set up. Don't let the big lists of codes scare you: 75% of the time you use two, g00 rapid and g01 linear feed, another 15% is g02/3 arc moves, and the last ten percent is basically just T codes, spindle on, and work offset call.
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Feb 5, 2017 06:00
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Methylethylaldehyde posted:Like, ones with all the stupid buttons like you'd find on the control panel on the machine? The specific grievance is that they've got the physical simulator control panels on hand, so you can familiarize yourself with the actual control panel and enter codes and stuff, but the toolpath renders and graphics the onboard simulator outputs to give the user meaningful feedback is half-assed and doesn't emulate a lot of real-world conditions- like iirc it can't represent or predict most crash conditions because it doesn't factor for/care about fixtures or tooling or the physical machine constraints. You can't really do stuff like familiarize yourself with jogging around or a lot of the mundane work of the actual machining process. the immerse2learn thing Karia posted seems kinda like what's needed because it involves 3d renders of the actual machine doing actual machine things, the catch is we don't need or want software control panels because we have the real thing. I dunno if there's a way to plug the control panel into a PC and do a software simulation of a Haas machine doing the actual machining processes but that's specifically what's keeping the simulators as underutilized questionable investments, as I understand it, and creates a big bottleneck in the intro-level classroom because all the useful farting around has to happen on an actual mill and there's a lot more students than mills. I'm seeing a lot of kinda samey-looking simulators on google that do at least most of what they'd need, I was just wondering if anybody has any endorsements or whatever cause a lot of em look p lovely + no idea if they'd support a physical panel instead of the virtual one Ambrose Burnside fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Feb 5, 2017 |
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Feb 5, 2017 22:59
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Ambrose Burnside posted:The specific grievance is that they've got the physical simulator control panels on hand, so you can familiarize yourself with the actual control panel and enter codes and stuff, but the toolpath renders and graphics the onboard simulator outputs to give the user meaningful feedback is half-assed and doesn't emulate a lot of real-world conditions- like iirc it can't represent or predict most crash conditions because it doesn't factor for/care about fixtures or tooling or the physical machine constraints. You can't really do stuff like familiarize yourself with jogging around or a lot of the mundane work of the actual machining process. the immerse2learn thing Karia posted seems kinda like what's needed because it involves 3d renders of the actual machine doing actual machine things, the catch is we don't need or want software control panels because we have the real thing.
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Feb 6, 2017 00:59
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So with the help of my brother I finally finished my conversion. The controller seems to work but it's very finicky about gcodes and stalls for non obvious reasons. I went out of my way to build it with a brushless spindle motor, and it paid off because the thing is quieter than the power supply fans when running. This being my first mill, I was also surprised by how quiet even light cuts in aluminum are, and cutting machinable wax basically makes no sound at all.   
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Feb 6, 2017 01:07
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Nice! Beyond the noise, how's it stack up to a conventional motor? Also, what's that work surface you're using over the standard table? I've put a couple minor dings in mine already just overtightening fixtures and that setup looks decent as a spoilboard to soak up the dings and fuckups + helping get your work squared quick. Methylethylaldehyde posted:Honestly the software solution would probably be the best bet for most people. You could also make them split time between the physical simulator and the software one, in addition to using Fusion360 with a modeled table/fixture/workpiece to sorta bridge the gaps between all 3. This is true. I read around a bunch on cnczone and Predator's CNC simulator keeps getting recommended as one of the more professional and comprehensive offerings with full simulation of every Haas machine currently offered, I dunno what their price-points are like but I might mention it to the program coordinator who was doing the griping, see what he thinks. Ambrose Burnside fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Feb 6, 2017 |
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Feb 6, 2017 01:19
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rawrr posted:I went out of my way to build it with a brushless spindle motor, and it paid off because the thing is quieter than the power supply fans when running. I'm curious as to what model that motor is, where you got it, and how you are driving it. Ambrose Burnside posted:Also, what's that work surface you're using over the standard table? I've put a couple minor dings in mine already just overtightening fixtures and that setup looks decent as a spoilboard to soak up the dings and fuckups + helping get your work squared quick. Looks like a fixture plate, also known as a jig plate or sub-plate. It's basically just a piece of your material of choice (usually aluminum) with counterbored holes to mount it to the table and a grid of evenly spaced threaded holes for attaching things. You can also add precision alignment holes for stuff like dowel pins or specific tooling. I have one on my drill press and its great for the reasons you mentioned.
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Feb 6, 2017 03:17
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Ambrose Burnside posted:Nice! Beyond the noise, how's it stack up to a conventional motor? I bought it without the AC motor for a $100ish discount, so I can't give a direct comparison, but I made the swap mainly so that I can set the spindle speed within the G-code / through the controller. The plate is a "4" x 14" x 5/8" Tooling plate for Mill." sold by Taig that I bought together with the mill. It's probably cheaper to buy an aluminum plate and drill the fixturing holes yourself, though. DethMarine21 posted:I'm curious as to what model that motor is, where you got it, and how you are driving it. The motor is 48v 500W 3000RPM, driven with a 60v 15A BLDC driver. I had to get the stock pulley bored out to accept the motor shaft. The motor and driver was around $100 plus shipping, but the machine shop charged me like $60 to bore out the pulley wtf. I also had to buy a 500W 48v power supply. https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a312a.7700846.0.0.D8X9fc&id=22128856466&_u=62bv29q3c28a https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a312a.7700846.0.0.D8X9fc&id=12545658761&_u=62bv29q36ea5
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Feb 6, 2017 03:43
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Woohoo. Finally got my Mach3 running my lathe accurately. Time to crash it....a lot.
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Feb 6, 2017 04:24
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rawrr posted:The motor is 48v 500W 3000RPM, driven with a 60v 15A BLDC driver. I had to get the stock pulley bored out to accept the motor shaft. The motor and driver was around $100 plus shipping, but the machine shop charged me like $60 to bore out the pulley wtf. I also had to buy a 500W 48v power supply. Wow, that's a lot less expensive than I would have thought. Is there any english documentation on how to wire everything up?
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Feb 6, 2017 15:30
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The documentation is in Chinese unfortunately, but if you're looking to pick up a set I'd be happy to help you with it. It's fairly straightforward; the only gotcha was needing to pull the direction input to ground - I broke my first endmill because spindle was spinning counter clockwise... If I were to do it again I'd maybe go for a less powerful motor; based on what I've read it seems like 500W is a bit of an overkill. The stock one is 1/4hp (~186W) and apparently stiffness not hp is the limiting factor. The most common spindle motor conversions seem to be either using a sherline DC motor or BLDC sewing machine motors you can find off of eBay.
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Feb 6, 2017 17:36
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rawrr posted:BLDC sewing machine motors you can find off of eBay. Could you link an example? I can't seem to find any. I recently bought an old 4.5" swing lathe that didn't come with a motor and it seems like a 250W brushless would be a good match.
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Feb 7, 2017 01:06
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http://www.ebay.com/itm/Consew-CSM1...TAAAOSwcLxYJlCZ http://www.ebay.com/itm/EXCELLENT-Q...L4AAOSwG-1WzPFJ http://www.ebay.com/itm/SEWING-MACH...3IAAOSwyQtVgcEr
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Feb 7, 2017 01:37
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Ambrose Burnside posted:The specific grievance is that they've got the physical simulator control panels on hand, so you can familiarize yourself with the actual control panel and enter codes and stuff, but the toolpath renders and graphics the onboard simulator outputs to give the user meaningful feedback is half-assed and doesn't emulate a lot of real-world conditions- like iirc it can't represent or predict most crash conditions because it doesn't factor for/care about fixtures or tooling or the physical machine constraints. You can't really do stuff like familiarize yourself with jogging around or a lot of the mundane work of the actual machining process. the immerse2learn thing Karia posted seems kinda like what's needed because it involves 3d renders of the actual machine doing actual machine things, the catch is we don't need or want software control panels because we have the real thing. Yeah, the simulators aren't very useful in my opinion, they just show the centerline trace of the tool with no other graphics or collision detection or anything, it's the same as the on-machine simulation. All it'll tell you is if the code actually runs, and maybe you can tell if it does something really wrong. The class I helped teach only used them for debugging simple manual programs. I only taught on the machine side, but we used the Immerse2Learn stuff to teach the basics of the control, CAM simulations for all the serious programs, and CAM simulations for all the serious programs. I seriously doubt there's a way to plug the physical ones in, but I suppose you could ask Haas. One other thing to note about the Immerse2Learn thing: the students can download it onto their computers, so they can play around at home. Also got some lesson plans, when I used it they were pretty hit or miss but they've probably improved.
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Feb 7, 2017 02:05
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Awesome stuff; thanks. It's looking like the same motor and controller that you used will also work for me. What power supply did you get?
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Feb 7, 2017 19:26
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https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z09.2.0.0.5lyDJd&id=520213056634&_u=82bv29q3a76c is the one I picked up. I originally bought a cheaper, 500W Meanwell one which turned out to be counterfeit and only accepted 220V.
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Feb 8, 2017 03:24
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Has anyone tried 4 pin XLR cables for their stepper motor wiring? The 3 pin ones are usually flexible and well shielded so it seems like a good idea for improving my lovely wiring. That and the locking jacks are easy to get and wire up so it could be a good option for a portable arduino & raspi control unit.
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Feb 10, 2017 15:38
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Parts Kit posted:Has anyone tried 4 pin XLR cables for their stepper motor wiring? The 3 pin ones are usually flexible and well shielded so it seems like a good idea for improving my lovely wiring. That and the locking jacks are easy to get and wire up so it could be a good option for a portable arduino & raspi control unit. I looked into when working on one at my local hackerspace, and it should be fine as long as you get ones with a sufficient current rating. Digikey has 4 pin xlrs up to 15 amps, and if you need more than that you should really take pics for this thread.
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Feb 10, 2017 18:30
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Parts Kit posted:Has anyone tried 4 pin XLR cables for their stepper motor wiring? The 3 pin ones are usually flexible and well shielded so it seems like a good idea for improving my lovely wiring. That and the locking jacks are easy to get and wire up so it could be a good option for a portable arduino & raspi control unit. I use 4 pin DIN connectors. 8 wire steppers in to the 4 pins. Works nicely. A bit of a pain to solder the wires in to the cups on the pins though.
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Feb 10, 2017 20:03
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Rad! I ran across this listing for shielded stepper wire earlier so I should be set on that front. Once I'm ready I'll grab that and some appropriate connectors off Mouser.  Thanks guys!
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Feb 11, 2017 03:52
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I'm looking to graduate from 3D printing to an even bigger money-pit: a CNC mill. A lot of info online is several years old, so I'm trying to keep model numbers of all the Sieg machines and such straight. I'm really new at this. I'm looking at the SeigX2-base LMS 3990 for $900. I like that it has the updated brushless motor, belt drive, a slightly larger table, and a solid-mounted head. I assume the version with DRO factory-fitted isn't really necessary if I'm intending to go CNC? To that, add a CNCFusion kit for $650 with motor mounts and ball screws. Some kind of NEMA23 set. Gecko drive and ethernet SmoothStepper? Seems like I could be all in for $2500 and have a bigger table that the $4000 purpose-built LMS CNC mill. I'm a little ways off from buying anything. Please critique my plan.
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Mar 3, 2017 02:06
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I went through what you're going through (3d printing -> i want a cnc mill -> sieg x2 via LMS). I ended up going with a Taig for the following reasons: - Easier CNC conversion; the Taig can be ordered CNC ready with stepper mounts. IIRC the cncfusion kit still requires you to drill holes and partially disassemble the thing - Cheaper; a CNC ready Taig is around $1200 whereas the X2 + CNC kit will be $1500 - Faster spindle; the stock Taig can handle up to 10k RPM (vs the X2's 2500) - Better fit and finish; Taig is made in the USA, (supposedly) designed by an ex-aerospace machinist, adjusted to about .002" backlash from the factory. I've read mixed reviews about the X2. They also offer a ballscrew version now but I don't think they're worth the upcharge. The downside is that the Taig is probably less rigid (though I haven't really found that to be a problem, as at these sizes the end mill will tend to deflect more than/before the frame does. The lighter Taig also makes it easier to move/set up), and I do like the brushless spindle motor on the LMS X2. I got around the spindle motor issue by ordering the Taig without a motor (for $175 off I think), and rigging up my own brushless arrangement that I've discussed a few posts up.
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Mar 3, 2017 03:00
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I saw your posts about the Taig. They just don't seem nearly as popular. Maybe all of you Taig owners are all happily using your machines instead of posting about them online. The other thing is that I have no sense of scale or of the working volume I'll eventually want. The Taig looks so small and spartan when I've been flirting with the larger X3-based machines as future-proofing.
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Mar 3, 2017 03:46
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The Taig also uses a lightswitch as the on off switch. 
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Mar 3, 2017 03:48
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The X2 and Taig both have the same work area I think. I posted because I set out to buy the same HiTorque model (I ruled out the Taig for the same reasons you have) and only ended up with the Taig because of those points. I'd say to get the biggest mill you can for the space and money you have; had I the space, I probably would've gone for the Taiwanese RF45 / G704 / PM25 which are supposedly much much better built than the Siegs. rawrr fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Mar 3, 2017 |
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Mar 3, 2017 04:13
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biracial bear for uncut posted:That's what the photos look like to me. Reminds me of the intermediate control box you have in between a PC and the power supply/drivers/motors on a CNC mill (look at the control boxes on the typical chinese CNC 6040 for reference). edit: followed some email clues and figured it out. It's a converter specifically for deskcnc http://deskcnc.com moron izzard fucked around with this message at 15:18 on Mar 10, 2017 |
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Mar 10, 2017 02:32
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eddiewalker posted:I saw your posts about the Taig. They just don't seem nearly as popular. I think they have a distributor problems. As in, they don't really have very many. quote:The other thing is that I have no sense of scale or of the working volume I'll eventually want. The Taig looks so small and spartan when I've been flirting with the larger X3-based machines as future-proofing. work envelope is about the same, iirc the sieg has 1-2" more y-axis travel. If you're getting it as a CNC the Taig seems like a no-brainer to me. It's cheaper and more accurate. One thing I really wish the taig had is a quill. Its very hard to use it as a drill. But you don't care about that if it's gonna be a cnc machine. Worth noting is that I can swap between manual & cnc on my taig in like ~15 minutes. Not sure if that means anything to you, but it's pretty handy for me. Also, it's actually made in the USA, if that means anything to you. edit: oh you're looking at the super cheapo sieg. yeah no buy a taig. rotor fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Mar 12, 2017 |
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Mar 12, 2017 06:24
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Aurium posted:The Taig also uses a lightswitch as the on off switch. and they pass the savings on to you
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Mar 12, 2017 08:52
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