I’ve been trying to get ahold of one of these mills in my price range for months… if anybody knows where to get a used one cheap, I would be very very grateful.

Posted at 3:06 am on Nov 13th, 2006 by gcc

i would love to have a cnc but would only ever use it every now and then.

Posted at 3:10 am on Nov 13th, 2006 by bender386

Harbor freight just opened a store in my area.. I’ve been eying one of these mills as a way to fabricate some custom RC parts but this just makes the decision all the more easy! nice links, have to calculate the cost compared to buying a used mill and see what kind of accuracy can be achieved

Posted at 8:52 am on Nov 13th, 2006 by jimmy d

The HF micromill works pretty good for a cnc on a budget. This is the log of our very own conversion.

http://www.embeddedtronics.com/micromill.html

More info on these mills here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hf47158toCNC_Moderated/

A good site for cnc info.
http://cnczone.com/

Jim

Posted at 9:20 am on Nov 13th, 2006 by Jim F

$260 is damn cheap – and harborfrieght has free shipping anyway.

Posted at 10:51 am on Nov 13th, 2006 by Will O'Brien

one of these guys needs to take their new mill, and make a kit for other people. i would love to buy a mill and a conversion kit, and start making parts — but unfortunately don’t have the mechanical ability (meaning tools) to create one from “scratch” like this.

Posted at 9:05 pm on Nov 13th, 2006 by fake

Fake,

Once you have the mill, you can use it manually to mill out the parts to convert it to cnc. To make it even easier, there are several companies selling conversion kits. These kits aren’t cheap but will get you up and running much faster.

http://www.kdntool.com

http://www.cncfusion.com/micromill1.html

Jim

Posted at 11:43 pm on Nov 13th, 2006 by Jim F

Thanks for the information!!

Posted at 1:20 am on Nov 14th, 2006 by Taraskin

I had bought one of these machines almost two years ago after seeing a different DIY PCB etching project, but some assholes broke into my house and stole it (among other things) early this year. The thing was damn heavy too. Still, it’s nice to see it done with that particular model, and I plan on eventually trying again. I still have the parts for the milling table (I had removed them at the time after buffing the contact surfaces smooth).

Posted at 12:40 pm on Nov 16th, 2006 by Paul

Found the site that originally inspired me:
http://cq.cx/pcb-router.pl

Posted at 12:41 pm on Nov 16th, 2006 by Paul

This looks awesome! Only problem is generating all the GCode…anyone know of a way to go from Solidworks to GCode for a reasonable price? (Cheap, Free, or *cough cough* “legitimately” acquired)

Posted at 2:52 pm on Nov 16th, 2006 by Scott

thanks for the informations

Posted at 4:50 am on Jul 30th, 2007 by guille