[Wmacky1]

First post, though I've lurked a few times over the last 4 years! I've always left being stuck in indecision over which way to go. Let me start by saying that i'm new to metal working, milling, CNC, and CAD / CAM. Yes, greener than the Spring grass! (i Have watched the "Hoss" recommended MIT series) YouTube Tutorials of CAD are leaving me COLD so far. I'm a tinkerer, and love tech stuff, but just looking over Mach is pretty tough stuff. I hope i'm not over my head here.

On the the good stuff, THE MACHINES!

With just a small bit of research the obvious choices quickly come down to 2 machines.

The Taig, and the G0704

The Taig is very tempting with it's possibly better fit and finish, and easier to assemble CNC package, but the G0704 could better handle some of the larger projects I may want to do. I don't want to be stuck making jewelry, or model car parts!

Is a G0704 conversion project to much for a newbie?

How sure can we be that a CNCFussion kit will be available this year. I don't think I could go on prints alone at this point, so there is some risk here with no current kit.

BTW, I did order a G0704 from Grizzly this week with a possible ship date of Oct 29, So there's time to cancel and go the Taig route.


Also, how best to get started with CAD. The MIT videos are great for general milling, but the Youtube videos I've seen for CAD suck pretty bad. Is there better?

[jalessi]

Wmacky1,

Hoss2006 as well as Ellik are making CNC kit's for the G0704.

Welcome to the Zone,

Jeff...

[Wmacky1]

Hoss has a kit? I thought he was doing prints only?

How about these Ellik kits? I'm hoping for a simple stage 1 kit, reusing the acme screws for now.


I'm ready to order some tooling now. I'm going with a 4" Glacern vise , and the cheap clap down kit from Grissly.

Looking for recommendations for a "good" Test indicator, edge / center finder, starter end mills, 123 blocks, and paralells. I don't know that I need the best money can buy, but would like to make 1 time purchases of good tooling.

[diyengineer]

Hoss has a kit? I thought he was doing prints only?

How about these Ellik kits? I'm hoping for a simple stage 1 kit, reusing the acme screws for now.


I'm ready to order some tooling now. I'm going with a 4" Glacern vise , and the cheap clap down kit from Grissly.

Looking for recommendations for a "good" Test indicator, edge / center finder, starter end mills, 123 blocks, and paralells. I don't know that I need the best money can buy, but would like to make 1 time purchases of good tooling.

http://littlemachineshop.com/
They have a little bit of everything.

Hoss's stage 1 kit i believe uses stock screws and you simply take the handwheels off and bolt the stepper to the screw..

[mwood3]

As far as i know hoss is only going to do prints and a few misc. parts...he even discontinued the "raw material" stock kit he did sell...looks like he wants to focus more on R&D rather than production.

I would be nice if someone came up with a "kit" that was similar to Hoss's stage 1 plans that allowed the use of stock screws.

[photomankc]

1.) Is a G0704 conversion project to much for a newbie?


2.) Also, how best to get started with CAD. The MIT videos are great for general milling, but the Youtube videos I've seen for CAD suck pretty bad. Is there better?

1.) I'd say no. My main challange in making them has been the dimensional issues that come from the fact I am using a different mill (PM-25 vs G0704). The parts themselves are not difficult to make at all. The Y axis bearing/spacer block is the one thing that might be more difficult to get done minus a lathe or boring head. I did mine on the mill with a boring head and the bottoms of the pockets came out pretty ratty. I cleaned mine up on the lathe but if you go carefully no reason you can't do it. A rotary table would work too.

Test fitting is the other bear. If the mill is all you have then it sucks to have to take it all down test fit and then put it back together again.

I'm a rank newb too so if I can do it you can too. Work on the easier parts first till you lean the basics of feeds and speeds then start the more ambitious stuff.

2.) I found SolidEdge CAD to be very easy to use with a decent help file. If you haven't used other CAD then there are no old habits to break. I get most of my drawing done in SolidEdge now and I really like it. I had no prior background in CAD prior to installing it. Google Sketchup is a nice app to visualize a design or part. I used to use it to get the relationship of parts down and then draw it up as a normal drawing to make the parts. The down side is that you can't easily convert from Sketchup to a standard filetype that CAD programs can read so I always ended up drawing it twice.

[diyengineer]

Do you want a free program or do you want to pay for a program?

Google sketchup is free like Photomankc said. Awesome program for a novice to get there feet wet. Lets you visualize how a 3D part comes together. You can get the basic understanding of how a 3D cad program works. there are also a ton of online help references and youtube is full of goodies (along with book stores carry a few books on sketchup) I would play with it but dont waste to much time on it. You will want to transition over to a cad program that you plan on sticking with for the long haul and buy books (amazon will be your best friend SUPER CHEAP ive bought roughly 12 cad books from them for dirt cheap used 70-80% off retail). Its easier to learn something and stick with it, rather then learn and be forced to switch. Also before you buy a program look into CAM packages too, some programs have integraded tool path makers like RhINO CAD/CAM. Makes it really easy to not have to open up a different program and start learning from scratch again.

Attached are a few pictures from sketchup. I used sketchup last year to draft blueprints for my 30 foot deck and a 16x16 shed.

http://sketchup.google.com/

[mwood3]

Nice drawings!

I just Downloaded Google sketch yesterday and began goofing around with it...I have a bit of an ambitious project or modeling my house-.-