Re: New member

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, "Nigel Lawton"
<nigellawton009@...> wrote:

>
> Hi,
> I have a long term ambition to get into 3D CAD and CNC milling or
> possibly even STL to make small (up to around 1" dimensions)......

Well I would definitely recommend the Proxxon MF70, well I would
because I have one:

http://www.indoor.flyer.co.uk/millingmachine.htm

Its small cheap and pretty well made. The spindle is fast and
quiet(ish) and has decent little steel collets for the chuck (three
slot not 4 like a dremel). With fine feeds and high speeds it
produces fantastic parts in ali and brass, ali is helped by a drop of
WD40 every so often. Use carbide tools always, they are cheap at
these sizes (1/8" and below).

The leadscrews are 1mm lead giving loads of resolution for your small
parts and the delrin nuts a pretty much backlash free and easy to
replace. With the addition of a cheap bearing or two you can improve
it further (see my page).

The conversion is easy, you can do it like I did or probably better
make the adapters from box section.

You can get steppers very cheaply from arceuro and drivers too or get
a xylotex from simplycnc.

For software Rhino3D is to be recommended by all, if you can do 2D
autocad get the demo and follow the tutorials and you will be hooked,
its cheap for a cad package too.

To drive the machine Mach3 or TurboCNC, the latter is free to try
forever and dos based the former is all singing and dancing but needs
an XP machine and costs a tiny amount of money really.

For CAM I'm not too sure what to suggest, I use stuff at work. Mach3
does have some basic cam built in, I think sheetcam is popular for
2.5D stuff and there are quite a few bits of free software for true 3D.

Hope that's some help.

Graham