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I can see lots of uses for one but its like 3D printers if it takes hours and hours to do the printing/machining
Dave, remind me which tormach you have at work?Bill
Yup cnc tends to be pricey.. Yup it takes a while to climb the learning curve hill. What isnt being mentioned is the set up time saved. The tooling saved.............................................
I now run PathPilot; here a card from Mesa generates the pulsing, and it's much smoother. I've set rapids to 150, although I could have gone faster. The screen layout is a lot better too. The main disadvantage of PathPilot is that one can't jog the axes during a tool change, which is possible with Mach3.
My PathPilot screen has 1mm as the maximum jog. I also set jog feed rate to 40% of rapid.
Using a CNC mill has changed the way I design parts and assemblies, and has also changed the way I machine, some of which has fed it's way back to the way I use the Bridgeport mill. There are several uses for the CNC mill in my workshop:To make repetitive parts, like traction engine wheel spokes that would be a pain to do manuallyTo make parts that could be done manually but would be time consuming to set up - like radii and fancy profilesTo make parts that are impossible on my manual machines like special cutters and true bevel gearsTo save time and avoid foul ups when making parts commercially