In a message dated 6/12/03 9:07:28 PM, rotaryeng@earthlink.net

writes:

<<I am thinking of buying a new mill. Airgas has a Chinese knee mill
on sale with table drive and digital read out for $5000
I will sell my current cheap Chinese mill for $500 FOB Santa Paula.
You pick it up. Good shape. Works fine. 3 HP at 110 volts single

phase

but can be wired for 220 single phase. No cuts or gouges in table.
R8 taper. Same as Bridgeport tooling.
Paul Lamar >>

===========================================================
For the $5000 your going to spend, you could buy a good used CNC

Bridgeport

with a bad controller($1000-$2000), add a cheap IBM computer(Pentium

166MHz+)

for $250, and a after market new controller($800-$1500). CNC cad/cam

software

>from free-$800. Just my two cents.

Rich Gillen

Most of the CNC Bridgeport's I have seen for sale are $8000 and up.

Are they on Ebay?

Paul Lamar
=================================================

Yes, ebay is a very good place to find used CNC machines, parts, etc.

Also do a Google search for

used CNC machines.
Rich

Paul,

Rich is telling the truth. Here is my machine that I did just that very
thing with. Although I upgraded to a little more expensive control. If you
are willing to trade some speed and power you could use Gecko drives to
control the servos and do it for cheap.( http://www.geckodrive.com/ )There
is an article in this months Home Shop Machinist on how. I have seen
perfectly good boss mills go for less than $800 dollars. They are too slow
for modern production. The original controls suck and most of them blew
before the machine had much wear on it. Machine tool industry is in a major
slump so these things are CHEAP!! Add a servo and a rotary table and you
have a full 4 axis machine. The machine envelope is only 18x12x6 on the
series one machines like mine. Knee travel can handle much larger parts but
you have to do things in stages. The series 2 machines have a 24x18x6
envelope but they weigh about 4000 lbs. They usually come with a standard
cat 30 quick change.

Also see:

http://www.yeagerautomation.com/shop/

Monty

Couple of questions. Does it have servos or stepper motors.
R8 taper?

Do all stepper motor amp systems with all stepper motor mills?
Same question for servo systems. In other words what kind of can
of worms would I be getting into if I had to retrofit
the electronics?

Paul Lamar

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