First machine in planning...

The first machine for this website is on the drawing board. It'll be a desktop mill, based on the couple of prototypes already built. It's a solid, durable machine for it's size, and should be capable of excellent accuracy for making small, precise parts.

Basic specifications:

It will have a working envelope of around 400 mm x 250 mm x 250 mm (16" x 10" x 10"). Travels could be customized to suit the application or personal preferences of course, but this seems a useful, manageable size.

Axis motors could be either Servos or Steppers, but we will use the servos and drives from the ZealCNC shop. A Smooth Stepper USB interface will allow us to make use of the high speeds available with servos, without compromising resolution, and will also allow use of a PC without a parallel port to run the machine via Artsoft's Mach3 software.

Spindles will likely be interchangeable - a high speed brushless spindle complemented by a slower ER16 collet spindle with more torque.

High Frequency NSK E3000 spindle with pneumatic tool change

Sherline IPD spindle

Ball screws will be 16mm, for a machine like this a good pitch is 5 to 10mm. We'll be using 10 mm pitch - we'll be able to maintain some very brisk feed rates for a high speed machining strategy to match the high speed spindle, and our servos have the torque needed for deeper cuts with slightly larger cutters with the budget spindle.

Please feel free to ask questions or make requests or suggestions via the comments!