Desktop mill for optical parts

[garyhlucas]

Damn this thread makes me feel really good about my homebuilt CNC! The base is a precision scraped cast iron surface plate with 5" ribbing and weighs 225 lbs. The 3 axis are all the same 18" travel GL20 linear slides built by THK with the high speed spacer type ball slides and 5mm x 20mm precision ball screws. And then there is the wimpy ass minimill spindle. I guess you can't have it all for what I've spent. I can tell you though that if I jog any axis back and forth using a 5 tenths step size it does actually move that amount in both directions. I have a 9" x 9" x 9" granite angle plate that I use to set it up and check squareness and for a toy it is pretty tight, a couple of thousands in all directions at worse.

 

[EmGo]

Anything that says "granite base"speaks to me like late night infomercials.
This has only been done well by the biggest and even then not very accepted. At one time I most certainly thought this would be just so good particularly in the small machine and small grinder world.

Trust your instincts, Bob -- I still think it's cool .... and so does Walter. The Visions are Harcrete ... those guys seem to have their poop together.

btw, if you know of any reasonably new for sale get on the horn, always looking for walters or ancas. There are 200 Walters and 500 Ancas in Changzhou, can you believe that ? Why can't the US compete, must be low labor costs ? ahem.

Google offhand compensation for leadscrews, known since 1900 or earlier.
25x more accurate in mechanical resolution than the base leadscrew.

Screw the leadscrews, it's 2021, time for linear motors. We don' need that steenkin ballscrew carp !

3rd way is hydrostatic bearings using oil or air.
Actually dirt cheap and very forgiving.
Car internal combustion engines, about 2 billion, use them.

Landis nc cam grinders, too. But I dunno about the "cheap" part. Landis is 1.5 million ...

Here's an idear .... harcrete base, linear motors and hydro ways for a minimill ! Maybe it's time to design a new office mill and start a company ....

 

[TheBigLebowski]

Screw the leadscrews, it's 2021, time for linear motors. We don' need that steenkin ballscrew carp !


Landis nc cam grinders, too. But I dunno about the "cheap" part. Landis is 1.5 million ...

Here's an idear .... harcrete base, linear motors and hydro ways for a minimill ! Maybe it's time to design a new office mill and start a company ....

Aside from the hydro ways, I think most of the micro mold machines are already there. Yasdas YMC430 and the small Charmilles Mikron machines being good examples.

As a side note, I thought the major driving factors for switching over to cemented granite bases was because they are very low energy to produce compared to cast iron and create little pollution in comparison. Apparently China has started cracking down on their foundries/pollution.

 

[EmGo]

As a side note, I thought the major driving factors for switching over to cemented granite bases was because they are very low energy to produce compared to cast iron and create little pollution in comparison.

I never heard that as a reason .... it was always stability and damping in the littrature ... but could be targeted advertising, tell us machinists one thing, the EPA another

Apparently China has started cracking down on their foundries/pollution.

Started somewhat before 2008, for the Beijing Olympics and then 2010 for World Expo. A plating factory I worked at in 2004 was already having to take some pretty serious measures with regards to wastewater. Environmentalism has been spreading since then. In fact it was a known issue in the mid nineties but Rome wasn't built in a day.

Almost no Chinese machines built with harcrete tho, so doesn't apply to this situation.

 

[bryan_machine]

china is getting richer. essentially all societies get more interested in environmental quality as they get richer. there is nothing surprizing about this.

 

[allloutmx]

CNC Optical Grinding Machines | OptiPro

They arent bench top- and they arent $30k

 

[EmGo]

china is getting richer. essentially all societies get more interested in environmental quality as they get richer. there is nothing surprizing about this.

I don't think it has much to do with money. American Indians didn't even have money as we use the term, but they were quite environmentally conscious. It seems that most hunter-gather or other societies that are not so rape-and-pilage oriented have high environmental standards.

China was weird in that way, very clean in their own homes but public places were trash heaps. The thought-patterns carried over. Seems to be changing some as science pushes out superstition a little.

 

[MakerIndustry]

Optical what materials are you mostly machining?

There are a lot of CNC mills under $30k, but the precision you seek may just be unattainable at that budget.
Anyway here is an article on affordable desktop CNC mills.

 

[empower]

I don't think it has much to do with money. American Indians didn't even have money as we use the term, but they were quite environmentally conscious. It seems that most hunter-gather or other societies that are not so rape-and-pilage oriented have high environmental standards.

China was weird in that way, very clean in their own homes but public places were trash heaps. The thought-patterns carried over. Seems to be changing some as science pushes out superstition a little.

are you implying that native indians didnt rape and pillage? LOL

 

[ss_user]

With low population density you can get away with quite a bit.

On another note: the total cost of making cement for concrete is pretty high. Using granite blocks might be more friendly in both economic and enviroumental terms.
Just something I read. No quantative proof.

 

[dmsjr12]

Landis

Trust your instincts, Bob -- I still think it's cool .... and so does Walter. The Visions are Harcrete ... those guys seem to have their poop together.

btw, if you know of any reasonably new for sale get on the horn, always looking for walters or ancas. There are 200 Walters and 500 Ancas in Changzhou, can you believe that ? Why can't the US compete, must be low labor costs ? ahem.


Screw the leadscrews, it's 2021, time for linear motors. We don' need that steenkin ballscrew carp !


Landis nc cam grinders, too. But I dunno about the "cheap" part. Landis is 1.5 million ...

Here's an idear .... harcrete base, linear motors and hydro ways for a minimill ! Maybe it's time to design a new office mill and start a company ....

Just an FYI, I am not sure where you are seeing $1.5 million for a Landis cam grinder, but they are sub-million now. The same for the Bryant and Cincinnati products that Landis now owns.

Disclosure: I work at Landis. If you wanted more information, let me know.