I currently am running a lot of small 3 axis work on a Hermle 5-axis and it is time to purchase a 3-axis mill to offload this work onto a cheaper machine. Our work is High mix and medium to low volume (20-1000 pieces runs). I REALLY like the idea of a Brother Speedio, I like how simple they are to work on and how well supported they are, as well as the small form factor. They seem like an excellent platform to build a shop around and everyone on the threads here seems to love them (have read a lot of these threads).
Rigidity will be fine for our application making smaller parts. However, my concern is with the quality of the parts:
Our parts regularly require: Interpolating small holes, slots, and bosses to +-0.0002, 0.001 true position on small parts (between the size of a bic lighter and a house brick), Z drops of +-0.0005 or less between multiple different tools or setups. Mostly stainless and some aluminum. We also want to maintain the nice surface finishes and general aesthetic of the parts we get off the hermle and don’t want to spend all day dialing in offsets. For jobs like this on the Hermle there are almost 0 messing with offsets, we dial it in once and it just works, never have to worry about the machine warming up and changing size etc..
What will our experience with the Brother be like? Will it do work with these requirements all day long or will it be a struggle? Alternatives would be going with something like a Okuma Genos with its thermally stable modified gantry design.
Rigidity will be fine for our application making smaller parts. However, my concern is with the quality of the parts:
Our parts regularly require: Interpolating small holes, slots, and bosses to +-0.0002, 0.001 true position on small parts (between the size of a bic lighter and a house brick), Z drops of +-0.0005 or less between multiple different tools or setups. Mostly stainless and some aluminum. We also want to maintain the nice surface finishes and general aesthetic of the parts we get off the hermle and don’t want to spend all day dialing in offsets. For jobs like this on the Hermle there are almost 0 messing with offsets, we dial it in once and it just works, never have to worry about the machine warming up and changing size etc..
What will our experience with the Brother be like? Will it do work with these requirements all day long or will it be a struggle? Alternatives would be going with something like a Okuma Genos with its thermally stable modified gantry design.