$5k sounds like a good guess. At that point I'd start looking at a KX3 instead, and get a machine with the hard work done.
I upgraded from an X1 micro mill to an X2. It was the biggest thing I could squeeze in and significantly smaller than the G0704. It was a meaningful upgrade for me and took the pucker factor out of aluminum work. The Grizzly fixes the stock X2's biggest sin which is the minuscule Y travel. It won't push as many chips as an Rf-45 type, but I think it will still be a real quality of life upgrade for a micro mill owner. Sent from my iPhone On Feb 24, 2011, at 12:02 PM, gene heskett <ghesk...@wdtv.com> wrote: > On Thursday, February 24, 2011 07:27:41 am Mark Wendt did opine: > >> On 02/24/2011 06:45 AM, gene heskett wrote: >>> On Thursday, February 24, 2011 06:33:57 am Mark Wendt did opine: >>>> Gene, >>>> >>>> Grizzly is selling it on their web site "with" delivery for $1089. >>>> >>>> http://www.grizzly.com/products/Drill-Mill-with-Stand/G0704 >>>> >>>> Mark >>> >>> I know that Mark. The price seems to be reasonable too, till you >>> check the weight. At about 300 lbs including the stand, and a table >>> that sized, I'm afraid it will have rigidity problems when carving >>> metal. I have enough of those with my expanded table micromill now. >>> Just a little chatter& a solid carbide mill is history, shattered >>> edges. >>> >>> How about the ZX45? At about 2 grand& 600+ lbs, no stand, what are >>> its weak points? >>> >>> How hard is fitting a decently accurate Z drive to that one? >> >> Gene, >> >> Dunno about the ZX45 much. I've heard chatter about it, but didn't >> really pay that much attention to it. >> >> I guess you could always bench mount the G0704 instead of using the >> stand. >> >> Mark > > The stand isn't going to effect column rigidity, or table sag when the x is > a long way off center. That is a problem now with the micromill and the > bigger tables. The ways are so short it gets somewhat bound when the motor > end is way out there. I keep them swimming in vactra, and its getting > better with mileage though. > > I did some googling, and it seems the ZX/RF45 are very poorly finished, > needing the ways lapped to remove 75% of the machine marks, and everybody > puts ball screws in them. One even went so far as to fill the castings > with epoxy granite to add mass & dampening. But he used gravel as the > filler, and if adding mass was the idea, a few bags of lead shot would have > been 2x heavier than gravel per cube. I also didn't see anyone fitting air > springs or just springs like on my micromill to counter balance the heads > weight. That seems like a no brainer to me else screw wear would rapidly > become a problem. But a $2k ZX45, ball screws, tools and such sure seems > like I'd have 4 or 5 grand in it, which makes it a very expensive toy for > no more time than I may have left. I'd probably have the GO704 CNC'd for > 2G's & that makes more sense. Sure, I'll be stuck taking light cuts, but I > guess I'm sorta used to that now anyway. I think the motors I have can > probably run the GO704, and if I put wheels on the computer, it can run > whichever machine whose motors are plugged into the 4 axis xylotex. The > xylotex seems to run the 425's just as well as the 262's, and I have 3 of > the 425's I haven't used yet, the 4th of that kit is on the micromills Z. > I used the 262 I took off on the rotary table. So I guess I go with the > GO704, as much as I'd druther get the **45 sized machine. > > -- > Cheers, Gene > "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: > soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." > -Ed Howdershelt (Author) > <http://tinyurl.com/ddg5bz> > There are no emotional victims, only volunteers. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Free Software Download: Index, Search & Analyze Logs and other IT data in > Real-Time with Splunk. Collect, index and harness all the fast moving IT data > generated by your applications, servers and devices whether physical, virtual > or in the cloud. Deliver compliance at lower cost and gain new business > insights. http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-dev2dev > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Free Software Download: Index, Search & Analyze Logs and other IT data in Real-Time with Splunk. Collect, index and harness all the fast moving IT data generated by your applications, servers and devices whether physical, virtual or in the cloud. Deliver compliance at lower cost and gain new business insights. http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
