Fill me in on CNC Mill's

[4x4MuDmAn74]

Looking to find out what programs they use? How complicated are the programs? thinking of getting one for the shop, mostlikly a used bridgeport or similar, mostlikely and older machine

Thanks

[jtl_77]

It all depends on the kind of mill you get. The Prototraks are pretty easy to program as the walk you threw the steps of what you want to do. But there are hundreds of styles of smallish cnc mills that can use a bunch of different types of programing. You need to narrow down the list a little to get more info on how hard one would be to program.

[70cyclone]

older Milltronics can be picked up pretty cheap(2-3 on ebay right now)...very easy to program. cent 1, 5, 6, and 7 are the controls to look at. the cent 4 is harder to use and the factory doesn't support it anymore

[Scott@Rockstomper]

Older used stuff often times will be programmed right onboard in raw G code. That's how ours is (1981 Wells-Index) and while it's a PITA, it's a lot easier than trying to carve parts on the manual mill. Now if I could just find a same-vintage Bandit-controlled CNC lathe to go with it... :)

[4x4MuDmAn74]

well im not exactly sure what mill to even look at! Im looking for some thing i can produce quality lower link mounts , variuos brakets and random other things like drilling holes in hysteer arms and general 1/8 plate cut outs, i want to be able to make lots of the same thing, thats why i was thinking cnc, exact every time