Mini mills - are they worth it and which ones

I have a G0704 that I have cnc-ed. Grizzly also has the short bed version, G0758 with stand for $895. I primarily work in steel and found it to be lacking in power and rigidity even as (or especially due to me being) a neophyte. Aluminum is another story, I have made .2" deep full width rough cuts with a 3/8 2 flute cheap chinese hss endmill at 20 ipm! I did very little to the machine save adding steppers for control. If you google "mill size comparison" Hoss has a page with several pics of various mills next to another mill and/or people for size reference. I found it impossible to visualize how big one mill is compared to another by the size specs on the websites. For example an X2(3990) is tiny next to the G0704/bf20.

Something to possibly consider on these small machines with a dc variable speed motor. The motor has a controller board that increases the rpm of the motor when it senses a load to try to keep the cutter at the same rpm. This works nice when you are milling a slot, for example. If you do as I and try to drill a 1" diameter hole with a silver and demming bit, the board has a difficult time working out what to do, and effectively make the drilling with anything but the lightest pressure difficult to dangerous. The large bit tends to "cog" nearly stopping at 180 degree intervals. If using a drill larger than 1/2 is a high priority, a belt drive might be worth a thought.
 
I picked up a Rusnok, I really love this thing, small precise smooth as butta, I got a real bargain on it and parts ares till made in the good old USofA
 
I take a bit of offence , the size of the machine doesn't mean it can't do really great work with tight tolerance. To say a mini mill is to small or a drill mill won't do the job of 99 percent of the hobby machinist. It's not the machine it's the machinist. There are machinist who have built machinery without any machine.
Shaper , milling and LATHES. And I'm sure there are others.
Don't ever under estimate a machine if you know how to use it.
 
I sold my Bridgeport and large lathe a couple of years ago because of old age. I replaced the mill with a Grizzly G0781 mini mill. It uses R8 tooling which I already had and meets every hobby machining I need. Love it!
 
I previously owned the LMS mill and will say that this mill can be as accurate as you need it to be. It's the operator, not the machine.

While machining aluminum on the small machines is the easiest, I also machined 4140, stainless, and titanium on mine. You just have to think about what you are doing, and what you are doing it on, machine-wise. :)
 
I have a Unimat setup as a mill. It works fine if you are not in a hurry. The 1/10 th HP motor makes small cuts necessary. All IMO; Don
 
I had a RF-31 clone as my first mill. It worked pretty good, Being lighter than a full size it had some trouble with stuff like fly cutting but it still did a good job R-8 tooling and a bigger work envelop. That's as small as I would go. I payed $400 for my RF-31 it needed some work but they are out there for that price.

I have nothing against mini mills but i work on bigger stuff
 
I have 4 milling machines-- 2 vertical and 2 horizontal. The smallest is a Taig manual. It all depends on what I'm working on which machine works the best. The Taig is the go to unless I need more size.
 
I have used a few different Bridgeport mills, of the "generic Bridgeport size"
The column mill I have now (probably a JET JMD-18) seems just as tight, and rigid. The Z axis is not as easy to use as a knee mill, but using the tensioner to take out the lash can still be very precise. BUT I wouldn't consider my column mill "mini" as it is about 700 lbs. I would pick up a used mid sized mill over a new tiny mostly aluminum and plastic mill. I only paid 300 for mine used.
 
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