Starting advice needed & 2.5D specifics

Hot Damn!

First thing to do when you get your mill powered up and leveled is to stick a sharpie in the spindle. Pretend it's a tool and use it to draw parts and move the axis around. If you crash it, no big deal. Ask me how I know that a sharpie is actually two pieces and they can telescope together with enough force...

Strongly suggest a tool holding system like the TTS setup. Also, there's a couple of power drawbars available for the Novakon and I can't recommend a PDB highly enough. Night and day when you finally get to machining.

Tooling - buy carbide. Don't bother with cheap HSS end mills. Carbide is more expensive, yes, but when you crash I've found it better for the end mill to quickly snap than beat the hell out of everything before it breaks. Might even save your spindle or other parts.

Also - check out Amazon for tooling. Once in a while some vendor is tired of paying Amazon for shelf space for a single end mill. They then discount it a massive amount (like 90%) to move it. Once it's back in stock the price goes back to normal. Down side is that there's usually only one or two of whatever it is left. Up side is, if you can live with maybe not quite the exact tool you want, you can get a ferocious discount. I bought brand new Niagra a 3/4" carbide rougher for $12.00 this way.

Buy a license for a feeds and speeds program when you're ready to make chips. There are two bigger ones on the market (you can search, I won't shill) and they're superb for wrapping your brain around feeds and speeds. Helps get a feel for 'ball park.'

Measuring tools, parallels, clamps, fixture bits, coolant system, tool holders, etc. You are so up the creek.

We aren't going to hear from you for months now that you fell down this rabbit hole...:)

-Spumco
 
Ha! Maybe a question for another post, but I've heard conflicting things about "machinist wax" for learning. I'm inclined to pass on it, but if it's get a big approval here, I'll definitely give it a try.

Yeah, it had precision squares in three sizes, 1-2-3 blocks, a couple of parallels, digital calipers, and a raft of other things. ER collets, too. I'm going to have to make a tool chest for the stuff. At this point, I'm not picky about brands. I simply don't know enough to make any kind of halfway intelligent decision, so if it's a decent tier I'd be happy with it.

I'm looking at the stuff Warfield has. He has a sale going off today, but I'm letting it pass. There's always something popping up, and realistically I won't have a lot of sit down time till into October, so waiting won't hurt. This deal was just too good to let go, and I've been looking off and on for over a year.
 
I use GWizard and it has been very easy to use and very afordable for hobby use, as in low HP systems
 
I see that you have made a decision so I won't attempt any comparison of machines.

I am surprised at your comment about Tormach and 2.5D capability. I have owned a PCNC770 for going on six years and all four axes ( I bought the 4th axis package) have independent motion control. SprutCAM, which is the software sold by Tormach, has several machining operations using 2.5D and 3D motion. I have yet to try 4th axis machining. I have Fusion 360 loaded but have not used it to generate G code yet. It is my understanding that is uses adaptive clearing, which is a 3D process, as one of the machining operations.

Do you recall what the video that you reference was about? I would like review it.

Thanks!

BTW, welcome to the forum!
 
No, and I'm not pulling it up with a quick google search. It wasn't that the machine couldn't do the work in 2.5 or full 3 d. I know it can. It was if the machine could take a picture and interpolate that picture to a 2.5 d code. The machine did it, and with a little 10x camera. Tormach used to sell the camera, fixtures, etc. for it (their camera was a good deal better). When I called, they said they were devoting their time to other issues and weren't developing that software anymore (inside of SprutCam).
 
OK. Thanks. I hadn't seen that product before. This must be what you are referring to. https://www.tormach.com/product_cnc_scanner.html

Mach 3, Tormach version, also had a wizard that would move a probe on a predetermined grid and measure and record the distance to the part being scanned at that particular x,y coordinate. The Wizards disappeared when Tormach migrated from Mach3 to PathPilot which may be what the Tormach rep. was saying.

Here is another digitizing product from Tormach.
https://www.tormach.com/blog/a-procedure-for-digitizing-using-your-pcnc-mill-and-blender/

I had tried running the Wizard when I was running the Mach 3 software. I didn't have a probe but I manually triggered the the input and it seemed to be functioning. I no longer have Mach 3 on my machine, having migrated to PathPilot, but I still have the Mach 3 software. I I am correct, once the wizard is set up, G code is generated and the program is then run on the machine. If that is the case, I should be able to generate the code and copy it to the Tormach. I'll have to set it up to check that.

Aside from that, I found a number of digitizing programs on the web. Just run a search for Mach 3 digitizing probe. The probe mentioned above is being made by a fellow called Cliff Hall in New Zealand. Here is a link to one of his You Tube videos and his e-mail address.
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