What spindle for CNC mill ?

Just checked with the customer service people of the maker in China ( seems that they are always online BTW ), the CNC-M45 canNOT do rigid taping. It can surely do thread milling though. In the Chinese webpage, the machine has hand wheels and allows switching between manual mode and CNC mode so conventional tapping should be limited to manual mode only.

Yes, I had to take my mill partially apart to get into my shop are. It was some work, but my machine is probably twice as heavy as your proposed machine. The X-table had to come off just to fit in the doorway. The base was already off the machine so I move the base vs mill separately. I did built a plate with casters on it to roll the machine around. It was built in such a way the I could first attach the casters on just the mill and move it into place and then put it on the cast iron stand and move it. Once in the room I lifted the mill onto the base which was already on the casters. I then put the X-table back on the mill. Two people could have lift it into place by hand, but I used the hoist. I did borrow an engine hoist to get the disassembled mill up a few steps into my walkout basement shop. I left the casters on the machine so that I could roll it about if need be. HOwever, I block it up off the caster when it use. FYI. Here is a picture of the machine taken just after puttting it back to gether.
I designed the dolly plates to fit and bolt to the mill base (drilled holes and tapped into the base) after the wheels were bolted to the plates... and this still allow me room to slide my auto floor jack under each end to lift it slightly for the blocking. Here is an early picture of the installation. https://www.hobby-machinist.com/attachments/pm940m-cnc-front-i520-jpg.274812/

Wrt. to hand wheels. The web site says the machine will have stepper motors. I have hand cranks and steppers on my CNC Mill also, but do no use them to try to cut things. Steppers have permanent magnets built in to operate and so the motor cogs (jerks, jumps, etc.) at each full step. Typically this is 200 steps per revolution. This cogging also represents the position holding strength when the motors are powered down and this is what is suppose to hold the z-axis in position (rather than the z-axis falling when the power is off.) My machine's Z-axis is so heavy the the vertical actually slowing falls, unwinds the lead screw, when the power is off. So I have to lock it somehow before turning the power off. The machine you are looking at has break so falling should not be a concern. Likewise, the steppers are specified to have closed loop control. It is not clear what is meant by this so you should check on it. Perhaps simply a optical encoder? They may not really be stepper motors but most likely they are due to cost. But, they might be some hybrid technology.

The reason I mention this because you plan to use the manual cranks to cut when not using the CNC feature (power off to the steppers). However this cogging limits you ability to stop the motion at exact position. You feel each cog step. The only way to get around this is to manually disconnect the steppers. So you really only use the hand cranks for moving the x or y when doing motion that is limited to steps and even then it is not a good feeling. Suppose your lead screw threads are 5 threads per inch and 200 steps (1.8 degree) per revolution. That would seem to be 1000 positions per inch of travel at best.

By the way, Mach3 only runs on a 32 bit windows-7 or before OS. You should check up on whether or not they would recommend using Mach4.

Dave
 
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