For some time now I have wanted a Milling machine.
I have had the debate with myself many times about “small and new” vs “bigger and older”, and whilst I would love to own a Bridgeport turret mill, I simply don’t have the space or the ability to collect it/move it about, plus I have to justify the potential use vs cost to my better half (and to myself if I am brutally honest).
I am not saying I won’t end up spending just as much on the smaller mill as on the larger one, however I can use what I learn on the smaller one and maybe work up to justifying a larger mill at some point in the future.
I have contemplated various other machines available via ebay but I think I have settled on a Sieg SX2P from Arc Euro Trade.
There are numerous Mini Mills out in the world, most are made by Sieg in China, and are then sold with different paint jobs, names and model numbers by the various different suppliers (Little Machine Shop, Grizzly, Machine Mart, Axminster, Sealey, etc, etc).
I really like the SX2P because it has the solid column, and belt drive motor that many people mention as shortfalls of the original X2 mini mill, plus it has the extended Y travel and larger table of the Super X1 Mill that is exclusive to Arc Euro Trade (although the table is available as an upgrade from the likes of LMS, as is the extended Y Axis travel base).
In all, several upgrades that I would no doubt be wanting to perform already included in the base price.
The only downside is that there is not much room under the table to allow for changes in the lead screw and nut for CNC conversion.
I found a version of a CNC converted X2 on Sketchup Warehouse that uses a CNC Fusion conversion and proceeded to modify all the parts to be those for an SX2P, and then started generating parts to upgrade the functionality based on ideas from Hossmachine and Donald Bird.
The above image shows a partially completed CNC conversion, the spindle for a 4th axis based on a replacement spindle for a C3 Lathe, some bearings and M27x1.5 lock nuts, Donald Bird’s designs for an articulating spacer, CNC conversion and a power drawbar but using a commercially available 50mm bore 25mm stroke double action air actuator from ebay.
I removed the control box from the side of the spindle as I will be controlling the spindle directly from Mach3 using Donald Bird’s closed loop control. I have reworked the board design in Eagle using a ground plane, and have come up with what is mainly a single sided board 1.4 inches square (35.5mm square).
This could be bought in a quantity of 10 from Itead Studio for $9.90, milled on the CNC machine itself with a suitable engraving head, using isolation routing with gcode generated by PCB GCode, or made up on the same proto board as Donald used, which can be had from Amazon for $6.20 for a pack of 5, and are also available on ebay.
Once I am ready to make this I will post an article on my electronics blog showing which method I chose.