Hi, I am interested in CNC milling for both die making as well
as direct working of silver and gold pieces. Does anyone out
there have any experience in this field related to jewelery
work.I have been looking into various setups and am interested in
which combinations of machinery/software people are using? Any
experience with the MAX NC10? Look forward to hearing from you.
thanx, martyn
Aloha Martyn, The MaxNC 10 is a good educational tool(for demo) or
a good starter mill.They now have a larger mill in the works as
well as a CNC lathe.The controller leaves alot to be desired (as
well as the fanuc compatible resident G-code,no spindle
reverse,coolant,and a few other things,supported).The mill runs
about 6000 RPM max.I feel it is far more rigid and heavy duty
than,a converted Sherline mill.It is a far cry from a Servo Impact
with ballscrews or a Folken with a 200,000 RPM air spindle.Just
depends what you want to do with it and how accurate you want the
piece to be.Unfortunately,no one has come out with a mill in the
$5000 dollar range,either they are $2000 and so-so,or $10 to
$20,000 and more than you need(for $56,000 you can get a 5 axis
mill with an EDM head and burn dies in steel on the same
unit).Quite a few people are using ArtCAM Pro,MasterCAM Mill Level
3,or lesser software(ShopCAM and others).You could work in
G-Code,but,it takes a long time,to program the piece.Contact me off
list if you wish. Regards, Christian Grunewald Precision Modelmaking
Hawaii