CNC MILLING MACHINE Denford Micromill

Hi all I am helping to set up a Makerspace for my local council, and it has been suggested the a CNC mill is bought for this unit as well as other machinery and tools in the metalwork department. The company who is helping the council has suggested a Denford micromill pro with tooling and software etc. To my mind it looks like a toy machine and as far as I can find out so far it dosn't look suitable to cut steel and other metals. Can anyone tell me if you have used one and if there us any better CNC mill we can purchase.

David

It's basically a Sherline CNC mill, plenty of good work being done on their manual and CNC machines. Look for videos of Sherline to see what they can do.

Rod Jenkins on her has one and it cuts metal, some pictures in this album

Edited By JasonB on 05/04/2023 20:34:41

Is this the makerspace in Mansfield/Kirkby-in-Ashfield by any chance?

Based on experience with a similar organisation, I would suggest staying away from the Denford CNC tools because they use proprietary control units which aren't one of the widely known industry standards, making it hard to generate G-Code other than with their proprietary and limited software. Meaning that even a homebrew solution with LinuxCNC or Mach3/Mach4 would actually be better supported and more usable.

The Organisation I was involved with was given a Denford CNC lathe by a university as it was judged to be too limited for teaching purposes, of the +800 members (of which a significant minority are professional machinists working with CNC every day) only about 10 have ever persisted enough to make it work for them, and only 2 have been able to use it to it's full potential rather than in the limited capacity the proprietary software allows.

It's likely been recommended as Denford have cornered the UK market in simplified CNC tools for educational use with secondary schools (ironic given the above from the Uni), although my 2 friends who are DT teachers also dislike them for similar reasons.

The circa £6k + VAT for a Micromill Pro would buy a decent condition Bridgeport Interact or the equivalent XYZ machine with a protrak clone, which has a much greater capacity, and would be highly capable as a CNC or Manual mill and offers conversational control which is a good bridge for people conversant with one approach to learn the other.

If the budget stretches a little further, then something like the Haas Mini Mill or VF1/VF2 would be an excellent and well supported full CNC machine which has been designed for usability and is well regarded as a machine for novices, they're around £14k new, but do come up cheaper in the used market periodically.

My experience of Makerspaces more widely is that the successful ones (London Hackspace, Nottingham Hackspace, Leeds Hackspace as examples) fully commit and offer their members access to full size tools which are sufficiently capable to make real-world parts in the widest range of materials possible, whilst those which cautiously buy small limited equipment struggle to attract and retain members beyond a small core group.

Which means that really it would be best to get the council to think in terms of "what would a Further Education College buy?", rather than "what would the purchasing group our secondary schools use would like to sell us?"...

In this vein, take a look at the virtual tour of the Engineering Campus of West Notts College, who have gone for Haas for their CNC teaching machines (scroll through to the "Engineering Workshop 2" in the tour).

Edited By Jelly on 06/04/2023 02:14:02

Jelly is spot on, perfect answer,I am familiar with Denford and products, numerous problems where they were in use,and support? I would also look at the details from council support/ future guarantees, as they can change on a whim. Noble idea in principle though. Question is , is there three phase supply? Building access ect?security?manager? Tutor? Could a model Engineering club co use it? CNC router could be a option if rebuilt, like isel old but can get the larger working area possible ex school ones cheap...but need upgrading....however seen Haas on eBay very reasonable...

The more people use it the more future proof it is.

Best of luck,great idea....

Vic

F360 will output G-code for Linux and with a small change to two lines of the code can be used on the Sherline machines as well as the Denford, as I said Rod on here has one and uses F360 to generate the G-code.

Yes a bigger machine would be better but depends on what else the Makerspace has, if it's only got a mini-lathe then a Bridgeport will be a bit out of scale. Also how much room is there, a Minimill takes up a fair floor area and needs compressors etc to go with it . The other thing with an off the shelf new machine is it will have upto date safety features would a second hand Bridgeport or similar have that and who would maintain it?

Not sure what goes on with regards supervision but if anyone can use these machines there is a big chance of crashing them, again smallish and currently available will make spares easier to get hold of and not cost an arm and a leg.to replace if needed.

Edited By JasonB on 06/04/2023 08:47:25

As far as I know the Denford Micromill has been out of production for several years and like all the Denford cnc Mills now will have no support. Mechanically their own machines were bulletproof but the electronics very first generation. With modern controllers and drivers, and possibly a stepper motor upgrade, they can work very well but support will be an issue. Sir John used to upgrade Denfords in university workshops by fitting a one box Chinese controller, described on a thread here somewhere with great success I believe.

The problem with a cnc machine for a makespace is its complexity and need for support over the long term. A mechanical lathe or mill almost by definition can be maintained by a reasonably competent user but throw some power electronics, cnc control software and an operating system into the mix and it becomes a different kettle of fish. For many maker type jobs a small cnc mill will be too small. A decent small router could be a better choice, but one that doesn't need modifying out of the box to be able to do good work.

John, it's a current machine which as I said is basically a Sherline repackaged. The older ones like the Starmill were a lot more solid

Probably need to know what it's intended use will be, David says it is going into the metal work department so although a gantry router would be a good general machine for a mix of material is there also a woodwork department that may have that already covered? Hence the question of will it cut metal and the answer is yes provided you don't want to work on a 10" cube of steel that the Haas can accommodate and don't want it quickly.

From another recent thread we have also seen that council and further education departments don't like to buy from the likes of e-bay so second hand may not even be an option.

Edited By JasonB on 06/04/2023 08:00:45

Denford's website shows the machine in the company's current product line.

https://denford.co.uk/products/micromill/

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When any kind of local public or educational authority is involved in the procurement process, they will have a preferred or approved list of suppliers. It will be quite difficult to buy from someone who is not on that list. Many companies do not pursue this market as the hoops through which they have to jump in order to be paid for what they supply do not make good business sense to them.

If the budget can go this far a Syil X7
I have to confess I have a Syil x 11 on order. I have no other connection to the company.

I am interested in the idea of a makerspace. Does anyone have a link to any more information about them? Particularly in the York area

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An interesting machine, for sure, John … but I have to say I was shocked by the aggressive sales-pitch, which seems rather ‘unbecoming’ **LINK**

https://uk.syil.com/blog/haas-super-mini-mill-vs-syil-x7-siemens

… exorbitant seems a very strong word to use about the pricing of a respectable competitor’s product !

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 06/04/2023 10:07:15

Sorry I didn't realise they still sell it - seems to have the old software though.

There's a Makespace in Cambridge (google finds it), but it costs £40/month to join. They have a small Roland gantry router, I did think about joining specifically to be able to engrave a clock dial, but at that price it would be cheaper to pay someone else to do it! Also when I looked the machine seemed to be regularly out of order.

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As Julie Andrews might sing: Let’s start at the very beginning …**LINK**

https://www.makerspaces.com/what-is-a-makerspace/

MichaelG.

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Edit: __ then go U.K. specific … including a handy map:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/libraries-and-makerspaces/libraries-and-makerspaces

also: https://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/learning/participation/what-we-learned-from-co-creating-in-makerspaces/setting-up-a-makerspace

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 06/04/2023 10:36:13

York Hackspace in Fulford has a regular open night on a Wednesday

See also the list maintained by the Hackspace Foundation.

Hackspaces are fully independent non-profit entities which are constituted more like model engineering clubs, but with a far looser affiliation to the Hackspace Foundation than ME clubs tend to have to one of the Federations.

Facilities vary wildly as it's directly linked to members willingness and capacity to fund and volunteer, but the older and bigger ones are often impressively well equipped, and offer 24/7-365 access to members in good standing.

Thanks very much, I will have a look

Jason has fingered me as a Micromill expert. However, my Micromill was built in 2002 and has been through several changes. The Denford software (VR milling 5) still seems to be current. It will do 2 1/2 D milling natively but Fusion 360 has a Denford post processor which will export Gcode for full 3D. The Sherline it is based on is a small machine. 6mm absolute maximum endmill size. The machine itself is constructed from hard anodized aluminium alloy. It is a nice little machine but barely robust enough for the small scale model engineering I do. I do not think that it is anything like robust enough for a shared workspace. In my view people will always want to extend the working envelope way beyond its capabilities and break it.

Looking at the Denford website the VMC 1300 is a much more suitable machine but how much does it cost? 15 years ago when I bought a Novamill for work they were £15k. ARC and Axminster have dropped theire CNC mills and googling around there is very little available. A Syil X5 at £25k plus is the cheapest I can find.

I enjoy Jason's posts on using his CNC machine but, unless one is prepared to undertake the conversion of a manual machine, I think CNC is probably beyond the pockets of most of us.

Rod

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Thanks … but I thought the thread was specific to a Makerspace

MichaelG.

Thanks for the post Rod, I just looked and saw the Denford option in F360's post processor which would make it quite usable as the free F360 will do most things needed for thos ewanting to try out CNC even though as you say it's a light duty machine.

Just looking at the Denford spec and it only has the standard 2500rpm Sherline spindle rather than the high 7000rpm option which would certainly lead to long run times given the small cuts that would also have to be taken. Not a problem in the Home workshop as you can do other things but may need to take a sleeping bag to the local makerspace and hope you are not in a que waiting to use it.

TBH it's not really clear to me what the practical difference would be from the perspective of someone who is looking for one local to them.

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If you dig into it there's actually a total lack of clarity about what a Makerspace is because it's a novel term adopted by a bunch of different groups of people who all claim it for their own.

There's also a bunch of Makerspaces who are aligned with the "Hackspace movement" and aren't on the Government's list, but don't like the connotations of "Hack" so choose to use the Makerspace name instead.

If you dig deeper into it, quite a few of the "Makerspaces" on the gov.uk list would be described as "Fab Labs" by parts of "the maker movement" because it's controlled by an external organisation who are offering services/access for a fee rather than being a community (which also adds complexity around what legislation applies to the organisation).

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This actually raises a useful point for David to consider:

That lack of clarity over what a Makerspace is has previously lead to organisations going full "People's front of Judea Vs Judean people's front" and falling apart because there wasn't sufficient clarity and group consensus from the off about that exactly they wanted the organisation to be.